Bagels!

I've had a request for my bagel recipe. It is delicious and I've made different sorts of bagels from this recipe with greater or lesser success. I'll give you the recipe and then I'll make note (*) of the things I do to have different sorts of bagels. Here goes:

Oh yeah, you'll want to leave a bit of time to do this. Start to finish it takes about two and a half hours but there is time in there (waiting for the dough to rise) where you can fold laundry or do something productive.

Ingredients:

2 egg yokes and a dash of milk for an egg wash

3 TBS dry yeast

2 TBS sugar

*1 Medium Onion — minced

3 tsp salt (altho, I've never added salt and they're usually great)

2.25 C warm water

8.25 C flour

*3-4 C of wheat flour and 4-5 C of regular flour instead of 8.25 C regular flour

Dissolve dry yeast, sugar, (*minced onion) add salt, and warm water. Gradually work in 8 cups of flour (if making wheat bagels, add wheat flour first and as much regular flour as you can) (***if you're making chocolate chip, blueberry, and Cinnamon bagels). Turn out on floured board and knead until elastic and smooth. Let rise until double in bulk (on a warm day I put it outside in the shade, in the winter I put my oven on warm and leave it there with a wet towel over top ...that will prevent crusting/baking). This is where you do something productive for a while. Turn onto floured board and knead briefly. Divide into equal parts and roll into tube shapes and join to make the traditional bagel shape. The amount of bagels this makes will depend on how big you want them to be (I usually make 16-18...cutting into 16 parts and making 2 more out of the ends that I tear off to get them to stay in the circle shape). Time to pre-heat...400F. Drop them in rapidly boiling water. One minute on each side. Take them out and put them on a baking sheet (lightly greased). Brush with egg wash (*see instructions below if you're making Asiago Cheese Bagels). Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Variations:

*Cinnamon Bagels: Two things to do: add Cinnamon to the dough near the end of kneading but certainly before you let it rise. I've never measured the amount but put in as much as you would for cinnamon rolls. 1/2 C White sugar; 2 tsp Cinnamon; 1/2 C oleo/margine. Mix this together and put it on the top of bagels just before you put them in the oven.

*Asiago Cheese: 8oz shredded Asiago Cheese is needed. After the egg wash put the desired amount of cheese on the tops of the bagels before you put it in the oven.

*Chocolate chips...I've never made these but this is how I'd do it: 2 C of either ingredient and gradually put these in to the dough when its about done being kneaded and put them in to taste...if you'd like more, put more, if not, well, you know...

Now, all you have left to do is enjoy them!!

Gardening!

I have 26 different plants for my brand new garden! Tomorrow's job tho is to start pulling up the weeds and tilling the ground. Here is what my garden (and various parts of our yard) harvest will produce:

Flowers:

Wildflower Perennial Mix

Old Fashioned Garden Mixture

Shade Mix

Evening Sun Mixed Color Sunflower

Veggies and Herbs:

Cilantro

Basil

Thyme

Rosemary

Oregano

Dill

Hungarian Yellow Wax Pepper

Parsley

Pak Choi-White Stem

Watermellon

Cantaloupe

Garden Beans (Green Beans)

Eggplant

Lettuce

Salad Mix Lettuce

Roma Tomato

Jack-O'Latern Pumpkin

Bell Peppers

Broccoli

Cucumber

Onion

Sweet Corn

So, if you live nearby, I'm sure I will have extra veggies and herbs this summer. You can have all my eggplant, the only reason I'm planting them is because I can. I'm sure I won't eat nearly as many as I will produce. I'm so excited. Any gardening tips are welcome.

Oh yeah, and if you'd like a mum plant...we have 18-20 in various parts of our yard. I would LOVE to get rid of some. FREE MUM PLANTS!! Spread the word!

First Mortgage Payment

Well, I paid the first mortgage payment this morning. We probably own the kitchen sink or a light switch or something minuscule like that. I'd rather own a sink as opposed to a light switch...its more functional. Don will be so happy to know we actually own something of this house.

Its still relatively clean too. ...And I pick up the kitchen and its relatively clean when I go to bed and when it isn't, it is actually the first thing I do in the morning, even when I leave at 7:15. You'd be so proud...anyone who has ever lived with me.

Don and I actually remembered to take the garbage out this week too. We usually don't think about it till I hear the truck driving past the house and I think, "O crap!!" and then we have to wait a week. I then, will end up catching it on the recycle week (every other week). And this week is not a recycle week AND I got the garbage out. I'm impressed with myself.

