Thursdays are for baking

Actually, I think Thursdays are for working and for casual dinners that make you excited for Friday, but as we are still jobless, today was for baking.

I just got off the phone with my absolute BFF (who is leaving Saturday for Costa Rica) and she was quite amazed that I made bagels today, so I promised to post pictures for her.

Nathan boiled them because I was scared of flipping them in the hot water and he also dusted them with the grated parmesan. We used this recipe.
They turned out really well, but they were a bit less chewy than we were hoping. They were sort of like really good pizza crust. Quite yummy however. Nathan's other favorite food, besides bagels, is hummus and so I whipped some of that up this morning too using this recipe and adding in Cholula hot sauce. Here's a shot of the two paired together--yum! I really liked being in complete control of everything in these two foods and it was a lot cheaper to make them, especially considering how much food Nathan can put away! :-)
I also promised Absolute BFF that I would post the recipe of the bread I made yesterday. It is called Cottage Loaf and is a delicious sandwich bread that is soft and dense (like store-bought bread) but with extra protein (from its secret ingredient--cottage cheese).

It's from a super old copy of the Moosewood cookbook I picked up in a used bookstore in Asheville. This cookbook is so old that is has a chapter on fish dishes--something you would never see in a "vegetarian" cookbook today. Here's the recipe:

Oil a 2-quart casserole dish.
Proof the yeast (1 tablespoon) in the warm water (1/4 cup).
Heat the cottage cheese (1 cup) to lukewarm. Mix together the cottage cheese, honey (2 tablespoons), onions (2 tablespoons minced), butter (2 tablespoons melted), dill (2 tablespoons fresh), salt (1 teaspoon), and egg (1). Stir in the yeast. Stir in the whole wheat flour (1 cup). Gradually add white flour (2 cups) until the dough is stiff enough to knead.
Knead for a few minutes on a floured surface. The dough will be very sticky (quite true!) and, if it's impossible to knead, add a little more flour. Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl, turn to coat all sides with oil and cover it with a cloth. Let the dough rise for one hour. Punch the dough down, shape it in a round ball and place it in the oiled casserole dish. Let the dough rise another hour.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. Brush the top lightly with melted butter or oil just after removing it from the oven.

The bread was delicious and completely eaten by the end of the day. Nathan normally doesn't like homemade bread very much, so its annihilation was a great compliment!

Next up: baked eggplant parmigiana and blueberry muffins. Until we get jobs, we have nothing to do but sit by the phone and wait for interviews and offers and cook. So here's to a less-inspired week (culinary-wise) next week!