Homemade Bagels!

Homemade seed-and-salt bagel with cream cheese, lox, lemon, and red onion.

Bagels remind me of waking up hungover in college. Being from California, what I wanted in my hungoverness was a nice greasy burrito, but that was obviously not happening in Binghamton. All my friends, though, woke up wanting bagels. And this was more doable--there was a pretty decent place at the bottom on the hill. Which would even deliver, were you feeling particularly lazy. So I have many happy memories of eating bagels and recounting the previous night. From then on, whenever I was in NY I made sure to eat as many great bagels as I could. I particularly grew to love the egg-and-cheese bagel--the perfect breakfast food, which I wish would expand to the rest of the  country.
My husband is from Brooklyn, so he loves when I make pizza and bagels more than any other baked good. Even bad bagels (I've made a few totally unsuccessful batches), he scarfs, groaning about how much he loves bagels. I decided to make these this weekend to celebrate the return of Home Weekends, as opposed to Ski Weekends. We planted our garden, strung up lights over the deck, and had our first weekend out of the mountains. As much as I love powder in Summit Country, I also love doing nothing in my backyard in Denver, especially in shorts.
If you want a good bagel in Denver, you're going to need to make it yourself. The only bagels in town are the Thomas' brand in the plastic bag at Safeway.
I used a recipe I found on the New York Times. But I seriously could NOT find the malt powder the recipe called for. So I just skipped it, subbing in a little more sugar with the blooming yeast (about 2 tablespoons).
This is a pretty easy recipe. Just takes patience with the rising times.

From New York Times:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 5 cups bread flour
• 2 teaspoons salt, plus more for boiling
• 1 tablespoon diastatic malt powder
• 1/4 cup poppy seeds, optional
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds, optional

PREPARATION

1.

Put the yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer. Add 1 2/3 cups lukewarm water and allow the yeast to activate, about 5 minutes. Add flour, salt and malt powder and mix at low speed for 5 minutes using the paddle attachment. Cover the dough and allow to rise at room temperature for about 2 hours.

2.

Punch the dough down and shape into a rough rectangle about 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick, and about 2 times longer than it is wide. If you are having trouble forming the dough, stretch it, wait for the gluten to relax and reform.

3.

Cut the dough into 10 pieces of about 3 ounces each. Roll each into an 8-inch-long snakelike shape, tapering the dough at each end. Circle the dough around your hand, pinching the ends together and rolling under your palm once or twice to seal. Put the bagels on a Silpat or other nonstick baking sheet on top of a jellyroll pan. Cover well with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 10 hours, or up to 24 hours.

4.

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. If you have a baking stone or brick you use for baking, put it on a rack near the bottom of the oven; it will retain heat and produce a crisper bagel. Bring a large pot of water to boil, throw a handful of salt into the boiling water and remove the bagels from the refrigerator.

5.

Using your hands, carefully place just enough bagels into the pot to cover the surface of the water, making sure that there are no bagels resting on top of one another. Let them float on one side for about 30 seconds before flipping them to the other side for another 30 seconds or so. Remove the bagels and drain well on a cooling rack.

6.

Pour poppy or sesame seeds into a bowl wider than the bagels. Working very quickly, remove the bagels one by one and dip them into the topping. Place them back on the Silpat-covered baking sheet, topping side down.

7.

Bake on the second to highest shelf of the oven for about 7 minutes. Then flip the bagels and continue baking for about 8 minutes, or until they are golden brown.

YIELD

10 bagels

Raw bagels after rising in the fridge all night.

Boiling raw bagels. 

Delicious, toasty finished bagels.

Bagels, cream cheese, onions, lox, lemons.

We had a fantastic brunch--bagels and lox, plus a cheese-and-onion fritatta courtesy of my brother, and mimosas. The bagels, though nowhere near New York-quality / flavor, were delicious.
I love summer. And I am very excited to experiment with new bagel flavors and techniques.
Enjoy!

Breakfast Pizza

Breakfast pizza with bacon-and-onion jam, bacon, country ham, mozzarella, peas, and runny eggs.

I haven't been blogging much lately: the snow gods are smiling on Colorado for the first time in three seasons, and this is the busiest time of year at school. I've made some awesome dinners lately (most notably, I drastically improved my pad thai recipe) but was too caught up to grab the camera. As much as I love powder weekends and long, productive teaching days, life has been a little fast-paced for my tastes lately. 

