Cooking and Baking and Bagels Oh My

So if I were to not work I would spend time cooking and baking. These past two weeks I have been pretending that I will never work again. It was a great two weeks. Now I want to cry. I love my kids, but baking and cooking and snuggling the dog is WAY better than working.

With that said, here are a few things I decided to make TODAY, my last day of not working.

I made a batch of bagels - they SUCKED. I used the Cooks Illustrated recipe but I put it in the bread machine and I think it kneaded like 20 times longer than it was supposed to. We ended up with hockey pucks that tasted salty and gross. First totally failed bagel attempt. Of course we had our neighbors over to see our "amazing" bagels and then the bagels blew. See below. So sad and hockey puck like with no brown toasted look to them. GROSS!!

To redeem myself (and to try to forget that I have work tomorrow) I decided to make another batch. I followed an egg bagel recipe from a book of bread machine recipes that my mom got me years ago. I channeled Bob Ettinger briefly in thinking that nothing could supersede Cooks Illustrated, but then I thought, "What the hell?"

I threw all the ingredients into the machine and followed the directions completely. I even boiled them for 7 minutes (well maybe 6) instead of the 35 seconds suggested by the Cooks Illustrated recipe. They were way way way more soft and doughy than the other recipe (from the magazine that must not be named). Here they are in the oven:

I then brushed them with an egg glaze and added sesame seeds and baked them at a much lower temp (375 instead of 450) for a much longer time (35 minutes instead of 14). They appear beautiful.

They have a nice crunchy exterior and a chewy and delicious inside. They are not YELLOW like the egg bagels you buy in the store which leads me to believe that stores add some sort of yellow food coloring or something else gross. So take that Cooks Illustrated - yummy bagels with a TOTALLY different recipe that did not BREAK my Kitchenaid. Yes, the sad news is that my second to last bagel foray broke my Kitchenaid stand mixer. The motor still works but the gears don't. It will no longer turn. Too much gluten I suppose. I am not excited to get it fixed, but alas it will happen sometime.

Ok so while making the bagels I decided to make a Canadian spiced meat pie. This recipe is from Cooking Light. First Tom (my assistant) chopped up the onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and chives. I was busy bagel making. Then I browned the meat with cinnamon and cloves and some salt and red pepper flakes. Then I sauteed the veggies. Then I added the meat back into the mix and added some flour and chicken broth.

After the meat and broth was all thickened I dumped it into a pie pan and added a pie crust. Now it is happily baking in the oven. Picture of baked and delicious meat pie to come!

So I will leave you with Harper's Bagel Bazaar's first advertising picture. The tag line is - if Harper wants 'em then you'll want 'em too.

Ok I had to add some pictures of the totally baked pork pie. So delicious.

Bagels Part Deux

So one of my favorite friends - Sara d came to visit (yes that's d with a lowercase on purpose!!!) this weekend. It was awesome. We chatted late into the evening Friday and then slept late on Saturday (if you don't count that I let Harper out at 4:30am). We drove into Ballard and walked around - did a little shopping at Buffalo Exchange - love that place. I tried on about 5 pairs of skinny jeans and hated them all. The best was the pair that were actually stuck ON my feet. I mean how was I supposed to get them on? And I love that they are about 8 inches too long. One day I will find my long lost skinny jeans. After our Ballard hang out (we ate lunch and met up with a friend of Sara's from L.A. who recently moved here) we made the dough for the BAGELS!!! Then we ran to the PCC to get stuff for "everything" topping. I might have stared at the container of Wheat Gluten for 5 minutes before I realized that even though it was calling itself "Wheat Gluten Flour" it was indeed just vital wheat gluten. We rushed home and primped for our night out and then we rolled the dough into bagel looking shapes.

While Tom was busy watching the Bulls lose to the Celtics - and yes he did BET against the Bulls. He won, but what kind of team spirit is that, we headed to the Park Pub down the street from our house. Lots of people from work and other friends met us out for a low-key and fun b-day celebration. I got some amazing Burts Bees stuff (love it - already using the lip balm and the hand salve), some wine, and a dozen amazing cupcakes. Possibly the best "gift" is knowing that Clark and Megan put a deposit down on a puppy that they will receive on New Years Eve. Now everyone obviously knows where I will be New Years Eve! I will be snuggling and talking baby talk to the puppy while Harper totally ignores it and pretends it does not exist. At least he won't chase it like it's a squirrel or cat.

