Who Needs Panera?

One of the most beautiful things about food and cooking is that it has the ability to transport you just about anywhere in the world and you don't even have to leave your kitchen. 

Today, I went to New York.

I've been in the mood for some good bread recently and I've been on a random bagel kick so I figured why not try my hand at some homemade, NY style bagels?

I found this recipe from a fellow blogger: New York Style Bagels

Before I get into it let me just say....

HOLY SMOKES

These are actually the best bagels I've ever had. Now, the link I posted has the recipe and all the detail you need, but I'll just share some tips I plan to keep in mind for the next time I make these (which will probably be next Sunday). 

As you may already know, there's not a whole lot of humidity in The Mile High City, so I ended up adding a significant amount of extra water to my dough. Just enough to incorporate all the flour though, resist the urge to add water if you don't need it, you want a firm dough.

When I was kneading the dough, I found it a lot easier to break the dough into sections and knead those, then kneaded it all together a few times. I found it was way more manageable than trying to manhandle the whole dough ball. And yeah, it does take about 10 minutes to knead it properly. This is a bagel. Not a cake. There's a considerable amount of gluten you need to develop in those 10 minutes. I'm assuming if you're making homemade bagels, you're not that lazy. So don't be. It should be very elastic when you're done.

(Pre and post kneading. Pretty different, huh?)

After a nice run on a typical gorgeous Denver day (and after the hour rest time was up), I was ready to make some bagels. I boiled my bagels for about a minute and a half on each side and I thought they were perfect for the kind of bagel I like. If you like a chewier bagel, boil a little longer. And for less chewy... well you know.

I was going for an everything bagel but I only had sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and salt. So I guess it's more of a some-things bagel? Anyway, I highly recommend a little sprinkle of salt on the top regardless of what else you top it with. It doesn't make it salty, but just enhances the flavor of the bagel. I might even consider doing an extra pinch of salt in the dough next time- but the salt on the top did the trick.

All of my toppings would have stuck just fine coming out of the water, but I went for an egg wash just for the sake of color and I'm definitely glad I did. It helped make them look as good as they tasted!

Time to bake!

After a run and another great yoga class, I couldn't think of a better snack than a toasted homemade bagel with a little butter. Obviously my hunger got the best of me and I forgot to snap the photo before I dug in. But honestly, after that first bite, I'm impressed I stopped eating long enough to take a picture at all!! Really guys.. They're that good.

Confession time- the hole in my bagels pretty much completely disappeared after the whole cooking process. I'm not saying I re-pierced my bagel for photo purposes, but I'm also not prepared to say I didn't.. I'll be making the holes considerably bigger next time. Not that I felt like it was particularly detrimental.. It's just more of a bagel flavored roll with a little belly button.

Now, if you don't think you're a good baker, please don't be scared off. Bagels are actually way easier to make than you may think and they're SO worth it. I'm not the biggest fan of baking and I'll be making them again and again. I mentioned at the beginning of this post one of the greatest things about food. Well, here's another. It's so exciting to me to share food experiences, recipes, and adventures with people. It helps us connect on a very basic level. So come on, try it out. If it doesn't work out, like anything else, its a learning experience and a funny story later. :)

~Kim

Dude.. You Gotta Try This

I've been extremely busy these last few months and that's fine, I enjoy being busy. But that being said, I also need a pretty steady way to release the tension I build up from being so busy. I've slipped into a state of just going through the motions and not really noticing the time passing or really paying any attention to myself or what I'm doing. Not that I've been in any state of despair, but I've lost touch with myself, and it was time to do something about it.

I've been feeling stressed and just out of touch with my physical and mental self lately. I'm sure we've all felt this way before and it's a total drag. I started to realize that this feeling wasn't going to just go away through pure will or talking myself out of it, so I started to think of ways to get back to "me" (Ugh. How sappy, right?).

I have never been so in touch with my physical self than when I was in competitive cheer. Flipping your feet over your head and tossing other humans in the air required a pretty strong center and a real self awareness. Since "retiring" from the cheer life, I've noticed that I've lost that. I used to have such a strong sense of my body and what I was capable of. I entertained the idea of open gyms and tumbling classes for about 5 minutes and realized pretty quickly that that's not an option. Seeing as my cheer days have been firmly behind me for a few years now, my body will never do what it did on that blue mat ever again. (Is this what it feels like to get old? Not awesome.)

I also get stuck in my own head. Way too much. And I have a pretty hard time getting out of it. For the most part, working out has done that for me. I love to workout. I love what it does for my mind more than anything. But unfortunately, not every workout is as mentally cleansing as I really need. It becomes a chore.. something I have to do. I just end up feeling like I beat myself up for an hour and then went about my day. This started to happen more and more and the mental benefits were no where to be found. This led to a lot of "maybe later"'s and "I'm too tired"'s.

So I needed something to reacquaint myself with my body and my mind. I desperately needed a way to clear my mind in a healthy-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of way. Something I could focus on that wasn't school or work. What did I come up with? (you may have already guessed it):

YOGA!

That's right folks, I kicked this whole Colorado-hippie thing up a notch.

I signed up for a 6 week 101 course with a collective here in Denver. I only have Sundays off (sometimes), and as the fates would have it, that's the day this class runs. Yoga is something that I've wanted to try for a long time and after some coaxing from a yogi/one of my greatest friends,  I finally took the plunge.

The way I saw it, this was going to go one of two ways. I could have walked into this class and found out that yoga is super goofy and weird and I just dropped a large amount of money (by the standards of a 20-year old) on something I'll never even think about again after these six weeks are up. OR I could realize that this was something that truly opened my mind and my heart and my only disappointment was that I hadn't tried it sooner. Luckily, it's the latter.

I was super nervous walking into it.What if I can't do this? We've all seen those pictures of people doing yoga and they look like stinkin' pretzels. As soon as class began, our instructor placed a lot of emphasis on keeping an open mind and embracing the challenges that will inevitably come with engaging in something so unfamiliar. And I resolved to do just that. I came into this wanting to wholeheartedly absorb everything I felt and experienced.

Yesterday was my second class, so I'm obviously still on that new-experience high (no Colorado-pun intended), but I truly believe this is a journey I will be on for many years to come. Yoga is so much more than I could've imagined- physically and mentally.

I would very seriously recommend at least trying yoga to anyone. Granted, it requires getting out of your head a little bit. You might want to giggle or feel uncomfortable at the whole class chanting "OM" or sticking your butt in the air in unfamiliar positions, but if you walk into it truly trying to absorb everything it has to offer, nothing like that will matter.

This will probably lead to a lot more posts about all of the things I learn throughout this journey (yay!). I'm so excited to see where this takes me and I hope anyone who has thought about it or is looking for a new experience will give it a shot as well.

~Namaste