Bagels again !

Not to labor the technique, but this dough recipe I made into bagels. Made a grain soaker to add to the dough, all in all not bad, a mini size the dough could have been a bit stiffer, very fragile and light. Using the broil, boil and bake method.

the multi grain mash, boiled and strained grit addition.

mixing the dough

one tray of formed bagels

the end result

Holiday

Aside from the obvious meaning of Memorial Day, it also signifies the beginning of outdoor activities season. This year the weather preceding this holiday has been several days of relatively cold and rain. Today promises a warm up. By advertising and media, one is encouraged to have their outdoor grille and swimming pool functioning by this date if you haven’t already done so.
We already have had our propane grille operating, and the charcoal grille has yet to see action. The cool weather this morning, (40ish) and early rise to have a cup of coffee outside, like camping, suggested the better way to cook bacon and toast bagels was on the grille. Nothing like the taste of flame crisped bacon.
Some views of the yard first.

I guess the shrubs like the diet of coffee grounds.

Some pictures taken earlier this month.

Good Morning

Saturday today is a day to get up relaxed, drink some coffee and rustle up some chow without watching the clock. A cool rainy spring day. Watched the reminder of a movie from last night , Motorama , and a few episodes of Sienfield, Comedians in cars getting coffee.

Tasting Felucca blend coffee , medium roast
http://coffeeproject.com/shop/magento/raw-coffee-beans/felucca-blend.html

Pancakes, with poached egg.
Flour one cup , baking powder 1/2 teaspoon , baking soda 1/2 teaspoon, sugar to taste, soaked grains about 2 tablespoons, butter, oil, milk, water, egg.
Gently poach an egg.
Served with frozen raspberries.

Vegetable bread pudding

Although I didn’t do an exhaustive search, most recipes using leftover bread (cubes) for a pudding, were for a sweet type of pudding. Instead of cinnamon and sugar, I went with utilizing vegetables.

The basic recipe.
Dice into cubes and soak leftover bread in a combination of eggs and milk.
Dice and sauté whatever ingredients you enjoy and have.
Mix in and season to your liking the sautéed vegetables to the soaked bread cubes.
Turn into a well greased pan(s).
Bake until set. Approximately 350 for 1/2 hour.

The ingredients used in this recipe. (If the amount is not specified, I didn’t measure it)
Leftover bagels (a relative often receives whatI call overstock bread products that I used for this recipe.)
4 eggs
Milk
Water

1 and 1/2 tomato
1/2 medium white onion
2 clove garlic
Broccoli
Spinach
Shredded mozzarella
Salt and pepper
Flaked red pepper
A dash of turmeric
Dried oregano
Probably other seasonings I did not note.
Reserve some of the cubed bread and use as toppings.

This recipe could also be made in muffin tins.

Some would refer to this as a quiche, and for some reason when quiche was popular years ago, the tag “real men don’t eat quiche” was attached to it.

White bread recipe with grains

This bread was made with the addition of milled grains, this time, the milled grains were soaked overnight. The. dough was softer, and the crumb was less gritty that the bread made without soaking the grains. See barley, rye and wheat bread

Milled Grains
I didn’t take a picture of them soaking.

spent grains were used for dusting the pans, adds color and flavor to the crust.

Toasting Bread

One of the most under rated and under reported food thats served as a side more often with breakfast is bread that has been toasted. If you are a bread maker you know the difference home made bread makes when toasted. The are even different ways to toast bread. Conventional electric toaster, griddle, broiled and even over a campfire just to mention a few. Buttered is a must.

A scrambled egg, so far from the container garden this year a few herbs, sage, basil and oregano. The oregano was a gift that I have rooted in a container and hopefully will continue to grow as the previous oregano that I planted did not last. Not a large meal but one of the better ways to taste herbs, eggs and bread.