So to remedy that, Adam and I today practiced one of our relationship traditions--the Lazy Day. 

When we were first dating, we spent several Saturdays drinking Bloody Mary's, eating really stellar breakfast burritos, watching The Wire, and taking naps. And that was it, all day. I was delighted to have found a man as lazy and hedonistic as me--someone who would spend a whole day on the couch and genuinely enjoy himself, not wring his hands or chastise himself about it ("waah, I didn't go to the gym!") 

It was love.

So today, we slept in till nine and spent the day watching House of Cards season 2. Adam made his excellent bloodies and I made Breakfast Pizza, entirely out of ingredients already in the house, so as not to exhaust myself by walking to the store for burrito stuff. 

This recipe would be easy to recreate, except for the bacon-and-onion jam. I made this awhile ago to go with some pate--it was sitting in the fridge. Other than that, should be pretty easy. 

Bacon-and-onion jam. From when I made it a couple weeks ago. 

Ingredients
1 batch of pizza dough
(note--I made mine from scratch in the morning. It really tastes better if you allow it to rise overnight, as suggested in the recipe above. Or you can buy (Wholefoods always has fresh pizza dough) or even use a mix. Who cares? It's a lazy day)
1.5 cups of bacon-and-onion jam
(note--you probably don't have this. You could make it, OR you could a. Use any kind of jam you have--a chutney or savory jam would work well b. Use canned pizza sauce c. Use nothing--brush the dough with olive oil and garlic d. Use slices of tomatoes)
1 package pre-shredded mozzarella
6 slices of bacon, crisped
3-5 slices of ham, cut into ribbons
1/2 cup of frozen peas (corn would also be delish)
3-4 eggs
oil, salt, pepper

What to do 
Make the dough. Or buy it.
Pre-heat the oven to 550 degrees.
Spread the dough as thin as possible by stretching it out. You want it as thin as you can possibly get it without tearing.
Spread the jam over the dough.
Sprinkle on the cheese.
Sprinkle on the bacon and ham.
Sprinkle on the peas and press gently into the dough.
Bake at 550 for about six minutes, or until just turning brown and cheese is melted.
Take the pizza out and turn the oven to broil. Break the eggs onto the pizza. Place under the broiler for about two minutes--whites should be opaque and cooked, yolks should be runny.
Sprinkle kosher salt onto the eggs.
Slice and serve!

Here is a version I made without eggs--we ended up having it for dinner. 

Raw pizza before baking. 

Adam enjoying breakfast pizza--got a little black on the edges...

This was BOMB. And so it season 2 of House of Cards. And so is spending a whole day on the couch with two tiny dogs and my love. 

Enjoy! 

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

I used my beer-yeast starter for these cinnamon rolls--the bread has a more savory, tangy taste than a traditional cinnamon roll. I like the contrast between the sourdough and the cinnamon caramel filling. 

This exact recipe is hard to recreate if you don't have a bucket of starter fermenting in your kitchen (and I can't think of anyone else who does). It's also fine to use a packet of regular powdered yeast. (Here is a great regular cinnamon roll recipe). 

Ingredients 

bread 

1 cup sourdough starter 

1 cup buttermilk 

2 TB white sugar 

1 cup warm water 

5-8 cups flour, depending on dough moisture (which seems to turn out differently every time) 

cinnamon filling 

1.5 sticks of salted butter

2 cups of brown sugar 

3 TB cinnamon 

1 tsp vanilla extract

A greased 8 x 12 baking pan with sides. 

What to do:

Combine the buttermilk, water, white sugar, and sourdough starter in the bowl of a standing mixer. Allow to sit for 20 minutes (this will "wake up" the starter, get it hungry and active). 

Using the dough hook attachment, gradually add in flour while mixing. Probably you will end up using six-ish cups, but what you are looking for is a cohesive ball, pliant and not too sticky, and moist enough not to have extra flour hanging out in the bowl. Mess with the moisture and flour until you have the right consistency. 

Cover the dough and allow it to rise. If using starter, this will take awhile. Leave for five hours or overnight (I actually left mine for like 12 hours and it was fine). 

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a long, flat rectangle. 

Combine the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a saucepan.Turn the flame on and whisk together until bubbling (about 8 min). Turn the heat off. Whisk in the vanilla. 

Ladle the warm cinnamon caramel over the rolled-out bread. Spread out so every surface is covered. If you have some left over that's fine. 

Roll the bread hot-dog style into a long roll. 

