homemade bagels

A couple months ago I found a recipe for “real bagels” in Cooking Light and immediately thought of my sweet hubby and his affinity for everything bagels. (I hate them; they may have a great savory flavor, but the onion and garlic are just way too strong!)

Obviously, this was a weekend activity, so I pencilled it in for two weekends ago. Well, that weekend came and went without the making of any bagels, so I was even more determined to cross it off this weekend!

I had intended this to be a pseudo-together project with Andrew; I was, after all, making them mainly for him. I like a good bagel as much as the next person, but try to limit my intake of simple carbs that come in the form of GIANT breads. Rule of thumb: go halfsies. NO EXCEPTIONS.

It being a Sunday afternoon, Andrew was all but passing out on the couch when I called to him in need of his photography skills… (I might have guilted him, a little.) The truth is, our kitchen right now just isn’t really big enough for two to be working, and I’ll be honest, I like to be the only cook in the kitchen. It’s my territory. Hands off!

(Plus, Andrew is a way better picture-taker than I am; with our atrocious lighting situation here in the kitchen and dining room, it’s all I can do to take a decent picture, let alone one that actually shows the real color of my subject.)

I halved the recipe (how in the world would the two of us be able to eat 12 bagels before they got stale?) and put the ingredients into the bowl of my mixer.

The recipe calls for barley malt syrup, which is a natural sweetener found in lots of bread recipes. It’s similar to thins like agave nectar, brown rice syrup and maple syrup and it is more mild, so it doesn’t raise your blood sugar as quickly as other sweeteners. I couldn’t find it anywhere in Ohio (it’s the kind of thing you find in the ‘crunchiest’ of natural grocery stores) and had to purchase it when Andrew and I were at King Arthur Flour during the fall of 2010. I have, however, seen it in the ‘nature’s marketplace’ at Wegmans–hurray!

After a 6-minute go-around in the mixer, you knead the dough by hand for just a minute or two.

(Seriously, how to food bloggers do it?? I would never be able to photograph and work with messy hands; I’m way too much of a neat-freak and OCD about equipment. Andrew would KILL me if I got food on his camera! That, and I’d never get anywhere since it would take twice as long to make everything if I was taking pictures, and it already takes me a long time since I’m so fastidious about cleaning as I go and measuring and things.)

After a 30-minute rise, you divide the dough into equal portions…

…and, using your fingers, poke a hole through them and stretch it out a little. They rise again for a few minutes on a tray while you get your water boiling.

I’m a HUGE King Arthur Flour fan and order WAY too much from them (they have such cool stuff!) and one of the things I got last time was this bag of everything bagel topping. Andrew was in heaven when we saw it.

Traditional bagels are boiled before being baked, which creates a ‘doughy’ texture, and is what the recipe calls for. We’ve had bagels in Montreal (which are only baked) and NYC (which are boiled) and you can really tell a good bagel from a mediocre one. I love Panera as much as the next person, but their bagels are NOTHING compared to a fresh, puffy, boiled bagel from a Jewish hole-in-the-wall place in the city.

Side note: Andrew’s favorite place to get bagels, interestingly enough, is a place called Buck’s Bagels, located just down the road from my parents’ house outside Philadelphia. I guess the interesting (and sad) part is that my family didn’t really ever frequent the establishment much! We had no idea such a gem was just a mile away! I remember my dad going there a couple times, but that was it. So, so, SO sad.

Side-side note: That is one of my dreams: to be a ‘regular’ somewhere. I think it stems from such a transient childhood; all I want now is to have a home and be known there and have a routine and be an actual ‘part’ of the community. (I have to admit, between being involved in the co-op and writing for the paper, I think I’m on my way!)

After a 30-second boil (I wasn’t clear on whether or not you were supposed to flip them or not), you place them on a grate to drain and sprinkle with topping, if desired.

I made four everything and kept two plain, for me.

(BTW, I’m eating half of one of my plain bagels RIGHT NOW for breakfast!)

I joke that Andrew is so picky that I can pull a hot cookie out of the oven for him and he’d refuse it (no lie, but in his defense, he isn’t very big on chocolate-chip); not so with bagels! It was all he could do to wait until they were cool enough to touch after baking before grabbing one of his everything bagels and chomping it down!

I, of course, wasn’t about to inhale one of mine (we had dinner plans with friends in just a few short hours!), but I wanted to taste my creation so I had a bite of his, with a little butter. YUM! Absolutely perfect texture!

I know I’m a little ambitious in the ‘make-everything-from-scratch’ category, but these really are pretty simple. With their short rise and boil times, you could feasibly make these on a Saturday morning and enjoy hot bagels for breakfast–not something you can say about cinnamon rolls without a TON of prep the night before.