So after beers and juice-like cider we came home. This morning Sara and I walked all the way up Phinney/Greenwood to 85th. I bought Harper an amazing red jacket for when we go snowshoeing as well as some "healing salve" (that I probably could have bought for humans at Walgreens for 1/5 of the price) for his super dry skin. The poor dog has little scabs where he scratches so much. Next on the agenda of insane spending of money - a humidifier. After our epic walk we went to the Ballard Farmer's Market and strolled around. We tasted a bit and then we treated ourselves (or so we thought) to some hot dogs. I got a regular hot dog and Sara got a chicken basil sausage. Seriously within 15 minutes of eating them we both felt strangely nauseous. Not sure what was up??? Maybe it was the funky tea that we tasted? But that can't be because we bought the hippie tea and drank it later with no nauseating feeling.

Then we made the bagels. The reason why they are bagels part deux is because while we did not follow the exact Cooks Illustrated recipe, we did add gluten this time. After seeing the dough (it was a totally different consistency) I was sure they would be amazing.

We boiled (30 seconds this time instead of 2 minutes) and baked - 14 minutes, on a pizza stone that was insanely hot. They turned out fantastic.

And that my friends is perfection. The bagel was chewy and crunchy. Salty and oniony and garlicky. AMAZING. The question is, will my Kitchenaid mixer ever work again. Ok it's not broken at all - but it was about to have a heart attack trying to kneed the dough. I suppose 7 cups of flour plus gluten is asking a lot of it.

And so as my parting birthday gift to myself - after dropping Sara off at the airport I decided to get a new phone. I was ready to buy something stupid because I was not prepared for the DROID update. However Tom called as I was walking in and instructed me to get a cool phone. So I got the little HTC Droid with all touch screen. I have no idea how to use it and I forgot to have them transfer my contacts so if you call and I say "hello?????" don't feel offended.

Happy bageling. I will be eating my everything bagels for quite a while. So if anyone is interested in making them, use the old recipe I have linked on here somewhere and then add 3 Tablespoons gluten. Also I am not sure that you need to make any sort of a "sponge". The Cooks Illustrated recipe does not call for a sponge that rises for 2 hours - so I dunno about that part. I would also divide your dough into at LEAST 18 parts. We did 13 the first time and had monster bagels, this time we did 16 and many were still gigantic. So I'd do 18 if possible.

Moving South...23 Blocks

So yesterday we moved. I might say that it was one of our smoothest moves. I'm not sure if this is because we have now officially moved (if you count anything after graduating from Wesleyan) 7 times in the past 6 years. Yikers.

We had helpers (thank you helpers), and they were fantastic. Tom made me move two couches with him before any strong people arrived. That was painful, but I did it with minimal complaining. Then the ladies and I filled our cars with the random stuff and the men carried heavy things.

Now I'd say - 24 hours later (ok maybe 28 hours to be exact) we are about 85% moved in. I think we have just been SOOO ready to settle into something that we were way too excited to unpack the kitchen and all the other stuff that we have only 1/2 unpacked until now.

We have a wood burning stove which is ridiculously exciting for Tom. He had a cord of wood (4 ft by 4ft by 8 ft) delivered today and stacked it all while I was cleaning the old house. Now he is attempting our first fire. It sounds nice, but I don't think it is burning correctly b/c Tom has not left it, and it was orange two second ago, and now I see nothing. The question is, when Tom goes away in 2 weeks will I be able to make a fire by myself????

In other moving news - not sure if it is stress related or not, but Harper has now thrown up his food three days in a row. Always at a different time, never with much warning. And you know how dogs normally make that weird seasick sound where their stomach heaves? His has NOT done that. He will just look at you, go to the door, and then bleh - puke. He is eating and drinking and running. So I am not taking him to the vet because I know they will ask those questions, and when everything is normal they will not know what to say. I think it's stress or maybe too much cat poop eating, or something else gross.

