This and That

This week I continued experimenting with my KitchenAid stand mixer. It has to be the best Christmas gift I have ever received. I use the thing almost every day. Sampling all these delicious breads and baked goods, however, had me questioning myself. As good as they taste, all these delectable carbs can't be good for the waistline. My husband asks "What's the problem? Don't you enjoy baking? Don't you like the homemade goodness of fresh baked breads?" Of course I do. But I'm not my husband. I don't run 5 miles a day and do pull-ups for fun! So I decided it was time to start giving away my tasty creations. Immediately, I knew what to do: send them in for the Marines! It's win-win. I can keep baking and they can eat it. I can have my cake and (not) eat it too.
First, I made bagels. We love bagels around here, and I thought I'd try the famous Peter Reinhart's recipe for the perfect bagel. They were a lot more work than I thought. The results, however, were divine!

These babies were too tough for my mixer to knead. James had to do the kneading since my carpal tunnel couldn't handle it. I decided on cinnamon raisin (my favorite) and sesame seed (his favorite.) Here, they are ready to do a slow overnight rise in the fridge. 

The next morning, they were ready to boil. Who knew bagels were boiled? Not me! After being boiled they were baked on high heat for about 8 minutes. 

Here they are cooling. Once again, I am by no means a professional, but these bagels rivaled any bagel I've ever had from Dunkin Donuts! 

Later that night, we decided on homemade pizza for dinner. We had lots of cheese and random toppings left over from Christmas and New Year's snacks and wanted to use them up. The pizza dough was pretty straightforward; the recipe came from the KitchenAid users manual. Below is the finished product: 

I prefer a thin crust pizza, but this was good nonetheless! 

I wanted to try a couple of other recipes and decided to send those in for the Marines. First I made a yummy cinnamon swirl bread. 

I think I should have rolled the loaves a little tighter, but hopefully the mistakes were mild imperfections only I would notice. 

I wanted to make bagels again, but didn't have the stamina to knead that crazy dough, so I went with English Muffins instead. They were pretty fun to make, and had a relatively short rise time. 

Once again I learned something new. English muffins are grilled prior to baking! I used my nifty new griddler to grill them all at once. The dough balls magically flatten out and start to look like English muffins! After grilling, they are baked to finish cooking the centers. 

I made plain and cranberry-orange. 

I put the goodies into bags, and loaded up a basket for James to share with his fellow Marines:

The basket was a hit! There were no leftovers :) 

All in all, it was a successful baking week. I took a break and only made blueberry muffins this weekend. I had some fresh organic blueberries from Backyard Produce that I needed to use up and whipped up a small batch of muffins today. Luckily, Cecilia and Brady enjoyed them. I feel much better feeding them homemade wheat muffins, as opposed to the unhealthy (yet delicious!) Entenmann's muffins. 

Next week I will probably make a couple of loaves for practice and take them to my moms work. I think the most important thing with any craft is to keep practicing. 

In other news: 

Walter is still here! He's a keeper. He loves it here and is fitting in just fine. 

We had a little cabin fever today and escaped to Chick-fil-a. Brady and Sis had a blast. Then we went to Books-a-Million and Pet Smart to get some new toys for the pups. 

Tomorrow morning, James heads off to Alaska. He isn't excited about leaving 70 degrees for 0 degrees, and I'm not excited about him already leaving again. On the bright side, at least he will still be in the US! At least I have my KitchenAid to keep me company :)