Second time’s a charm

I found a recipe to make bagels. My first clue should have been when the recipe raved about how simple it was to make bagels. Simple = a disaster in my world, usually. I especially liked the fact that the bagels could be started at night and finished the next morning. “Retard”ing the dough is what it called. What it made me feel like when they didn’t come out correctly was another definition for the word. Not one to be discouraged (okay, I am one to be discouraged and to pout because my bagels came out looking like shriveled old men) I decided to give it another try, without the “retarding”, rather making the bagels straight through in one pass. These are the results, quite nice to look at and tasty also.

Here’s the recipe for the bagels adapted from The Fresh Loaf:

Ingredients:

7 3/4 cups of bread flour

1 1/2 t. yeast

2 1/2 c. warm water

1 T. malt syrup

1 1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. citric acid

1 T. baking soda (for boiling water)

Toppings of your choice

1 egg beaten and mixed with 1 t. water

Starter:

Combine 4 cups of bread flour, 2 1/2 cups of warm water and 1 t. yeast. Mix together, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for two hours.

Combine risen starter with:

• 3 3/4 cups bread flour
• 1/2 t. yeast (her recipe called for instant I used regular and no worries)
• 2 3/4 t. salt
• 1/2 t. citric acid (original recipe didn’t call for this, but I think it gives the bagels a sour twinge)
• 1 T. malt syrup (honey or 2 t. malt powder can be substituted)

Mix all ingredients together with a mixer. The first time I tried doing it by hand and it didn’t mix well enough since this is a really, really dry dough. Knead until all ingredients are mixed into a smooth ball. Divide into twelve equal balls that should weigh about 4 ounces each (I wound up with 14 on this batch and 13 the first time around – go figure). Cover the balls with a damp cloth and let rest for 20 minutes.

After twenty minutes take parchment and line cookie sheets. Take each ball, in turn, and poke a hole in it, twirl it about your fingers to create the bagel hole. Place on the parchment lined cookie sheet and repeat until all bagels are formed. Cover with plastic wrap or place in a plastic garbage bag and let rise for another 20 minutes.

While the bagels are doing their final 20 minute rise, bring a pot of water to a boil. Add 1 T. baking soda to it (the recipe says this helps to mimic the water of NYC bagel shops) Also preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

After twenty minutes are up, the bagels have to be briefly boiled and then baked. Place bagels one at a time into the boiling water. After 30 seconds, flip the bagel, wait another 30 seconds and remove. Place bagels back on parchment paper which you have now sprinkled with cornmeal. Repeat with each bagel. This is also the time to sprinkle the bagels with any toppings you might want. I did plain, salt and black sesame seeds.

I mixed one beaten egg with a teaspoon of water and brushed that on my plain bagels. It gave them a nice shine.

Place bagels into the pre-heated oven. I used a pizza stone since it was already in there, nice and hot. I slid the parchment sheet right onto the pizza stone. Bake for about 15 minutes, test for doneness. They should sound hollow when knocked on. Remove from oven and enjoy.

Putting it all in perspective

This past week has been hectic – this weekend has been no exception. We have three boys and they all seem to be doing different things in different places. I feel like I spend the better part of my life lately in the car, driving someone to someplace or picking someone up from someplace or waiting for someone. In between there has been cooking and doing laundry for those same someones. I was just cooking dinner for those same kids (well, and us too) and grumbling about how this whole day has been spent either dropping kids off or picking kids up – or at least so it seems.

I came in here and picked up my computer to see a tweet that a boy from Colchester (a young man actually, he’s 24) who had bone cancer and was due to marry his high school sweetheart in a couple months, died from his cancer. A smack in the side of the head – God telling me to quit my griping and enjoy my children and my life. I thankfully have healthy children that can be pains in the butt, but the alternative – well is just unthinkable. I am grateful. I promise not to complaint – at least for the remainder of today.

