The start of a long process! Bagels. Here, I had to mix water, yeast, sugar together with a mixer and then let it sit until it was frothy. Brought back memories of my ill fated trip with sourdough.

Kneaded. This dough is suppose to be harder than normal, which it was. Stiff dough, but smooth dough.

Getting my pot of water with sugar ready to boil.

Perfectly risen. I used a trick I heard about; turn your oven on for just about 30 seconds, turn it off, and let the dough rise in the overn. Worked well I thought.

Bagels rolled and pinched together. This was actually a lot of fun to do.

Then I had to boil the bagels for 30 seconds on each side. ?? Different.

The most picture perfect bagel that I produced. I had a bit of discontent with the way the recipe was written. It called for cornmeal, by the time all my bagels were ready to bake, I realized I hadn't used the cornmeal. So I read and read again, it never told me what to do with it. ?? Then I figured it out. When you take bagels out of boiling water, your to put them on an oiled sheet - Im 100% sure that this is where you then sprinkle the conrmeal all over the sheet so the bagels don't stick after the first 5 minutes of baking - because you bake for 5 minutes, take them out of oven, flip them over, and then bake for another 30-35 minutes.

My first batch stuck to the pan something aweful and didn't look so hot when they were done. But all in all, I was ok with the recipe. They were really good when they hot but once they cooled, they got kind of hard on the outside. They also didn't come out as thick as I wanted them. I do think that I will be looking into different recipes for these and keep trying til' I get one that I'm truly happy with.

This is part of dinner. Spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and walnuts.

Chicken with vegetables. Boiled in oil and water, I added some cornstarch and soy sauce to thicken the water and oil and it made a nice thin sauce. Served over white rice.

I also made a small pot of very basic miso soup so we all had a small bowl with dinner. I used a lot more paste this time and got the full affect of the miso flavor.