Baking Experiments

This morning, while my daughter and our babysitting charge were happily playing and reading together, I made homemade bagels!

I have been wanting to try this for quite some time, but thought it would be too time consuming. Everytime I've looked at bagels in the store, they contain high fructose corn syrup. Well, making these took me a couple hours plus with interuptions and all, but it was pretty easy! I let my mixer do the kneading and that worked just fine. If you want to try them, give this recipe a shot.

The only issue I had was my cookie sheets. I thought about using the baking stone, but wasn't sure, so I decided to follow directions since it was my first time. I used one regular cookie sheet greased with butter, and one non-stick cookie sheet also greased with butter. They didn't stick to the regular one, but they did turn pretty brown after only 17 minutes when I flipped them (as directed). And on the non-stick one, they totally stuck and so they don't look very pretty on the bottom side. Hmm, maybe I'll try the baking stone next time. Or perhaps I should use one of these baking mats.

Anyways, overall I like how these bagels turned out. I love how fresh and chewy they are. Not dry at all. We (I) will totally eat them all. And you can make them normal size if you want - not like the giant calorie laden ones from the shops. My sister would be proud of my work. (She has worked at an "authentic" bagel shop as a dough-maker where they still boil the bagels, as in this recipe.)

I also made some of this yummy cream cheese and chive spread. My daughter and I had it for lunch on the freshly baked bagels. Mmm.

Question: Does anyone know the difference between green onions and chives? I thought they were the same thing! I just used green onions (aka chives to me).

I also want to try slicing a tomato on top, as in this recipe!

On another note, last week I finally made the Lemon Cream Pie, omitting the whipped cream. I loved the flavor; it was very tart! My husband was not as much of a fan, and said he prefers this Key Lime Pie.

If I were to make the lemon pie again, however, I would definitely use a graham cracker crust instead. I had used this pie crust recipe, since it calls for all butter and no Crisco. I turned out pretty good, but in my opinion a graham cracker crust would compliment the lemon flavor better.

P.S. The picture is of my chives/green onions that came with our produce last week. I think I may plant them in a pot so I can just snip some off when I need them again... that is if I don't kill them first.