Red pepper-sunflower seed bagels

Our second batch of bagels was a success. They were also gone in just a day or so, but we will probably make a larger recipe next time. This time I used sunflower seeds and some whole wheat flour to get the bagels denser and red pepper for some color and flavor. Most of these were eaten with cream cheese, but one was the base for a tuna salad sandwich.

Red pepper-sunflower seed bagels

Makes 8 bagels

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 cups bread flour

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1-2 roasted red peppers

2 tsp yeast

1 tbsp sugar

1 egg white

2 tsp water

Place egg, milk, oil, sugar, salt, flour, sunflower seeds, red peppers, and yeast in bread machine. Set for "dough."

When dough is ready, remove from bread machine and punch down. Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll pieces into balls, then pinch in middle to make a hole and roll around in your hands until it is bagel-shaped. Cover and place in a warm spot to rise for 15-30 minutes.

Bring 2 quarts of water and 1 tsp sugar to a boil. Place bagels, a few at a time, in boiling water. Boil for 1 minute, then flip over and boil the second side for 3 minutes. Drain and place on pizza stone or baking sheet. Repeat for all bagels.

Combine water and egg white and whisk a little to froth it up. Brush over bagels. Bake at 400 F for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

Spinach-parmesan bagels

We made bagels for the first time on Saturday, and they were great! I used a bagel recipe from The Bread Machine Book and added some spinach and cheese. I was a little concerned that it wasn't a good idea to make flavored bagels for my first time making bagels, but they turned out great. I reduced the liquid in the recipe a tiny bit because the spinach was wet, but that was all I did. These bagels are really light with a chewy outside. I think the classic bagel is supposed to be pretty dense, but I'm no purist-these were great! The spinach flavor really comes through, so much that Jon suggests lowering the amount of spinach next time. I don't really get much of the cheese, so I might either increase or omit it next time.

We ate the first bagel hot out of the oven with a little butter. Then for lunch I had a bagel with cream cheese and roasted red pepper strips. I think these would be good for bagel sandwiches, too. I was really pleased with how well this recipe worked, and I even have a parmesan-roasted red pepper-sunflower seed batch in the breadmaker right now. I'm just sorry it took me so long to start making bagels.

Spinach-parmesan bagels

Makes 8.

4 oz spinach, or less to taste

1 egg

Scant 1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups bread flour

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 tsp yeast

1 tbsp sugar

1 egg white

2 tsp water

Wash spinach and steam with water on leaves until wilted. Cool, then wring out as much water as possible. We ended up with a scant 1/2 cup of cooked spinach.

Place egg, milk, oil, sugar, salt, flour, cheese, spinach, and yeast in bread machine. Set for "dough."

When dough is ready, remove from bread machine and punch down. Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll pieces into balls, then pinch in middle to make a hole and roll around in your hands until it is bagel-shaped. Cover and place in a warm spot to rise for 15-30 minutes.

Bring 2 quarts of water and 1 tsp sugar to a boil. Place bagels, a few at a time, in boiling water. Boil for 1 minute, then flip over and boil the second side for 3 minutes. Drain and place on pizza stone or baking sheet. Repeat for all bagels.

Combine water and egg white and whisk a little to froth it up. Brush over bagels. Bake at 400 F for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

A tale of two pizzas

Not much of a recipe here. I just like pizza and want to share two pizzas Jon and I made a while ago. Our dough recipe makes two pizzas' worth of dough, so we usually do two days of pizza at a time. In case you need it, the dough recipe is in this post.
The first pizza starts with an eggplant. An eggplant that we grew on our balcony.
We decided to do an eggplant pizza with mozzarella and tomatoes. The eggplant was small, so we sliced it very thinly to get as much of the pizza covered as possible. The seeds made an angel pattern in the middle of each slice.We brushed the eggplant slices on each side with some olive oil and broiled in the toaster oven until they were brown before layering them on the pizza with tomato and mozzarella slices.
Jon put some mushrooms on his half before it went into the oven. After baking for about 20 minutes, it was done.
We scattered some basil on it right after it came out of the oven. Yum! The eggplant slices were good, although all the other goodies probably diluted the eggplanty awesomeness.

The next night we had pizza again. This time we wanted to use up some eggplant-tomato sauce I had made earlier in the week. On a whim, Jon suggested putting some kale on top too. It was a brilliant idea! We put it on in the last five minutes or so of cooking. Jon's half, once again, has mushrooms on it. I elected just to go with just sauce, cheese, and kale. Kale dries out very quickly in the oven and gets a nice chewy consistency, with little patches of crunchiness near the curly ends of the leaves. And the flavor is concentrated by the oven. It works very well.

