Friday, December 19, 2008

Snow Day!

This time last night, the weather forecasts for our area were 8 to 12 inches of snow. I should say, new snow. Since we already have more than enough on the ground. Wonderful.

Woke up early (earlier than I expected, since hubby already had today off but set his alarm, and then also stayed up until about 3am and when his alarm went out, he took the counter-measure of snoring louder to drown out the noise in his own head and would not respond to my repeated kicks to the legs that are the universal sign for "hit the damned snooze button", so I ended up giving up by like 5:30am and went downstairs) and turned on the news, where the reporters stuck out in the mess were saying it was indeed bad, roads were a mess and to just stay home if you could. And when they talk, I listen.

It is going to cut into the pay with my usual PTO being used for the furlough, but it's not going to make or break us, and I'd rather be a wuss than end up in an accident. Most places I work for are more than fine with "work from home" days - and my new company even has an awesome VPN setup and Remote Desktop where I can basically log on to my own desktop PC at work and work like I was sitting right in my chair - but the new company is just not down with the "work from home" theory, so PTO it was. I took care of a couple tasks that are in my own best interest, and logged off for the day. No pay, no play.

When the totals started to roll in for snowfall amounts, I think we got around 5 inches. And five inches of snow... I don't feel bad or guilty for taking the day off. That's right about the "I'm just not going to deal with that and I'll hide in my home" limit for me.

Did have to do some work for the old company (making something out of a mess of a document that wouldn't even convert to a PDF correctly, which is likely one reason why it hadn't been done to this point), made some fig jam to serve with cheeses on Christmas Day. Overall, very lazy day. I needed one of those.

Busy weekend ahead.... the holiday really starts early on Xmas eve for us since we're headed over to my mom's for a breakfast/brunch thing, and I have to get grocery shopping done, a couple last minute gifts (Hardly dashing through the snow 'Cause I bundled up too tight, Last minute have-to-do's, A few cards a few calls....) and the usual blah blah blah. Also need to clean up the place, scrub the floors, actually drag the vacuum up the stairs to get them cleaned, other not-so-fun stuff. I think I'll try to get running around done tomorrow, clean on Sunday and Monday, do some food on Monday, then I can do the rest of the food on Tuesday.

Might do bagel dogs for dinner on Monday, and pull meatballs outta the freezer for meatball sandwiches on Tuesday.

5 comments:

JJ (Lady Di) said...

Can I get your bagel dog recipe? Mine was ok, but it could use a bit of work.

Unknown said...

JJ - here you go.... I've found this to be a pretty no-fail recipe. I've even used yeast a month past the expire date successfully (and I usually have NO luck with yeast).


* Exported from MasterCook *

Basic Egg Bagels

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 8 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 cup water -- 110-115 degrees
1 large egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons sugar
1 Teaspoon salt
3 1/3 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
8 medium hot dogs, beef

Mix together warm water, yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar and let stand for 5 minutes. In a large bowl, add remaing sugar, salt, 2 cups of flour. Lightly beat egg and oil, add to flour mixture. Stir in yeast mixture. Add remaining flour, stir to form a ball.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board. Knead dough by hand, adding more flour as necessary, for 10 to 15 minutes, unti doughis smooth, satiny, stiff and elastic.

Prepare baking sheets by spray with cooking spray. Punch doguh down and knead once or twice. Let rest 5 minutes.

This recipe is for 1 1/2 pounds and yields 8 - 12 bagels. Your dough should weigh slightly more than this, with each bagel weighing 2-3 ounces. Use a food scale if you want consistency.

Roll each piece of dough into a ball, poke floured finger through center to form the hole, and then shape the top and smooth the sides. Moisten your finger with water if necessary to smooth. Pull gently to enlarge to hole. the resulting bagel is smooth and there is no joint. Place shaped bagels on the greased baking sheet, about 1 inch apart, for the second rise, covering with either plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray or a light towel. Put them in a draft free area and let them rise at room temperature about 20 minutes.

Fill a 4 to 6 quart saucepan with water, 3 to 4 inches deep. Preheat oven to 400.

Drop bagels, one at a time, into boiling wwater. Boil about 4 at a time so they don't crowd each other. They will expand further in the hot water. Simmer for 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side, turning with a slotted spoon. Remove to either a greased rack or a dish towel to drain.

If using a glaze, now is the time to do it. Or you may do it 5 minutes into baking and 5 minutes before the end of baking.

Egg glaze:
1 whole egg or egg white
1 - 2 tablespoons milk or water.

Place bagels on cookie sheet and place in oven just below the middle. Bake 20 - 25 minutes, until golden brown.

Description:
"The usual bagel texture and glossy crust are achieved by boiling the egg bagel. However, some people prefer a soft dough begel that tastes more like rgular white bead. For a soft bagel, use the same recipe but do not boil in water. After they have
complet"
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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 439 Calories; 21g Fat (44.0% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 46g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 58mg Cholesterol; 861mg Sodium. Exchanges: 3 Grain(Starch); 1 Lean Meat; 3 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.

Unknown said...

And I just noticed that the recipe is kinda messed up... I have hot dogs counted in the nutritionals to figure out the voldermonts when I serve them as bagel dogs. To do a bagel dog, you basically just make ropes of dough and then wrap them around the dogs before rising/boiling/baking. I haven't tried plain bagels.

JJ (Lady Di) said...

Thank you so very much! The recipe I tried was from here: http://www.browniepointsblog.com/2005/08/19/bagel-dogs/ except I used the egg bagel recipe from my ABM (which isn't much different from yours) since I wanted more than 4. I'm going to gather the process isn't too much different. Although I think that rising and glazing that your recipe has will make a big difference and will give me what I'm missing. We did like the topping of garlic powder/black pepper/kosher salt on ours though.

For the yeast problem - freeze it. The expiration date - especially if you're buying your yeast from Costco or Sams is more for bakeries and leave the yeast out more. Anyway if you freeze it, don't worry about thawing it, I use it straight from the freezer and it works fine. I even keep my packets of instant yeast in there. It'll last waaaay past the expiration date, I know that I've had one package for over a year or more past it when I lived in the apartment and couldn't bake as much.

Unknown said...

The rising really does give some wonderfully fluffy bagels, and the boiling (I don't even bother with anything in the water) gives a nice crust. I just wish they were more egg-y. I might need to try an extra yolk.

And thank you for the tip on the yeast... never woulda thought of that....