Bagels

As a cost saving effort, and something to do all winter, I started making homemade bread and bagels. I’m happy to say we haven’t bought bread since last December. Hopefully my family is also happy to say that ;) The bread is pretty simple since I have a bread machine. I put in the ingredients, set the machine to “dough” and wait for 1hr 3min. When it beeps I put the dough into bread pans, let it rise an hour or so, then stick it in the oven for half hour. A little time consuming, but we don’t get out much these days anyway :)

The kids eat a lot of bagels, so I thought I’d give that a shot too. Bagels have proven to be more of a project than bread. It took a few tries, but I think I’ve found an awesome recipe. One of my problems with baking is that I’m not very precise and don’t tend to do the same thing twice (clearly not very scientific), so my outcomes are pretty hit or miss. This recipe has consistently come out good, despite my variations :) I’ve added frozen blueberries to it, cinnamon and raisins, cranberries, etc. Put the extra ingredients in right at the beginning and test it after the first knead cycle to
make sure there’s enough flour (I often miss this step). Anyway, give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

BAGELS
From “The Best Bread Machine Cookbook Ever” by Madge Rosenberg
Yield: 8
bagels

Dough
1 1/2 tsp active
dry yeast
2 cups bread flour (I often do 1/2 bread flour, 1/2 whole wheat flour)
1 1/2 tbsp
sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup water
1 tbsp barley malt syrup (I got mine at King Arthur Flour)

Toppings
2 tbsp poppy seeds, sesame seeds, kosher salt, or minced onion (or everything
bagel topping, also from King Arthur Flour
)

Instructions
1. Add all ingredients for the dough except the barley malt syrup in the order suggested by your bread machine manual and process on the dough cycle according to the manufacturer’s directions.

2. At the end of the dough cycle, remove the dough from the machine. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a
large pot bring 2 quarts of water to a boil.

3. While the water comes to a boil, divide the dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a rope 12 inches long. Make a
circle of each piece, overlapping the ends by at least an inch and pressing or rolling the overlap tightly to seal. Let the
bagels rise for only 5 minutes. (I prefer the “roll into a ball and make a hole in the center” method of shaping bagels.)

4. Add the malt syrup to the boiling water. (The syrup gives the bagels their golden crust.) Lower a few bagels at a time into the boiling water. As soon as the bagels rise to the top, remove with a skimmer or spatula to a lightly greased baking sheet. Sprinkle about 3/4 tsp of any of the toppings over each bagel and bake 20 minutes or until golden.
(I let them boil for 30 seconds to a minute because mine seem to rise to the top immediately. Feel free to experiment!)

Update

Eve woke up this morning way too early.
Lex got up a few minutes later, then Alan a few minutes after
that. We all went downstairs and Eve cried and cried for no
apparent reason. Alan generously suggested I go lay down with
her, so we both went back to bed and slept until 9:00am!!! It
was awesome. Eve still wasn’t 100% though, very fussy and
clingy and slow. Alan took Lex to the science museum to play
while Eve and I stayed home. I debated about taking her to the
museum too, because she hasn’t been out in awhile either, but
I’m glad we didn’t go! She ended up throwing up again (the
water, Ginger Ale, and crackers from Saturday) and barely
stayed awake until noon. After a long nap she woke up still
tired and clingy. So we cuddled for the afternoon. I broke out
the Ergo carrier again (Love that thing!!), which I haven’t
used in a very long time and she got her mommy time. She was
back in bed at 6:00pm for the night. Hopefully tomorrow brings
a healthier girl!

Our afternoon

Posted by Picasa

Well, I wish
this was our afternoon. In reality it was only about 5 minutes.
The rest was spent with Lex running around like a wild man (I
realized he hasn’t been out of the house in many, many days!),
Eve trying to keep up with him, and me trying to settle them
both down so she wouldn’t throw up! Although I had little
success settling them (except when I turned the TV on!) we were
more lucky with the throw up, or lack thereof. She had no
appetite all day, which is unusual for her, but she managed to
keep down the Ginger Ale and a few crackers. She also took a 4
1/2 hr nap (!!!!) and went to bed easily tonight. I’m going to
call today a success and try for more activity and less TV
tomorrow :)

Sick baby

We’ve had good fortune in the “sick baby”
department with both kids and last night made me really aware
and appreciative of that! Eve was a bit cranky for most of
yesterday and I assumed she was tired from the day before. She
took an early nap and I prepared her (both of them… ok, all
of us!) for an early bedtime. At 6:30pm I carried her upstairs
for bed and she threw up all over me, herself, the carpet at
the top of the stairs, the bathroom, the bathtub, etc. Lex came
up to see what was going on and started gagging a bit. I
immediately sent him back downstairs! She threw up several more
times that night and ended up falling asleep on my lap, bucket
in her lap, while Alan and I watched TV in the dark. I couldn’t
get her settled in bed because every time she started crying
she’d throw up. So falling asleep to The Daily Show seemed like
a good alternative. She threw up two more times during the
night and twice more this morning. After the first two
stomach-emptying episodes, the rest have been fairly mild.