Focaccia!

Yesterday Jon and I made the rest of our pizza dough into tasty, tasty focaccia. I served it with a Caprese salad (tomato, mozzarella, basil, black pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar) and used the bread to sop up the tasty juice leftover from the salad. When that was gone, I switched to pouring olive oil and balsamic vinegar onto the bread. Probably not the healthiest meal I could make, but it was delicious. I have a real weakness for bread dripping with good olive oil. Jon and I just switched to a better EVOO (he hates it when I use Rachael Ray-isms), and it made a real difference. For the record, it's Iliada brand. In case you were wondering about the weird tomato distribution, Jon wanted to try it, but I wanted to take a more minimalist approach.

Focaccia:
1/2 recipe pizza dough
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 thin slices yellow or white onion, separated into rings and chilled or soaked in cold water*
1 tsp coarse salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
tomato slices, if desired

Preheat oven to 400 F. Sprinkle pizza stone with cornmeal. Roll or toss or otherwise stretch pizza dough into a round that's a little thicker than you would make for pizza. Brush with olive oil, distribute onion rings on dough, and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for 15 minutes. Add garlic, rosemary, and tomato and cook for 3-5 minutes more, until crust is turning golden. Tear off pieces and drown them in olive oil.

*Chilling the onion rings or soaking them in cold water will keep them from burning too quickly in the oven. You could also put them on later. I used part of an onion that had already been cut and was being stored in the fridge, so I didn't do anything special.

Pizza!

I made pizza from scratch for the first time yesterday. I love pizza. It is easily my favorite food, but it's always seemed like too much work to do at home. Now that I have the bread machine, however, I decided to give it a try. I would start earlier next time because the pizza dough cycle is 55 minutes long and it has to rest another 30 minutes after that, but other than that it was really easy. Plus, the dough recipe makes enough for two crusts. We are having either another pizza or making focaccia tonight for dinner. I went with the basic white pizza crust for my first time, but I am planning on experimenting with whole wheat and maybe even other grains in the future. I had some eggplant-tomato sauce leftover from pasta on Saturday, so that was the sauce we used. You can see in the picture that the basil got pretty wilted. I will probably put it on at the very end next time, as I indicate in the recipe. We ate this out by the pool with St. Arnold's Spring Bock and a bulgur salad, which Jon might post about later.

Evelyn's first pizza recipe:
1/2 recipe of pizza dough* or prepared pizza dough
cornmeal for the pizza stone
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup eggplant-tomato sauce**
2 small-ish balls of fresh mozzarella, sliced
black pepper
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
10 leaves fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Roll or toss the pizza into a nice round. Mine wasn't that round. Oh well. Sprinkle cornmeal on pizza stone and transfer the dough to the stone. If you've got a pizza peel, you'll probably do a better job than I did. Brush dough with olive oil and then with tomato sauce. Place cheese rounds on top of pizza and bake for about 15 minutes. Add black pepper and parmesan and cook until parmesan is slightly brown, about 5 more minutes. Remove from oven and throw the basil leaves on. Enjoy responsibly so as not to burn your tongue on molten cheese.


*Pizza dough recipe (from bread machine manual):
1 cup tap water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp powdered milk
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast (I used 2 tsp because I have old, stale yeast)

Put the ingredients in the bread machine and set it for "pizza dough". Wait 55 minutes and retrieve the dough. Put it in a large bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Wait 30 minutes.

**Eggplant-tomato sauce recipe (I made this one up, so amounts are my best estimates):
1 tbsp olive oil, not extra-virgin
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 lb eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 tsp Italian seasoning (or a blend of any or all of the following: basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, rosemary)
1/4 cup red wine
1 14-oz can whole tomatoes with juice
black pepper

Saute onion, garlic, and eggplant over medium heat until onion starts to turn translucent. Add pepper and Italian seasoning and cook until eggplant is soft. Add red wine and let it simmer for about a minute. Add tomatoes. If your tomatoes are salt-free, add maybe a teaspoon of salt. Otherwise, they have enough salt. Cook for a few minutes so the sauce reduces slightly. Transfer to a blender or food processor, or use an immersion blender, to puree the sauce. Add black pepper to taste. This recipe probably makes 2 cups of sauce.