Speaking of making things from scratch… I hinted at my weekend projects in yesterday morning’s post; be looking for that soon, too! Also, I’ve done TWO blogs for the co-op recently: kale and grapefruit! Next up: a promo for an upcoming event and more citrus! After that, I’m looking forward to non-produce posts, like yogurt-making and baking (it is winter, after all), which will include my banana bread! Stay tuned!

see, cauliflower isn’t so bad…

I’ll admit, I was a little wary serving something with cauliflower in it… The last time I did, Andrew and I got into a screaming match over whether I HAD or HAD NOT made vegetable korma (with cauliflower) knowing he’d hate it. (Truth: I never make anything I know he’ll abhor. I do, however, make things that include ingredients he doesn’t care for. In all honesty, I didn’t like the vegetable korma, either.)

I (finally!) made kale chips. Andrew LOVED them. LOVED. I have to admit, I didn’t. I think it was a texture thing. They got so crisp that they kind of disintegrated as you bit into them, which I didn’t like. If that isn’t the texture I’m going for, someone let me know!

(BTW, I’m whipping this up at 5 a.m. before I head the gym…Hadrian decided it was time to get up at 4 a.m. and after making Andrew take him out–hey, he had three more hours to sleep compared to my ONE–I decided to cut my losses and just get up. That, and Odie was making too much noise licking plastic…)

I reheated the second loaf of sourdough in the over. No, we didn’t go through a whole one last night, but after lunches today, there wasn’t much left! I made the BEST muenster and mushroom grilled sandwich yesterday for lunch 🙂

And…the grand finale: Baked Italian-Style Cauliflower, found in Cooking Light this month. I’m telling you, it was fate. I needed a recipe with beef, so I looked that up in the index (isn’t it neat magazines have indexes?) and wouldn’t you know, I just happened to have leftover cauliflower on hand, too. I find there are some dishes I make that require some ‘advance planning’ to use up all the ingredients, mostly with cabbage. I mean, just one cabbage produces SO MUCH (often I only need half or a quarter of one) and usually I need one of each COLOR, so when I meal-plan now, I think ahead and pick meals that I can re-use leftovers. So, when I make coleslaw, I often make this one dish of slightly sweet/hot sauteed red cabbage to serve with pork.

Anyway, back to dinner. I loved it! And Andrew thought it was pretty good, too. I have to admit, I’m not sure I’m going to save the recipe; the binder is reserved for AWESOME meals only (I just have too many to try to keep ALL of the decent ones–and post on recipe binders coming soon!) but it’s not hard to remember this. Basically, steam some cauliflower, top with spaghetti sauce cooked with a little bit of beef, onion and garlic (it was supposed to have olives, but I left those out until the end and added them to my half, as well as mushrooms I had on hand, too), then top with breadcrumbs and cheese. Broil four minutes. I thought it was incredibly flavorful and an awesome (and healthy!) way to eat cauliflower. It made four servings; 300 calories each. (Can you see I only put cheese on MY half?? I’m such a nice wife.)

I opened a Shiraz from my last trip to Trader Joe’s. This was the perfect meal for red.

And this is the olive oil Andrew has fallen head over heels for. I chose it last time I was at Wegmans because it’s nice but not ‘break the bank’ nice. And I know Ina used olive oil made from California olives, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Andrew noticed right away as he uses it to dip with herbs for bread, which made me happy. Score one for me! (He says he’s a “supertaster,” which does exist–we learned about it in psych of all classes–but I don’t agree. While he does have a knack for guessing particular flavors, supertasters often find things like broccoli too bitter, which he doesn’t. I think he’s just picky.)

Our pretty table 🙂 However, all this table-photographing makes me feel like Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee and her ‘tablescapes.’ Ahh, gag me with a spoon. I hate that show…

I even went all-out and lit some tea lights. Note to self: dust next time!

Here’s the recipe–it was under “Budget Cooking,” which I think is a great idea for a monthly magazine. Only $2.50 per serving. See, you can eat healthily, use REAL food and not break the bank. I’m sure if you search Cooking Light for the recipe you’ll find it–I’m pressed for time so I need to wrap this up! BTW, Cooking Light is doing a year-long series (that just started this month) on the ‘Best 100 Cookbooks’ for their 15th (or is it 25th?) anniversary. I like the magazine enough, anyway (I grabbed this month’s after seeing their ginger pumpkin pie on the cover), so I subscribed… I LOVE cookbooks and I knew I wouldn’t remember to buy it off the newsstand–not to mention it’s $5 a pop!–so I got it for $1 each instead. 🙂 I didn’t want to miss their cookbook reviews!

