bagel nation

Over the weekend I was in a rather crafty mood. I haven't made anything recently and I also didn't cook last week. (Not even once - sheesh, I'm a bad wife) So this weekend I was really needing to get some creative juices flowing, and decided to make bagels. Well, I really wanted to make doughnuts, but Jeff and I have also been trying to cut back on the calories lately and doughnuts do not really fit into that scheme. Sadly. But bagels seemed like a fun replacement. I was surprised at how easy it was. They are very similar to normal bread dough, so I used my kitchenaid mixer, and then rolled them out into bagel-shaped...well...bagels. I learned that bagel comes from either german or yiddish and means either "stirrup" or "round loaf of bread." Or according to the Southern Living cookbook "water doughnut." "Round loaf of bread," though, is not a very creative name, and I'm not sure I trust the fact checkers at Southern Living since I couldn't corroborate "water doughnut." So I like "stirrup" the best, especially since mine looked a lot more like stirrups than something perfectly round. After they are rings, you boil them briefly in water (or "bole 'em" if you live in these parts) and then bake them for about 15 minutes. I put cinnamon in the dough and then mixed raisins into half and chocolate chips into the other half. I have yet to eat a chocolate chip bagel, but the cinnamon raisin tasted really good. Not too tough, but nicely chewy. A very bagel-y bagel.