Blueberry Bagels

A few weeks ago now, I made bagels for the first time.  It was something I had looked forward to trying both for the baking challenge and for pleasing my bagel loving daughter.  Choosing the flavor for my first bagel making adventure was easy--blueberry bagels are the Little Miss' favorite kind.  So during her first week of first grade I made these as a welcome home from school treat.  They were a big hit with everyone and were devoured within two or three days.  (Which is why there's only two in this picture! Ha!)  As with many things, we've decided homemade bagels are definitely better than store bought.  And I thought they were more fun too.

I found the recipe on this blog, but it originally comes from Peter Reinhart's book The Breadmaker's Apprentice, which I coincidentally gave my sister-in-law for Christmas.  She and I share a love for baking yeast breads.


After success with this blueberry version, I was looking forward to trying other flavors, but then kitchen tragedy struck!  A few days away from end of Shawn's moose-turned-caribou-hunt, my range became a glorified clock and counter space.  Yep, done.  No heat in the oven, no heat on the cook top.  So while we contacted the company regarding our 14 month old (grr!) range and waited for the repair company to fit us into their schedule, I got creative with my cooking.  I planned meals for the crock pot, rice cooker, and electric skillet.  Thank goodness I have an electric cook pot (that charcoal gray thing in the middle of the range cook top).  That thing was indispensable!

 

One thing I learned through this tragedy is that I'm a baker!  Thanks to my small electric appliances, I was still able to enjoy cooking and we ate quite well actually.  But I definitely missed the baking.  So much so that I used the oven in the kitchen at our church building not once, not twice, but three times during this fiasco.  I guess that goes to show you how much I enjoy baking.  It was almost as if it was physically impossible for me to go more than 3 days without baking something.

You know what the sad part about all this was?  The final thing I cooked in my oven before this tragedy was chicken nuggets!  AND I'm ashamed to say that chicken nuggets were the first thing I ever baked in this oven as well.  In my defense, this range was delivered about 3 days before my due date with the little babe so I wasn't baking up too many crazy things then.  And they were the all white meat nuggets from Costco, so there! :-)

I'm glad to say that my oven has now been repaired. And today, I fired up all the engines and made sure things were working well.  But trust me it wasn't with chicken nuggets.  Nope, this "second" inaugural run demanded something more illustrious.  So I pulled something from my recently beefed up "to bake" list and am quite pleased.  I plan to share the recipe on the blog in the future.  Very soon, I also plan to make another bagel variety.  The only problem now is decided on a flavor.  Any suggestions?