Bagels, Soup, and French Bread

I have been really inspired to really make most of my food from home.  I had already ground my own wheat and made a lot of things from scratch but I wanted to take it a step further so I am!  It's so exciting!!!  I am so glad that I have support, from my husband and my girls, the most important people in my life, but also from friends, blogs and search engines.  I love that my family will try new things and like most of it.  Here is the recipe for the bagels I made.  You can find the post I got the recipe from here:  WHOLE WHEAT BAGELS


Honey Whole Wheat Bagels      Time: 1 hour 30 mins       By: Heavenly Homemakers Yield:  12 bagels

4-4 ½ cups whole wheat flour (I use freshly ground flour from hard white wheat)
1 pkg yeast (2 ¼ tsp)
1 ½ cups warm water (if you put your finger in and it hurts, it’s too hot and will kill your yeast)
3 Tbsp honey + 1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp sea salt

1. Stir together 2 cups flour, the salt and the yeast. Add in the warm water and 3 Tbsp honey. Gradually add in the remaining flour.

2. Dump it out and knead te flour in until the dough is smooth and elastic. Cover thedough and let it take a nap for about 10 minutes.

3. Divide the dough into twelve equal parts.

4. Set a timer for 20 minutes. Begin shaping each piece of dough into a nice ball. Stick your finger in the middle of the ball and pull it apart to create about a 2 inch hole.

5. Lay it onto a buttered cookie sheet or baking stone. Continue until all the bagels are formed. Let them sit until your timer goes off.

6. After your 20 minute timer goes off, turn the broiler on in your oven. Broil your bagels for 2 minutes on each side.

7. Meanwhile… bring a big pot of water to a boil. Stir in the remaining 1 Tbsp honey.

8. Put 4-6 bagels into the waer, turn down the heat and simmer for 7 minutes turning the bagels over once during that time. (I am going to try and only boil them 30 seconds on each side next time. They turned out kind of shriveled the first time I made them.)

9. Continue to boil your bagels until they are all done. Let them drain on a towel for 1-2 minutes.

10. Bake at 375F for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

11. Slice these, toast them, then slater them with butter or cream cheese (you can even make your own cream cheese). See previous post.

I had no idea that you BOILED bagels!!!  You do!

I decided to also share with you what we had for dinner tonight.  It is absolutely yummy!!!


Cheesy Potato and Corn Chowder Time: 1 hour Makes: 7 servings

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp margarine 1 (15 oz)                    can whole kernel corn  (I use frozen corn)

1 cup chopped celery 1 (4 oz)               can diced green chilis

1 cup chopped onion                               1 (2.5 oz) pkg country style gravy mix  (I just use flour and
                                                                         pepper not gravy mix.)
2 (14.5 oz) cans chicken broth                 2 cups milk

3 cups peeled and cubed potatoes             1 cup shredded cheddar cheese




I also added ham to mine

Directions:

1. In large saucepan, melt margarine over medium high heat. Add celery and onion; cook and stir until tender, about 5 mins.

2. Add chicken broth; bring to a boil. Add potatoes; cook over low heat for 20-25 mins or until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally.

3. Stir in corn and chilis; return to boiling. Dissolve gravy mix in milk; stir into boiling mixture. Add cheese; cook and stir over low heat until cheese is melted.

My girls had two bowls each.  It's absolutely AMAZING!  Especially on a day like today.  It's nice and rainy outside.

Whole Wheat French Bread          Yield: 1 loaf          Time: 4 ½ hours

2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast (or 1 pkg)                      1 Tbsp cornmeal

1 ¼ cups warm water                                          1 egg white

1 Tbsp sugar                                                        2 Tbsp cold water

1 tsp salt                                                                cooking spray

3 cups whole wheat flour (divided 2 cups and 1 cup)

 Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bow or bowl of mixer with dough hook inserted.

2. Stir in sugar, salt and 2 cups flour.

3. Beat until smooth. Stir in the remaining flour.

4. Run mixer on low to knead dough for 6-8 minutes or turn out onto floured surface and knead for 5-8 minutes by hand.

5. Place the dough in bowl spraye with cooking spray, turn greased side up.

6. Cover with a damp flour sack cloth or dish towel.

7. Let rise in warm place until double - 1 ½ – 2 hours. (Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.)

8. Punch down the dough and let rest for 15 minutes.

9. Grease cookie sheet or jellyroll pan and sprinkle with cornmeal.

10. Either roll dough out into rectangle and roll up tightly, seal edges or just mold into desired shape (French bread shape) and place on cookie sheet.

11. Make 1 lengthwise slash down center or ¼ inch slashes at 2 inch intervals.

12. Mist lightly with cold water (or brush over loaf) let rise uncovered until double again -1 ½ hours.

13. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Brush loaf with cold water or mist again with cold water. Bake 20 minutes.

14. Mix the egg white and water and brush over loaf. Bake until loaf is deep golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped (about 5 minutes).

