Bagels & Cream Cheese please

My first time making bagels was a close success. I have a few alterations I would like to make next time, like less salt and use the oven to let the dough rise. I tried using my bread maker, and it didn't work well at all. The dough was suppose to double in size and it barely budged. So I turned on the oven for a little bit and turned it off, put the dough in and left the door ajar. When the oven had cooled down I used the oven light to keep it warm. It did the trick.

Since I love Everything style bagels, I made a mixture of sesame and poppy seeds, garlic granules and minced onion for the topping. I used the bagel recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I love this book for the recipes and for the information about prep and good baking techniques.



I made my own veggie cream cheese this morning - which I love. I started making my own last month and it is way easy. I got the recipe from M.S. FOOD Magazine, but I wasn't able to find it on her site easily, so here it is if you want to try - feel free to try some other varieties, I keep meaning to.

Veggie Cream Cheese
8oz. Cream Cheese (I do half no-fat and light cream cheese)
1 Carrot
Half of a Red Pepper (deseeded and spines removed)
1 Green Onion
1/4 c. Fresh Parsley (this stuff keeps really well and great in many dishes)
Black Pepper
Mix it all together and you have a weeks worth of fantastic bagel topping. Tweet Follow @kellymedina