The egg roll cafe

Occasionally, though it might not appear so in this blog , I do eat food other than I prepare ! Especially when others are buying ! 🙂 Not to appear cheap, sometimes I contribute to the pot most often referred to as “I buy, you fly”, if the food has to be picked up. Most household members consider on line menu description, ordering and delivery a plus, less wear and tear on the vehicles and risk of a fender bender but missing the fact of actually visiting the eating or take out establishment.
A relatively new fare is the Eggroll Cafe. You can ride by a new business often but scoping out the menu first online is a must. Then goto Yelp to get an idea of the actual opinions of diners.
I ordered a chicken curry Eggroll. 2 to an order.
Others ordered various flavors and the well advertised Bubble tea.
The chicken curry eggrolls were not that spicy, but I expect that as most advertised spicy food are made for a wide range of people and unless you rate the food as with hot peppers in scoville units there is not telling ahead of time how hot it is. They are very well made and crunchy. Again a bit bland to me and sort of a potato starch type filling with chicken with an occasional green pea.
Ingredients used are not listed either online or on their brochure. All in all for the cost 3.50 for two. A good snack or appetizer. Dipping sauces included. Although I sampled some bubble tea, it would be good to know what type of sweetener is used.

The bubble tea has a Q & A printed on the top, tried to Google Goggle the picture for a translation.no result.

Barley ,rye , and wheat bread.

Barley ,rye , and wheat bread.

Grind flaked barley, flaked rye, and unmalted wheat. These amounts were not measured but about 1/3 each.

a coffee grinder, burr type , was used , giving the grinder a break after grinding about 1/2 cup, to avoid over heating, the raw wheat is especially hard on the burrs. More on this later *. It’s not exactly flour but what I would call medium ground grain.

About 1 cup of the ground grains mixture, added to 2 cups of white flour, 4 teaspoons of yeast, sugar and salt to taste is mixed with about two cups of water at 130 degrees, mix and add additional white flour. This dough was made on the wet side and let rise till about double.

Another use for ground spent grain is for dusting work surfaces and hands so the dough doesn’t stick. Also, if you need to grease and flour baking pans, ground spent grains can be used and give the crust a nice color and flavor. Some may not be used to the grainy ness and the fact that the ground spent milled grains still have some of the husks intact possibly because I have used a coffee grinder to mill the grains.
All in all, the idea is to substitute dried spent grain, ground or not , in the place of or to augment white flour in recipes.

Getting back to this recipe, the grain additions are not spent grain but unmalted or flaked grains. Most of these can be purchased from a shop catering to home brewing of beers or possibly a health food store or online search.

The dough rose fairly well in the bread pans , noting that milled spent grain was used to coat the sticky dough.

And then to the oven , lately the technique of starting the baking in a cold oven has improved the uniformity of the crumb as with the dark well used pans and very hot oven gave a denser crumb at the bottom. Usually I bake at a temp of about 400 degrees or better but the wet grainy doughs probably would benefit from a lower and longer baking period.
But the most of the bread baking including the the amount of yeast is geared for a quick production of bread, the modification of a longer time frame like letting the dough ferment in the fridge and using less yeast is a technique that needs to be worked on.

Freshly cut needs more resting time to cool.

The loaves are surprisingly light and springy.
Does this batch of bread taste any different than bread containing ground spent grains?
Update addendum :
After baking another batch with spent grains and comparing them the answer is yes, it is much more grain gritty than the spent grain and possibly one of the future batches will use the milled ground grains after they are soaked a while. That is make a soaker of the raw milled gains then incorporate them into the recipe.

With the baking complete, the taste is ok, maybe needs more sugar, the definite taste of grains is apparent and the long lasting taste and gut filling feeling. If you find store bought sliced sandwich bread to be as adequate, then you may be satisfied with 1/2 a slice of this. It’s one of those breads that will stay with you well after consuming it. Over all spent grain additions has a lighter taste than using raw grains, I would add less raw grains in the future. The spent milled grains additions has a lighter flavor and texture.

Adding milled grains whether raw or spent continues….

*A note about the grinder, a Cuisinart Model DBM8, is used often to grind coffee and is several years old. Parts for this are still available as the top hopper assembly has been replaced recently and consist of the upper stationary burr. It has lasted longer than previously powered coffee burr grinders and sometimes can be found online as a reconditioned or overstock model at a reasonable price. It is worth the price as long as replacement parts are available. Am considering a hand grain grinder though as it might yield a finer grind. Most electric powered grinders for grain are very expensive ( new) though I haven’t searched other sources like EBay .