A beautiful day for a walk

with the goats. We took them on a walk through the woods since they have been cooped up until we put up their new fencing. They loved it, but it reinforced that I cannot take them skiing with me. I would wind up on the ground more than on the skis. The goats like to walk in front and on the side of you. They keep changing their minds as to which way they like it better.

We were quite amused at their attention to us. We stopped and much like the game Red Light, the goats would stop and wait. Pretty amusing stuff. A good afternoon.

Dessert

Just a picture. It says it all.

Music to my ears

Yesterday, our youngest son spent his entire day at the Rutland Intermediate School with the rest of the students chosen for the Green Mountain District Music Festival. They practiced and practiced and practiced some more. Tim was chosen for middle school chorus. He spent the day with kids that he know but a lot that he never met. He sang and laughed and ate (they did manage to feed them, and quite well he said) and then they all dressed up in the black and white best and performed last night for a packed auditorium. There was the high school orchestra, the jazz ensemble, the string orchestra and the middle school chorus. These kids were awesome – all of them. The music and the performances were great.

Best of all, he had a fantastic time. He left there at 9 o’clock last night – after spending 12 hours there, happy as can be with a grin from ear to ear. He talked about it all the way home. It was a good day for him and a good performance for the audience.

A little math

Image via Wikipedia

Math is one of those things – it seems like you get it or you don’t. For some people, math problems might as well be Greek or gibberish – it doesn’t make any sense to them. For others, it comes as easy as second nature. In my own family, I have one son to whom math is the easiest thing ever- answers roll off his tongue with little or no effort and two others for whom the word “math” is considered a four-letter word and strikes their hearts with fear.

Apparently, this dichotomy is not just affecting my family, it is like a huge crater separating the math wizards from the math fearful.  Steven Strogatz, a Cornell applied mathematics professor, is putting together a series of articles about math for the everyday person, from pre-school to grad school. HIs goal is to make math more understandable to people so they can understand why the people who get math – get it and many of us just don’t, try as hard as we might.

His first installment and the article explaining the concept, entitled From Fish to Infinity can be found here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Take a Second Shot at Understanding Math (lifehacker.com)
• Math for non-experts (kottke.org)
• Steven Strogatz Writes About the Elements of Mathematics (downes.ca)

Take a deep breath

I am writing this literally as I am in between picking kids up and dropping kids off after having crammed something resembling lunch into my mouth. This week has been an exhausting schedule of doing this and doing that and going here and going there, with no semblance of rest on the horizon. Tomorrow promises to be just as hectic as today and sadly, the weekend is not looking much better.

This morning while I was walking out to the goat shed to feed them this was the view on the freshly fallen snow in our yard, which luckily has somewhat covered the Zamboni ice skating rink that we have called our driveway for the past few days. I went back inside and got the camera, went back across the field in the snow and took this picture. It is a peaceful scene and just looking at it makes me sit back and actually breathe. When I saw it, on my way to take care of the goats before we ran out for some before-work errands, I realized that you just have to take a minute here and there. I don’t think that I have had a chance to really sit down and relax and breathe in quite a few days.

ZenHabits has a post “How Not to Hurry”. I enjoyed reading it and I think that if you have the time, or can make the time, it’s well worth it.

Happy Woodchuck Day!

Image via Wikipedia

Here in Vermont they do not celebrate “Groundhog” Day, rather we celebrate Woodchuck Day or at least so I am told. Are they one in the same? Yes. Why the different name? Come on, we try to be different here.

The history of Woodchuck Day or Groundhog Day surrounds the Christian holiday of Candlemas.  Candlemas is the Christian festival of lights, marking the day halfway between the shortest day of the year and the spring equinox. It is the day in the Catholic church that the candles used for the rest of the year are blessed. Jewish tradition was that a woman who gave birth was secluded for 40 days. It is also known as the purification of Mary or the Presentation of Jesus to the Temple  - since traditionally both of these events take place 40 days after a woman gives birth.

Weather lore has it that German tradition indicated that if a burrowing animal saw its shadow on Candlemas Day, there would be six more weeks of winter. Here in Vermont I think that they must shine spotlights on the poor old woodchuck so he has no alternative but to see his shadow, since no one here is ready to give up the snow and winter…just yet.