Cut the roll into little circles at 1.5 inch intervals. Place these into the greased baking pan. Nestle them together. 

Pour any leftover cinnamon caramel over the top. 

Allow to rise for 2 more hours. 

Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes, or until golden brown, puffy, and cooked through. 

Cinnamon rolls before baking. 

Yum. 

These were fabulous, and they made the house smell like fatty heaven. I feel like this lager-starter is my bread-baking breakthrough of the year, and I can't wait to make all kinds of other carby awesomeness with it. 

Enjoy! 

Beer-Yeast Bread

Wonderful. 

We have been making beer for awhile now. There is something just fantastic about arriving home and pouring yourself a cold pint of homemade beer--it's like, hooray for adulthood.

An attempted Brooklyn Lager clone fermenting in the basement. 

When you rack the beer into the secondary, there remains at the bottom on the carboy a thick, goopy layer of yeast--so I naturally have been using it to make bread! I've had some mixed results--the pretzels I made with hefeweizen yeast were excellent, but the rye stout bread was like a dark unchewable brick of Eastern block sadness.
So this latest batch was made with the yeasty sludge from our current attempt--a cold-fermented imitation of Brooklyn Lager (nostalgic taste of Adam's youth). The sludge had a lot of hops left in it, so I was curious about how that might taste in the finished bread. Also, this cold-fermenting yeast is slower than other types--would it need to rise for two days? I was prepared for a flop.
Well--this was my biggest beer-yeast success to date! I made rolls with it. The crust is crisp and thick, with a golden flake; the inside crumb is springy, soft, tender, and a bit chewy; the dough itself has an almost nutty flavor--not sour but more complex than other breads, a teeny bit caramel-y. Totally pleasant and lovely.
I plan to keep this yeast line alive for future bread endeavors.
Not entirely sure this is a copy-able recipe, seeing as you need this particular type of yeast. But if you're in Denver, come over and I'll give you some.

Yum

How to Make It Bread with Beer Yeast 
The day before you plan to bake, take the sludge out of the bottom of your latest beer. Put it in a big container and add a cup of water and a cup of flour. Mix with the sludge and leave overnight. This will make a sponge starter for the bread.
Take two cups of the sponge starter and put into a bowl. Add two tablespoons of sugar and leave alone for 20 minutes. This will wake the yeast up and get it super horny.
Add five cups of flour (I like white unbleached) and mix up. I used my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook attachment. Test the dough--it should be pliable and elastic but not sticky. Mess with flour and moisture until you have the perfect consistency.
Then allow the dough to rise for about 5 hours.
Form into rolls or loaves or whatever you want and allow to rise for two more hours.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Eat!

Starter.

Dough before rising. 

Many hours later. 

Risen rolls.

All done. My house smells amazing.

Can't wait to have a sandwich on Lager bread alongside a cold glass of lager--hopefully the beer comes out as well as the bread did. 

Enjoy! 

Biscuits and Gravy

The pictures in this post are kind of blurry--I didn't realize my lens had butter on it. 

I love making breakfast on Saturdays. Waking up late, drinking coffee or bloody marys (maries?) on the couch, watching Inglorious Bastards yet again, and of course making something for breakfast from whatever happens to be in the fridge.
So what did I have today? Buttermilk, which I always seem to have lately. One leftover smoked chorizo...idea! Biscuits and gravy!
First, I made buttermilk biscuits.

Buttermilk Biscuits 

• 1 cup melted butter 
• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup buttermilk 
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 tsp white sugar 
• 1 TB baking powder 
• 1 tsp black powder

Pre-heat oven to 400. Grease a cookie sheet. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Round into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 25-30 min, or until golden brown. 

Before 

After! 

While the biscuits are baking, make the gravy. I made a bacon-and-chorizo gravy, but you can use any meat you'd like. 

Bacon and Chorizo Gravy 

• 4 strips bacon, chopped
• 1 chorizo sausage (or any kind of sausage), chopped 
• 1 yellow onion, chopped 
• 1/3 cup flour 
• 2 cups milk (add more if needed to thin)
• pinch salt 
• pinch black pepper 
• dash of hot sauce 

What to do 

Crisp the bacon and sausage in a skillet. Cook until a lot of the fat has rendered out. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently. until golden-colored (about 10 minutes). Then, add the flour. Cook in the fat for about five minutes. It should develop a sweet, nutty smell. Turn the burner off and pour in the milk. Stir around to get the bits off the bottom. Season with salt, pepper, and hot sauce. 