Whole wheat pumpkin seed bread

I made a third loaf of bread in the bread machine the other day: whole wheat pumpkin seed bread. Once again, I increased the yeast, and it rose a lot more than the first loaf. It wasn't as tall as the white loaf, and I think next time I make it, I'll add some gluten. I have heard that just adding a couple tablespoons of gluten to wheat bread dough can make it a lot lighter. This bread was delicious, especially fresh from the machine slathered in butter. Most of the pumpkin seeds were ground up pretty well, but there are enough to give a little texture to the bread. It is slightly sweet but would probably still make good savory sandwiches. I haven't tried yet. I've just been toasting it and spreading some butter on it. Predictable but delicious. It uses milk instead of water, and I have whole milk in the fridge right now, so it's not a low-calorie bread by any stretch, but it's probably just as good with skim milk. The recipe came from the instruction manual for the bread machine.

I'm having one problem with homemade bread. Well, two problems. The first is that it's so delicious that I'm eating way more bread than I usually do. But that's not a bad problem. The second is that I'm terrible at slicing it. That's the reason I haven't made sandwiches with it yet. I end up with a lot of slices that are too thin to have any structural integrity and a few that are way too thick to use for sandwiches. I've just been slicing as I go along, and I wonder if it might be better to slice it all at once when it's cooled most of the way. Is that a good idea? Any slicing tips?

Whole wheat pumpkin seed bread:
1 3/8 cups milk
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp honey
1 tbsp dry milk
1 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp yeast (I increased to 2 tsp)
3 tbsp pumpkin seeds

Put it in the machine and cook on the large whole wheat loaf setting.

The mixing paddle got stuck in the loaf.

2nd bread machine loaf: a success!

Yay! My second loaf of bread machine bread rose and tasted fantastic! I made a white yogurt bread. Because I am ridiculous and cheap, I elected not to buy new yeast and instead increased the yeast. I used 2 3/4 tsp instead of the 2 tsp in the recipe. In order to increase my chances of success, I also decided to go with a white loaf and didn't use the delay timer. I will branch out a little more now that I know that success is very possible. I may have used too much yeast, as the bread is a little spongy, but it really is delicious, so I am not at all disappointed. The recipe is from the instructions that came with the bread machine (Hitachi D-102).

1/2 cup tap water
1 cup plain yogurt
3 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tsp dry yeast (I increased to 2 3/4 tsp)

Put ingredients in breadmaker in the order suggested by the manufacturer (in my case, in the order shown above). Press "Start".

1st bread machine loaf

My mom let me have her old bread machine when I went back to Dallas last weekend. Yesterday it was time for the first batch of bread. Jon and I both thought the onion dill rye bread sounded easy and good, so I decided to make that. I bought bread flour and rye flour at the store, read and reread the bread machine instructions and recipe, and finally assembled the bread. Since it was 8:30 by that time and I was not going to stay up until after midnight for the bread, I put it on a delay so it would be ready at 8 this morning. I didn't sleep all that well because I was so excited about the bread, and around 7:40 I could smell the bread. When I went to the kitchen to peek in, I was a little surprised by how short the loaf was. And when it was done cooking and I took it out, it was clear that it hadn't risen nearly as much as it should have. It is pretty dense, although definitely not inedible. I am disappointed in the rise, but now I can have fun figuring out how to make the next one better.

Here are some theories I have, from most to least likely:
1) Maybe the yeast isn't fresh enough. It says best by January 2009, and it also says to use it within four months of opening. I probably bought it in 2006 or 2007, so clearly it is expired on two counts. However, it appeared healthy when I proofed it in some warm water this morning. Proposed solution: buy new yeast. Alternate proposed solution: increase the amount of yeast since it doesn't appear to be completely dead and may just be a bit less effective. I might try the alternate solution first so I don't have to buy new yeast.
2) Maybe the yeast didn't stay dry long enough. If the yeast touches the water too soon, it will start to bubble and give off gas before it's supposed to, and it won't get trapped in the gluten and make my bread big and strong. Even though I carefully put the yeast on top of the dry ingredients, which were on top of the water, maybe the delay was too long and the yeast got wet. Proposed solution: don't use the delay setting.
3) I used the whole wheat setting, which has an extra rise cycle in it. The recipe didn't come from the bread machine manual, and while the rye is a whole grain, it also white bread flour. Maybe the second rise isn't good for that recipe. I don't know whether having the second rise for whole wheat bread is standard. Proposed solution: use the white bread setting.
4) Maybe the room was too humid. I hope this is not the case because I don't want to have to modify all my recipes for humidity. I will only entertain this option if the first three fail. Proposed solution: Decrease water slightly.
5) The bread machine hasn't been used in at least five years, so maybe it isn't calibrated right or had trouble adjusting to being used again. Proposed solution: make more bread?

The scientist in me wants to try each solution separately and then combine them if results look promising, but the person in me who doesn't want to waste a lot of ingredients on inferior bread wants to try all the solutions at once to give herself the best chance of success.

The bread is tasty, especially toasted with butter. Then again, what isn't?