And the kale chips–Kath makes them all the time, and Susy is a big fan, too, so I had to give them a try. Susy gave me Tyler Florence’s Family Meal cookbook (below) and I treasure it. Every time I look at it I think of her. Miss you!

10-miler = 10-fold reward

OK, maybe not a “10-fold” reward, exactly, but I did have a great day!

I planned on doing a long run this weekend since we were in East Aurora. I LOVE running there. I have my usual routes, and sometimes I mix it up. Today, because I was going extra long, I combined my usual 4.5 mile route down toward the high school with a new “village perimeter plus some” route.

The weather this weekend was unseasonably warm (upper 70s!) and I probably could have worn a tank top if I’d brought one. It was beautiful and sunny and there was a hint of fall in the air. Despite the perfect weather, my run started pretty crummily…I blame it on the abundance of sugar I had the night before at Pumpkinville (two donuts–they were small!–pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin soup–which was more sweet than savory, unfortunately–along with fries and popcorn and M&Ms after we got home). So yeah, between that and my elevated stress level and lack of sleep (Hadrian never sleeps well at other people’s houses), I wasn’t exactly running on all cylinders. I was tired and with the first almost two miles being uphill, I could feel it.

Must stretch! I always do, and Andrew never does. I don’t get how people can NOT stretch. Turns out I must’ve underestimated my abilities this morning; I averaged about 8:20/mile, which is awesome! After a couple miles I did perk right up definitely felt that “runner’s high.”

I forgot my Honey Stingers at the hotel, so I had to scavenge for portable, energy-packed foods to take with me. Thankfully, I found some nuts and dried cranberries in the kitchen–SCORE! Go Mom Layer for having 100-calorie packs of walnuts and almonds! I threw in some M&Ms to make it like trail mix, but I didn’t end up eating any. In fact, for some reason, I didn’t need more than a couple bits of nuts–must have been that sugar overload. I carried a partially full bottle of water, too. I hate carrying stuff with me, but I hate being thirsty even more.

I had to write my route out on paper–too many lefts and rights! Disclaimer: I totally spelled “veer” wrong, and knew it immediately. I would normally correct it, but I was in a rush to get out the door. I’m not sure now which I would prefer; having it spelled wrong (above), or having corrected it and proving to all my friends that I really AM as OCD as they think I am.

Andrew and I have been craving Charlie’s Diner, and I figured today would be the perfect day to go–the weather was phenomenal, and I’d just burned like 1,100 calories running…

I enjoyed my usual post-long run Sprite–absolute bliss! I fantasize about Sprite while running sometimes. There is just something about how it tastes and quenches my thirst after a long run when water just won’t do.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES! They have the best, hands down. Super doughy and sweet and GIANT plump berries! Seriously, they are that good.

We didn’t get there until after 12:00, so Andrew ordered lunch: a BLT.

We were hungry!

After lunch, we went back to the Layers’. Andrew headed off to work, Carolyn was off watching the Bills game with Ben and I enjoyed a fantastically quiet and peaceful afternoon in the kitchen. BAKING! (I also threw in some cleaning–we’d made such a mess in just two days!)

Pumpkin bread! (Andrew always hates it when I pose like this… He thinks it looks silly.) Oh well.

I used my mom’s interchangeable pumpkin/zucchini bread recipe. Except that I changed it around a made it healthier. It wasn’t my intention; I didn’t have butter, so I used both oil and canned apple butter (like applesauce), decreased the sugar (who needs extra sugar, anyway?) and mixed white with whole wheat flour.

I made one loaf plain and mixed raisins, oats and pumpkin seeds into the other.

After I started cutting them up, (of course I forgot to take a picture of both loaves still whole) I made a tasting plate of two teeny slivers. I had to make sure they were good…

I assembled a plate for the Layers and a baggie of half-pieces for the ladies who work the front desk at the hotel, then bagged up the rest for me!

Side note: Perhaps the biggest “reward” of today was signing our lease! The short story is that we found a small house in Orchard Park to rent and God has provided an amazing landlord who will let us have Hadrian and be flexible on lease terms (less than a year). I’ll post more details later, but I can say with certainty that neither of us thought we would be as excited as we are about going into a rental! We celebrated with more rewards–pizza and wings! (We are terrible, I know. But really, on what other day can I splurge like this than on a day I ran so much?) We tried out John & Mary’s, a place on Main St. The verdict: Not bad, but no Pasquale’s!