Pour gravy over biscuits! I like to dribble some hot sauce over mine. 

Have this for breakfast, and you've eaten heartily enough to, say fight the Protestants. Walk from Galway to Kilkenney. Chase down a  wayward cow. Something like that. 

We, however, just sat around the house thinking of names for our new tadpoles. All four are now known as Wiggles. 

Enjoy! 

Flat bread with mushrooms, bacon, cheese, and balsamic reduction

Hello, lovely.

I had a fantastic surprise this morning when I arrived at work: it was Teacher Appreciation day, so our usual meeting was canceled. Given our abbreviated Wednesday schedule and the fact that last period is my planning, I was done at 11:35! It was that snow day emotion--unexpectedly not having to work! One of the best feelings there is.
So, having some free time, I of course felt like cooking. There wasn't much in our fridge--but I found ricotta and mozzarella (originally intended for raviolis I never made) and some dried porchinis (no idea why I originally bought these). And I always have garlic, yeast, and flour. So, flat bread! Flat bread has become my "whatever's in the fridge" go-to creation. It's great to have around for snacking, and it's fun to make.

Some of the ingredients. Not pictured: balsamic, olive oil

Ingredients

For flat bread dough:

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 (1/4-ounce) packet active dry yeast

1 TB sugar
4 to 5 cups all-purpose flour
1tsp salt
2 TB olive oil

Toppings: 

1 package dried porcini mushrooms 

7 strips bacon, diced

3/4 cup ricotta 

1/2 cup mozzarella 

4 cloves garlic, chopped

red pepper flakes 

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

What to do: 

1. Dissolve the sugar in the warm water and add the yeast. Let it sit for 15 minutes. This wakes the yeast up and gets them horny and hungry. 

2. Add the flour. Mix and knead into a pliant, cohesive ball. You may need to add more water or flour. 

Dough before rising

3. Allow the dough to rise. Cover with a damp paper towel and set somewhere warm. It should about double in size. This will probably take around an hour. 

After rising

5. Boil some water. Add the dried mushrooms to the water and allow to sit in the hot water with the burner off.

4. When the dough is risen, knead it a few more times, then stretch/ spread it into a large oval and put on an oiled rectangular cookie sheet. Push into all the sides and attempt to get it uniformly thick.

6. Spread the cup of ricotta over the flat dough. Then, leave this to rise again while you make the toppings. 

Dough spread with ricotta.

7. Crisp the bacon. Sprinkle the crisp bacon over the dough. 

8.  Mince the garlic and sprinkle it evenly over the top.
9. Take the mushrooms out of the water and lightly squeeze them out. Toss them into the bacon grease and cook for about a minute on high. Then, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and spread them out over the dough. 

10. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes (up to you how much to use). 

11. Dot all over with little chunks of mozzarella. 

12. Bake at 450 for about 35 or 40 min, or until golden brown. 

13. While the flat bread is cooling, pour the balsamic into a small saucepan and add about a tablespoon of sugar. Simmer to reduce into a syrup that coats the back of a spoon. When thick, dribble this over the flat bread. 

14. It's done! Slice and eat.

Were I to make this again, I would omit the reconstituted mushrooms. Their earthiness clashed a bit with the salt-sweet-garlic-cheese of the other flavors.  Would have been better without them. Alas! Now I know.
Enjoy!

Buttermilk Biscuits

I really don't have a sweet tooth, so I don't do all that much baking. I like making bread, pretzels, bagels, biscuits--savory baking. I made these on a Saturday morning for breakfast. My best tip for biscuits is to eat them hot--they decline in deliciousness as they cool. 

Ingredients: 
2 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons to 1 1/2 tablespoons  sugar
1 tablespoon  baking powder
3/4 teaspoon table salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
9 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup uttermilk.

What to do: 
Preheat oven to 400 °F and grease a cookie sheet. Mix all the ingredients! You may need to use your hands. The dough will be craggy and stiff. Wad it up into little balls (this recipe makes 6) and place on the greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 min, or until golden brown. 
Eat with jam, or make into bacon and egg  sandwiches, or just eat alone. 
Wonderful. 

Buttermilk being added to flour.

Melted butter. This is why they taste good.

The dough

Before

After! With a pug photo bomb.

Look at that lovely crumb.

 A great breakfast, and these can be incorporated into meals a million ways. Biscuits and gravy, breakfast sandwiches, chicken and biscuits, etc. 

Enjoy!