Ok so the new house is cozy and cute. It's got two nice bedrooms. One bedroom has another little office off of it. The kitchen is cute - slightly awkward at times, but cute nonetheless with a little eating nook and built in table. Fun sparkly chandelier in the dining room. The neighborhood is already super friendly. We have been invited to borrow anything (eggs, sugar etc) from our next door neighbors. The next next next door neighbor has two sons, and one of them (in 7th grade) came over to help Tom stack wood. His mom apparently said she would buy us bagels next time they get them. Nice. The upstairs family seems nice too. We are a hop - skip - and jump from a soccer field at Woodland Park which until we get arrested or fined will be very nice for fetching Harper.

So Happy Days right now. This is by far the most relaxed I have felt since perhaps our honeymoon.
Oh yeah and I forgot to say that off of our porch (if you lean right), but more safely from our sidewalk you have a view of the ocean and the Olympics. Sweet!

Bagels are Yummy

I have been delinquent in blog posting.

Tom and I have successfully made bagels!!! It was last weekend, so I supposed I'm not tooooo late in posting.

We found that the smaller bagels were better than the giant bagels. The big ones got too chewy, and the small ones got nice and crunchy on the outside.

We dabbled with sesame seeds, cheddar cheese (yum!), a little salt, and some caraway seeds.

Our next plan of attack is trying everything bagels, pumpernickel bagels and rye bagels.

One day we will open a store - just you wait!

Salty / Savory / Sweet: The great bageling

Salty / Savory / Sweet: The great bageling

Tom and I have decided that since there is NO bagel store in the Ballard/Greenwood/Phinney Ridge neighborhood, but plenty of storefronts for rent.....we should open a Bagel Store. We'll see if this idea ever pans out...but you never know Seattle, Harper's Bagels might be right around the corner. Or Tom's idea of Hodgman's Bagels - he's convinced people will think Hodgman is jewish. How about Harper's Bagel Bazaar?

I am going to make my first batch this weekend, and this blog has TOTALLY encouraged me.

Camping and Bellingham

So we decided to "get away" on this Labor Day weekend.
We drove about an hour north to the only place we had been able to book in advance. Wenberg State (now County) Park. We were at campsite 10 and it SUCKED. It was surrounded by RVs (hence the picture) and there were no trees, and we could barely get the stakes in the ground!






Tom made a sad face about our campsite.

Things started looking up when we decided to go for a stroll down to the lake. That's when we discovered ALL of the other campsites that were WAY better. We moved our tent and stuff and set up at a much more tree-lined area. Tom and Harper also went for a swim.

Then our friends showed up and we ate and drank (surreptitiously because it wasn't allowed) and played cards.

We slept fitfully in our tents except for the kids down the way screaming and yelling. There was definitely rain over night and in the morning, but we manged to make delicious pancakes and breakfast foods in just a light drizzle. Then we headed off toward Bellingham for a hike to Cedar Lake.
We saw some HUGE trees. Yeah THAT big.

The view we came to looked beautiful, of some islands (I don't know which ones).

 

Then we all posed for a group shot with the amazing bendable tripod-thingie.

And there you have the story of our 5 mile hike in what was supposed to be rain, but was NO rain at all. People out here really seem to complain about this imminent rain - and then it never shows up! It's kind of funny.

After the hike we drove to Bellingham and had a late lunch at the Boundary Bay Brewery. It was pretty good, but they made us wait a while even though there were A LOT of empty tables. They said they were keeping them empty outside because supposedly it was going to rain. Once again, for a place that supposedly sees a lot of rain, people are sure freaked out by the chance of it happening. Of course it did NOT rain, and we sat inside among many empty tables. It was strange, we never figured out why we couldn't sit right away. We strolled around and I tried to buy bagels, but they were moving so slowly I wanted to die (apparently you can't take the East Coast completely out of me). Everyone got some ice cream, and then we headed on our way home.

Tom got some serious road-rage because people were either going exactly the speed limit, or below the speed limit - and this was in the left lane. What a strange bunch of driver out here! I know people warned us, but still, it's odd. If the speed limit is 60 in CT, then people drive between 65-75 I would say. Here if it's 60, people drive about 50-58. Very odd.