Olives, Bagels, and SNOWTOBER

So for those of you who didn't know, New England had the most snow ever in October in 140 years. Typically, a little bit of snow is not such a big deal, but the problem with snow in October is that it was heavy, damp snow and the trees still had all of their leaves. The snow started around 4 pm on Saturday, and continued into Sunday morning. Aj and I were out shoveling our driveway around 10 at night and all around us we could just hear trees snapping. The leaves gave the snow something extra to grab onto, and the heavy weighted snow just became too much for the limbs, and they took out tons and tons of power lines.

Many people think losing power is "fun" and "rustic" and believe me I think the same thing...for the first day. Sure it's fun to heat up soup on your little propane burner and have a nice warm fire in the fireplace. Only... when it's in the 20s outside and all you have are duraflame logs that you picked up at the last minute (thank goodness) and the light you are reading by starts to go down with the sun.... well it's not so awesome then. Because you'll find that you need light to do things. Light to play board games. Light to read. Light to make food. Light to go down into the basement and let the dogs out. And it continues to get cold cold cold and you worry about your food spoiling because even though it is cold you're not sure it's THAT cold. So we were relieved to get power back on Tuesday night. On the down side, the Nashua Used Book Superstore that I am currently overseeing didn't get power back until Friday, and no amount of harassing Public Service of New Hampshire made it come back any faster. BUT the snow is MOSTLY melted at this point and now it's November, so snow is acceptable and even expected. But snow in OCTOBER? Starting things off a little early this year, huh New England?

Right before the storm Aj and I had gone to the grocery store and spent about $100 on mostly perishable goods, but luckily everything (even our milk) stayed good! Taking Aj to the grocery store is fun, but also a bad idea. While we were there he got into a conversation with the Deli lady and ended up buying stuffed grapeleaves. Needless to say he didn't like them and they ended up in the trash after a couple of days. But he did also pick up some cream cheese and green olives to make what is simply called "Cream Cheese and Olive" --- I did a little research and this appears to have been a popular thing in the 70s and 80s, and many people in the area had it on sandwiches as kids. I had never heard of it before I moved up here and met Aj's family, but it was something he remembered and loved from his childhood, so he made it. It's essentially half a jar of chopped pimento stuffed green olives, about 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive juice, and a box of cream cheese. It's actually very good, especially on Ritz crackers. I also ate an excessive amount of it on saltines. And one morning I had some on an everything bagel with Lox ...well...that was just overwhelming and way too strongly flavored, but otherwise it's really good! Perhaps another addition to my New England Food Knowledge, aka NEFK.

Over Christmas they also make this Velveeta and Olive spread that, by all rights, should be disgusting but is addictive. All I know is it involves Velveeta, mayonnaise and olives and probably is straight fat but is super delicious and only made at holidays, so it is OK. Any other time of the year you ask me to combine Velveeta and mayo and I will probably punch you in the face, but at Christmas time I suppose my taste buds and food sensibilities are a little more charitable.

So after we defeated Snowtober and moved on to the next level (aka got our power back) I wanted to make dinner. I ended up making another one of those "what have you got in the fridge?" pasta dishes last night that involved pancetta, garlic, shallots, the rest of that jar of green olives, cream cheese and smoked Gouda with farfalle. It was quite tasty. I know my pictures suck, but I keep taking them with my phone. Just imagine they look better than they do and we'll be all set. Anyway, this was a very tasty meal. I continue to encourage "what have you got in the fridge?" pasta.

And today, since I had the day off from work at the bookstore, and was doing freelance writing from home, I decided not only to do laundry (!!!!) but also to make BAGELS. That's right people, YOU can make bagels. This is miraculous information, I know. Sure, we all thought bagels were pre-made by gnomes at Pepperidge Farm and Panera and distributed throughout America, but we were wrong. Bagels can be made by HUMANS. So now that we've gotten that out of the way, I will tell you this was my second adventure making bagels. The first time Katie and I did it start to finish by hand, and we've been wanting to make bagels again for quite a while, but this time I invited her over and we used my bread machine to make the dough for us.

The problem with a drafty New England house is that is ...well.. drafty. (No, the problem is not that it is in New England, sorry.) Drafts are the enemy of rising bread, but an enclosed bread maker gives your dough a perfect first rise, and I am fully willing to sacrifice the 2 hours and 20 minutes it would have taken me to mix, knead, and rise the dough by hand for the sake of ease a bread maker offers and the ability to go off and do other stuff. Bread makers are awesome and you will never hear me say otherwise. So you put the ingredients into the bread maker, wait, do other stuff, hear the beep of the bread maker and take out the dough, then shape it and boil it and cover it in toppings and bake it and BAM, best bagels of your life. Seriously Katie and I could not stop eating these delicious treats. Now, I will make no claims to being a bagel connoisseur but these were legitimately the best bagels I've ever had, and Aj liked them just as much. Here is the recipe, adapted from this one based on some of the posted comments. You do need a bread machine for this, though you could probably adapt it if you don't have one.

Best Bagels of Your Life

• 1 1/8 C. of water at 110°F (this is pretty warm. I always measure the temperature with a candy thermometer)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 3 C. bread flour
• 1 packet rapid rise yeast (2 1/2 tsp)
• Egg whites for glazing
• 3 Quarts boiling water
• 1 Tbsp cornmeal
• Toppings

1. In the bread machine, put the water, salt, sugar, bread flour, and yeast in in the order recommended in your bread machine. Put it on the dough function and walk away.
2. When the dough is finished with its first rise (the machine will beep or let you know somehow) take the dough out gently and lay it onto a flat, lightly floured surface. Let it rest for about 5 minutes, and then divide the dough into 8 pieces. I rolled it into a log and sliced gently to make the divisions and then tore the pieces off.
   
3. Lightly flatten the dough into plump discs and poke your thumb through the center, gradually spinning the dough in your hand until the centers are about 3/4s of an inch to 1 inch in diameter.
   
4. Lay the dough rings out on the floured surface and cover with a clean cloth. Let sit for 30 minutes.
   
5. Around the 20 minute mark, begin to heat up the 3 quarts of water to boiling. The original recipe recommends putting 3 Tbsp of white sugar into the water at this point, but I forgot to do that and so I don't know what kind of difference it makes.
   
6. When the water is boiling and the dough rings have risen for 30 minutes, put the dough rings 2 at a time into the water, letting them boil for 30 seconds on each side. Take them out and place them on a clean cloth to drain slightly. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
   
7. Transfer them to a baking sheet with cornmeal scattered along the bottom and brush them lightly with the egg white.
8. Put your toppings on. We used Pepperjack cheese, and a thick cinnamon sugar mixture made with natural cane sugar.
9. Bake for 18 to 25 minutes, keeping an eye on the bagels after the 15 minute mark and waiting until they are pleasantly golden before removing. If you made a sugar/cinnamon one, eat it warm with ample cream cheese.
   

If you want to mix in raisins or jalapenos, etc. you would do this during stage 2, before you form the dough into the bagels. I am not sure how heavily kneading the extra ingredients into the dough would affect the bagels, but hopefully they would rise the same. We plan to try to mix in some raisins to our next batch.

PICTURED: Pepperjack cheese bagel.