slightly cooking: pizza bagels

I still have a bag of Udi's bagels in my freezer. I've tried using them up as much as I can, here and there. But I still had more!

Tonight I wanted to use up some tomatoes that have been sitting on the counter. The next logical step was pizza bagels.

And it's not really cooking, but at the end your belly's not hungry anymore and all you have to wash is a knife, a cutting board, and a plate. Dinner WIN.

Take a bagel. Toast it.

Top with sliced tomato. Cover up the hole so no toppings get lost.
Layer on fresh chopped basil and spinach leaves.
Sprinkle on pepper and oregano.
Sprinkle on shredded (or bits of) mozzarella cheese.

Broil for a few minutes-- watch it, because as soon as you walk away, they will burn.

Enjoy dinner.

it's still HOT here

I like how I'm starting to read about how it's turning into cooler, fall weather and people are making soups, chowders, and stews.

While here in Houston I'm sweating like crazy walking from class to class hoping my deoderant holds out, for the sake of the person who has to sit next to me.

Then I get home, defrost a bagel (best toasted), smear it with cream cheese and strawberry jam, and contemplate what to eat for real dinner. Using the oven does not appeal and there is a serious lack of ingredients in this place. Bean & cheese burritos are lookin' reallll good right about now. (btw, beans and corn [or rice] paired together supply all the amino acids our bodies do not produce. Not a complete protein, but good for you. This is good news for bean & cheese burritos.)

Meh, we'll see what I come up with.

Oh oh OH. Did you SEE when you clicked on the link above for bagels that they're coming out with graham crackers? And did you get as excited as I did? I thought so.

Another Gluten Free Bagel Recipe

The other bagel recipe that I tried made okay bagels, but was SO labor intensive. This one is much quicker. I get bagels in about 30 minutes as opposed to a few hours. And the bagel is more bagel-like.

It came from a cookbook: The Gluten-Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg. It's pretty basic, nothing fancy. But, seeing as how I'm a beginner it's perfect. I've gotten quite a few good recipes from it.

Bagels

1/3 c. warm milk
1 pkg yeast (I used quick rise)
1 t. sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. potato starch
3/4 c. cornstarch
[the recipe calls for this flour mix, but I used less corn and potato starch and added soy and tapioca flour.]
1 t. xanthan gum
1/4 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. cider vinegar

egg white, beaten

Put a pot of water on to boil for later. Add some salt.

Combine the sugar and milk, then add the yeast. Stir it all, then mix in the egg. Add everything else, and mix well to remove all of the lumps. It forms a pretty good ball, so it was hard to mix out all the lumps. I bet they'd be prettier if I had, but I don't know if it would affect the taste.

Roll into balls, then flatten out into disks. This is pretty easy because the dough is not overly sticky. Form a hole in the middle and plop them into boiling water for about 30 seconds each side.

Put them on a greased cookie sheet and brush the tops with egg white. Bake at 375 for 15-18 minutes.

So how are they? They taste more like "real" bagels. The texture is better and I'm pretty sure I'd make them again. Stay tuned for the "day-after" verdict...

*update*
pretty good the next day!

bagels + what to do with them

So I made these bagels and it was the first time I'd ever tried making anything even remotely similar to this. Yes the picture is crappy but I am an amateur at a lot of things.

Anyway it was actually kind of fun and they even turned out slightly bagel-like! They tasted pretty good, too. I had to convert the recipe from metric measurements, so these amounts are as close as I could figure.

Ingredients:

a little less than 1 c. rice flour

appx 1 1/4 c. tapioca flour

2 T. dry milk powder

1 3/4 t. xanthan gum

1 t. salt

1 T. sugar

2T. butter or margarine (other butter substitutes worked fine)

3 T. hot water

2 large egg whites

1 t. sugar for later

For yeast:

appx 6T. warm water

1 t. sugar

1 T. yeast

(the particular packet that I used was 2 1/4 t. yeast and called for 1/4 c. warm water but it still worked this way. I think next time I'll try it the way it is on the packet and see how it turns out)

Mix the flours, milk powder, xanthan gum, salt and sugar.

Dissolve the butter in the hot water. (I thought this was pretty dumb wording since oil does not dissolve in water and lo and behold-- it didn't! I combined the butter and water, then microwaved it at about 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each blast, until the butter was melted.)

Add the sugar to the warm water, then sprinkle the yeast on top. Let it sit for a few minutes until it's foamy.

Add the hot water/ butter mixture to the dry ingredients. They won't combine that well but do the best you can.

Add the egg whites, then the yeast mixture.

If you're using one of those fancy mixer things, set it at high for about 4-5 minutes. If you're like me and using a wooden spoon, mix it all real good for about 4-5 minutes. You will see a definite change in the texture as the lumps go away and it starts to look like bagel batter.

At this point, check the consistency and make sure it's not too runny or too dry. Add small amounts of rice flour or water until it's good.

Shape the dough into 6 or 8 bagel-shaped blobs of dough onto oiled and [rice] floured or parchment-covered cookie sheets. You will probably need liberal dustings of rice flour on your hands and the dough to keep everything from sticking. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and a dish towel and let them double in size (about an hour).

When they're ready, boil a saucepan full of water and add 1 t. sugar.

Boil the bagels for about 30 seconds on each side, place them on a cooling rack until they've dried a little, then put them back on the cookie sheet. Bake at 425 for 20-22 minutes.

I made one bagel into a pizza bagel by adding pasta sauce, some cheese and pepperoni and stuck it under the broiler for a few minutes. This morning I cooked up an egg, fried some ham and stuck that on a halved and toasted (very slightly or it will dry out) bagel with some cheese. You could always smear some cream cheese & jelly or that stuff called "lox" that I've heard is good on bagels. Quick and delicious.