She’s such a trooper though! She’s a
little shaken each time and ends up clamy and ghostly white,
but after a minute she recovers and is her old happy self
again. I don’t think she cried once during the whole thing
(except when I tried to put her to bed!) I spent this morning
trying to keep her still so her stomach wouldn’t get jostled.
We watched a lot of TV today! Lex is pretty happy :) I feel bad
for him though because I’ve pretty much ignored him since 6:30
last night. He gagged twice when he came to “check on Eve” and
saw throw up, and apparently decided he no longer needed to
check on Eve :) Smart boy!

Now she is
sleeping (super easy and early nap!), he’s having his quiet
time and I am hoping for a calmer afternoon.

Bathing beauties

Julie and Molly came up to visit this
week. We had a fun little visit. Lex no longer likes to bathe
with Eve (really he no longer likes baths at all, but when
forced to take one he chooses to do so without Eve), so we
decided to put Molly in with Eve instead. Eve was a little
resistant at first, insisting it was her bath and
her toys,
but after a minute she started handing Molly toys, one at a
time, and eventually even turned around to look at Molly. I
think they both had fun.



More diapers?

Eve seems to have forgotten
that she was potty training. She went from being really good at
it to just not caring. Not only does she no longer tell me when
she has to go, but she stopped telling me when she DID go!
After a few yucky surprises I stuck her back in diapers for a
few days. I know she’s still really young and I keep telling
myself that this could take awhile, but I was secretly excited
to not have to buy diapers any more :) Oh well. I bought her
some new potty treats (yes, I bribe her with candy) and maybe
that will help. Or not, we’ll see.

Birthday Gymnastics

We went to a birthday party today at the
local gymnastics place. It was fun. Lex was excited about it
all day, but when the time came I had to tempt him with the
idea of birthday cake to actually get him out the door. They
both had fun, in their own ways. Here is a funny picture of Eve
and our friend Ezra sharing a chair. They sat next to each
other eating pizza, but when the cake came Eve took front and
center! (really Ezra
didn’t want any cake, but you’d never know it from this
picture)

One step forward, one step back

Potty training is such a funny process.
Eve does really well, most of the time. She has accidents on
occasion and I can usually understand why (we’re in the grocery
store with tons of stuff going on, for example). Yesterday she
even choose to nap in her bed with underwear on (her option
each day is that or the pack-n-play with a diaper). She had a
good nap and woke up dry! I was amazed. She’s in the bed again
with underwear napping now, so we’ll see how she does this
time.

Then other times she seems to
forget that she’s potty training. I was trying to cook dinner
the other night and she peed her pants three times! Each time I
put her on the toilet and she peed more. The second time I was
surprised and by the third time I couldn’t even fathom where
all this pee was coming from! Sometimes she gets really upset
when she has an accident and other times she doesn’t seem to
care. This morning she walked into the bathroom where I was
doing laundry and said “I pooped in underwear.” All casual
like, no big deal. Sure enough she did and it was messy (good
thing I was doing laundry!)

You gotta be
cool about it, but sometimes I find myself wondering what’s
going on in her head. Maybe she did just forget about the potty
thing, or was distracted and it snuck up on her, or whatever. I
usually end up just saying “Oh, Eve.” and she shakes her head
and says “No pee underwear” (a little self reminder) and we
clean things up. It’s a funny process.

Just a quick hello

I think of lots of fun and exciting things
to blog about during the day, but then I always forget them by
the time I get to my computer. As part of my efforts to stay
sane I’ve started turning off the computer during the day and
only turning it on when they are napping or at night. It keeps
us all a bit happier, and that’s important in these long winter
days! So I have nothing exciting to tell you tonight, but here
area few photos.

This is what we do for fun in our house. Climb up,
wiggle around, climb down. Good times! Sometimes Lex brings his
blanket up with him and waves it around. Then he tells me how
his blanket is just like the wind :) But today it was just
climbing.
Time for teeth! (his haircut looks particularly
silly in this picture)

Crazy house

After good naps from both kids we are
having a late, and silly, evening. Lex wanted to turn off all
the lights in the house and play with the wind-up flashlight
that Alan got him a few weeks ago, so after bath we cleaned the
living room and read stories by flashlight light. It was silly.
And Lex keeps repeating a line from Toy Story 2 (he watched a
bit this morning) and cracking himself up, which in turn cracks
the rest of us up. Alan snuck up on us in the dark while we
were reading stories and scared everyone. Eve grabbed the
flashlight and became a warrior, pointing the light and giving
a very impressive battle cry! Plain silliness all around!

I seem to have lost my quotes bar down the
side (I’ll see about finding it again someday), but here’s a
good one from this morning. “Mom, I love you when you are
making me food,” said Lex as I made him oatmeal for breakfast.
I guess I know my place in his heart. I kissed him on the head
and told him that I love him always.