Oh my gosh!  This bread is so amazing!  I WILL be making this again and again.  Yummmmmmmmmm!!

Making Food

I have been wanting to try a few new things lately and so this weekend I just did it.  Wow.  I did it.  Haha.  Sometimes it feels like I don't have time for anything new so when I get to do something new I feel so accomplished.

I made pita bread/pockets, yogurt and cream cheese, and of course ice cream in our ice cream ball.  I feel like I'm leaving something out but I will show you in pictures and then post more if I remember more.

My recipe for all three of these things is actually not my own they come from Heavenly Homemakers blog.  (I LOVE HER!!!)   pita bread and yogurt and cream cheese  She has recipes for just about everything that I want to make!

I will write out the recipes here as well for quick reference but if you haven't gone to her blog you so need to.  She is brilliant!




Yogurt and Cream Cheese        Heavenly Homemakers      Yield: 1-2 quarts       Time: 7-24 hours

1-2 quarts of whole milk
¾ cup plain yogurt

1. Pour the yogurt into a quart jar (using glass container is important). Heat the milk on the stove in a saucepan until it is just under 100 degrees.

2. Pour the milk over the yogurt in the jar and shake.

3. Place the jar into a cooler of hot water, cover and leave in the cooler for seven hours.

There, you just made yogurt!

Now, you can eat the yogurt as I mentioned before, or you can take your yogurt and make cream cheese.

(When you serve you can add whatever you would like. Honey, vanilla, fruit, granola, etc.)

1. So, to make CREAM CHEESE, line a strainer with a tea towel. Pour the yogurt into the tea towel.

2. You need to secure the tea towel full of yogurt and hang it for 7-10 hours (I usually do this overnight) so that the whey can drip off. I’m sure there must be a more impressive way to hang your yogurt, but what we’ve come up with works just fine!

3. Here are the secrets to my effective cream cheese-hanging-whey-dripping process (I know, you’re on the edge of your chair!)

4. I fold over the top of the tea towel and hold it closed with a couple of rubber bands. Then, I use several more rubber bands to attac a long wooden spoon to the wadded up tea towel. Then, I use a rope to dangle the tea towel from a cabinet door. And, of course I leave a bowl under th whole contraption so that whey doesn’t drip all over the floor.

5. Then, after you can tell that the whey has all separated from the cream cheese (you can tell it’s finished if it isn’t dripping any more), then you pull the whole thing down and scrape the cream cheese into a jar.

 

 Here is my tea towel with the yogurt inside dripping out the whey.  The bowl was a little over a quarter full of whey when I got up this morning.

Here is my finished yogurt in the fridge getting chilled so we can eat it.  We ate some this morning with blueberries, honey, and some Grape Nuts.  It was delicious!  The gallon of milk that we bought was about $3.50.  We got 1 quart yogurt, 1 small jar cream cheese, and still have 1/2 gallon of milk.  Normally about 1 quart of plain yogurt costs me about $3.50 so I think this is a winner.

My yogurt right when it was done.

The whey

The small jar cream cheese.

 So yummy!  I tried a little of the cream cheese plain this morning and it was delicious!  I can't wait to make the whole wheat homemade bagels that Heavenly Homemakers has on her site.  I'll try and post that too.





Whole Wheat Pita Bread Yield:     8 pita breads, 16 pita pockets      Time: 1 hour 20 mins.

By: Heavenly Homemakers

3 cups whole wheat flour              2 Tbsp honey
1 ½ tsp yeast                                 1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sea salt                                 1 cup warm water

1. Stir together flour, yeast, and sea salt. Add honey, oil, and water, stirring until a nice dough forms. Knead the dough on a well floured surface for 4-5 minutes. (In other words: Mix dry ingredients. Add liquid ingredients. Stir well. Knead.)

2. Place dough back into the bowl, cover, and allow dough to rest and rise for about an hour. (My dough never rose very high, but that’s okay.)

3. Pull dough out of the bowl. Knead for about 30 seconds. Roll dough into a ball and cut into 8 equal parts.

4. Roll each part into a circle with a rolling pin, about 6 or 7 inches in diameter. Place circles directly onto greased baking sheet after rolling.

5. Allow the dough circles to rest/rise on the baking sheet while you heat your oven to 500 degrees. Place baking shee of pita circles into hot oven. Bake for 5-8 minutes-just long enough for them to puff up and brown slightly.

6. Allow pitas to cool, slice in half for pita pockets or use flat as pita bread.

I didn't get pictures of the whole process but I did get some of them finished.

 

I made the pita bread last night and then we made pita pizzas with them for lunch today.  They were so good!  I know this picture is kind of blurry but I think you can see it okay.  We did these pizzas on top of the pita bread but if you were to cut this in half you would have a nice pocket. 

I'm so excited to be making more things myself.  I like how it's a lot cheaper most of the time, that I know what is going into my food, and I get a sense of accomplishment out of it.  I look forward to a lot more fun baking and cooking in 2013!  WOW!!! 2013!  That's crazy :P