Bagels! 1st Try!

We, Papa and I that is, made bagels today for the 1st time ever. It won't be the last. We'd been talking about trying them for quite a while and then Auntie R tried them and FB me the recipe so we decided to try them this morning together while Papa was home. The 1st plan was to get up early and have them ready for breakfast when the kids got up. Well we ended up watching a movie which had troubles at the end and  we fussed with that for much too long and ended up going to bed in the early hours of the morning. SO we changed the plan, slept in, and had them for lunch with Papa taking his to work. Here is the recipe.

Susan's Egg Bagels

Jody Prival

2 pkg. active dry yeast (regular--not fast acting)
2 cups warm water
3 tablespoon sugar
3 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
6 cups flour
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon dry onion flakes (optional)Dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar and salt, dissolve. Lightly beat in the 2 eggs. Stir well. Add 4 cups of flour, stirring to make a smooth thin dough. Then add remainder of flour to make a stiff dough. Knead this dough 15 minutes. Then set aside covered to rise for 40 minutes.Divide the dough into 20 equal parts and knead each separately to form a small ball. Push a floured finger through the center of each and twirl it around your finger to make a bagel with about a 1 to 1 1/2" hole and an outer diameter of about 3". Let rise for 20 minutes.
Bring to boil 3 qts. water with 1 tablespoon sugar in it. Boil 4-5 bagels at a time for 4 minutes each, turning carefully. Dry on a paper towel. Mix the egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water, beat well, and brush the bagels with the mixture. Bake 20-30 minutes at 400oF (until brown). Don't expose to direct fire in the oven.

From the Dinner Co-op

Looking good!! We did the egg yolk on top and I think next time we won't. Made the outsides really chewy. Oh and make sure you bake them long enough or they'll have 'gooey' parts inside the ring. Not that I really know anything about it as this is our 1st try. I used my bread maker for the mixing and it worked great! 

Papa 'twirling' two at the same time. He's a mechanic so his hands are rarely 'food grade' so I make him wear gloves :) He whines but he wears them :) Note J doing school work in the back ground. Because today is Friday and the T's come over every Friday afternoon when we'd normally be doing school. I gave J the choice of doing his school last night, this morning or tonight. He woke up and told me 'I'm starting school right now so I can play later!' and proceeded to do his English and Science at the table. English before breakfast! He did his Socials Studies later on after the T's had gone. I love how he enjoys school and I rarely have to nag him into doing it. (He's so far ahead in his Math that he skipped it all together today.) He'll start grade 2 Math by the end of next week. 

You really should do 20. We ended up with 16 and they were too big. I want to try them as mini's too. Oh and make sure the inside hole is BIG. Very few of ours actually had a hole in the middle. But the water took FOREVER to boil so they rose a bit long too. (And yes I started the water boiling right after we got them into rings but it was a large pot and still took over the 20 minutes to boil.) They really should look like the inside hole is about 3 times bigger then it should be before they rise that last time.

Water Heater FUN!!

Our hot water heater decided to kick the bucket a week or 2 ago which should not have been too much of a surprise as it was ancient and we'd been having problems with it for several months. So we ended up being with out hot water for 5 days and making a quick trip to the 'city' to get a new one as they didn't have what we needed here in town. We had fun getting it in to the T-all as the back window of the T-all has been giving us problems (If it's not one thing lately it's another!) So we had to take all but one of our 5 car seats/boosters seats out and put the back seat down so we could slide the hot water heater over the seats and into the back and then put the car/booster seats back in for the drive home and then do it all over again to get it out! Needless to say it was an adventure and I hope the next time we need a big something like that the back door opens or we bring a trailer. But the important things are that it fit in the T-all, we got it home and it works :) The kids beds block the water heater door so we had to re-arrange a bit to get into the space to get the old one out and the new one in. Here are our 4 oldest watching Papa hook up the new heater. They had a blast with E running a commentary on Papa's every move. She loves to make people laugh! 

R Singing a Cute Little Song.

Recognize this song anyone?? She sings it well, if that helps. The tune is right and most of the words.