There are a slew of sayings surrounding the association between the weather and Candlemas. According to the Stormfax website some of the sayings are:

According to the old English saying:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

From Scotland:

If Candlemas Day is bright and clear,
There’ll be two winters in the year.

From Germany:

For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day,
So far will the snow swirl until May.
For as the snow blows on Candlemas Day,
So far will the sun shine before May.

And from America:

If the sun shines on Groundhog Day;
Half the fuel and half the hay.

The sun is shining here in Vermont this morning – and I am guessing there are a lot of happy people out there right about now.

The groundhog or woodchuck that resides in Nova Scotia has seen its shadow so it’s safe to say that winter is here to stay… for a while at least.

The famous Punxsutawny Phil confirmed that winter is here for a while longer.

February facts

As I write this, it’s a brand new month – February and what’s not to like about a month that espouses flowers and chocolate as well as presents that are shiny and that four letter word – L O V E. It’s snowing outside our window, although there is no snow in the forecast and nothing on the radar which is another indication of how unique it is here where we live…our own personal weather patterns.

February is a pretty neat month – especially this year when the Winter Olympics start this Friday (Can you tell that we are big Winter Olympics fans around the T’s house?), Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, February school vacation in addition to your Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day.

February 1, 1790 was the first day that the United States Supreme Court convened for the first time ever and it is the day that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence. (Go Dudley Doright!)

February is American Heart Month, a great excuse to wear red to support a good cause.

A bagel debacle

I am such a perfectionist that I get angry with myself when something doesn’t go the way I expect. I decided that I wanted to try making bagels. The recipes that I found and the comments indicated that it was so easy and I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t try it before. Everything went well at first. The dough rose, it rested, we formed balls and then bagels and they rose and then we put them downstairs to chill. A combination of rising a little too much and really frigid temperatures last night turned my beautifully risen bagels into flat wrinkly things this morning. Deflated and disgusted ( me, not the bagels) I figured that maybe through some miracle they might re-inflate and turn into real bagels. Sadly, they boiled and baked and turned out like wrinkly compact bagel resembling things. So sad. They didn’t taste bad, they just look pathetic.

That makes two things that I am determined to master Kazan Dibi and bagels. Stay tuned.

BRRRR

Baby, it’s cold outside. The weatherlore about it being the coldest either immediately before or immediately after a January thaw is pretty accurate. At least this year, it is.  We have had temperatures in the zero to below zero range along with wind chills approaching -35. Today the high was supposed to be 8 degrees and while it might have hit that in Rutland, here on the hill the temperatures hovered around zero, give or take a degree.

I just came in from a walk (a rather brisk walk since it is so cold out) and tried to get Tyler to go with me. He insisted that he might freeze to death (highly unlikely when we were only walking 1/2 mile total) but he assured me that if I didn’t come back, he would assume that I had frozen to death and send his father, when he got home. Comforting, isn’t it?

A break of sorts

This weekend will be the first weekend since before Christmas that we don’t have anyone visiting with us. Somehow a house in Vermont and the winter with snow is like a magnet. We’re used to it so I’m not complaining. It’s just that we are so used to the flow of people, in and out of the house on a regular basis for more than a month, that when there’s one weekend -seemingly out of the blue- that we will have no out-of-state company, it seems odd. Notice that I said no “out-of-state” company. I specifically am not including the undoubted flow of children’s friends that will come to roost for all or part of the weekend. One of my oldest son’s friends who goes to school out of state is coming home for a birthday weekend and while the plans are to be at his house, plans change and well, you never know. Another child’s friend is the only boy and he finds the company of compatriots in our house entertaining.

The stoppage of company flow also doesn’t mean that it will be a quiet weekend. Oh, no my friend. Tonight there are guitar lessons, tomorrow more of the same and then Odyssey and then skiing with scouts. Then there is all the regular stuff – church, homework, chores. While absent company, certainly not lacking things to do.