We've already thought about yard work this spring and summer. Our next "big" purchase will be a push-mower for our yard. We also will pick up a rack because there are quite a bit of leaves from last fall. It is so great to see the landscaping since we viewed the house and up until the past couple of weeks, there has been tons of snow everywhere. I am planning a vegetable garden and there is already a spot dug up for it. So it is just a matter of transplanting some plants and planting new ones. I'm pretty excited about it. I can't wait to see our trees blossom and green and see the kind of shade we get over our house.

Other than that: same-o, same-o. I'm still looking for a job, trying to put things in their space, revisiting old hobbies, etc...

Things I Never Did In Our Apartment

After four years, nine months, and five days of leasing an apartment, there were a few things that I spent that time thinking I could only do in a house (or I flat-out did not want to do in our apartment). Here is the list:

Clean my kitchen on a regular basis. I know, that sounds horrible being the wife of a chef. You have to understand though, the kitchen in my apartment was five square feet, with two of those being counter top and one of that being a sink (or so it seemed, it wasn't really THAT small but it was small, don't get me wrong!). At that point, it seemed like anything (even one thing) on the counter, clean or not, kitchen thing or not, made it seem cluttered and uncleaned and it also seemed that because the place was so small nothing had a real home, it only had a place that something else (that was dirty or being used) lived in...space sharing...ich! My kitchen here is tidied up every day!

Entertaining. Maybe this is an obvious one but one nonetheless. We did have people over, on occasion, mostly they were single friends that also lived in an apartment that understood such space constraints. In the past week I or we have had people over on three different days! Shocker! The Ram's actually entertain! We had Bible Study here. We've had Mario dates here. I've had people here for coffee... The list goes on! (If you want to be invited, feel free to invite yourselves...we LOVE entertaining).

Exchange Students. Yep! You've heard right...we're hoping to host an exchange student(s).

Cooking Meals and Baking. Again, that sounds bad being the wife of a chef but really it was either what was right in front of me, a frozen meal of some sort or something special that I would cook for. Space was just NOT conducive to knowing what was in my apartment, stocking basic ingredients (or more than three) and I now have a cupboard all for baking stuff! (How amazing is that???). By the way, when we moved I found things I didn't know I had: 4 full bottles of ketchup, 1 whole bag of rice, five jars of peanut butter at various stages of being empty (two that were empty and one that was full, one of the other ones was crunchy where as the other four were smooth). This is probably why I had so much space problems.

Eating at a table. We didn't really have space for a table or patience to set up and clean up a table so we at at a coffee table in the living room in front of the TV... We also do 'family' devotions on a somewhat regular basis.

For pictures of my new place, check out my Facebook page because they take too long to upload here and blogspot does not make it easy to caption it. If there is a lot uproar about this decision I will add them here. Just let me know! I do have more pictures than what I posted on FB but they are boxes and other things that not many people really care about...again if there are things you want to see/want to see more in general, or want them posted here, just let me know!

In A Groove

Well, life is starting a new normal around here...new in the case of tending after a house and not an apartment. I love the house! I didn't realize how much I would enjoy this but it is SO cool. (Yes, I do realize that sounds very cheesy but that is just fine with me!). I also didn't realize how much I would notice the increased space! I haven't lived in a house that I could sprawl all over since I was 18 and moved out of my mom and dad's place! That was 11 and a half years ago! Crazy!!

People have said that I've got remarkably few boxes in the house and I realize now that there are some things that will forever be in a box or at least be stored in a box for a while yet and that is okay. I am slowly finding places for all those things that I don't really know what to do with. But other than that, it is all going well. So...pictures of the whole thing hopefully by the end of the week.

I participated in a Job fair for DHS (Department of Human Services) as they have many positions open in a few different departments across the state. I made it in as a walk-in (as this was a pre-registered event), made it to day two, and then made it on to day three. I was thrilled to make it that far. At the end of day three I felt pretty confident about the job, about my ability to get the job, and about my performance in the interview but I won't here for another 3-5 weeks. Bummer. Oh well, I have things that can fill up that time pretty nicely. Even though this isn't my "dream job" I like the opportunity it will give me to build relationships with co-workers and hopefully those can turn into a referral sources later on.

Speaking of that... My business partner and I are looking at office space this afternoon. I've already seen it, was relatively happy with it, and am hoping that he'll like it too so that we can move forward on this Private Practice (AKA: "dream job"). We have a lot of business planning to go yet but that will also happen as time goes on. We have a good start even though it isn't leaps and bounds.

Anything else??? Not really. I think I'll head over to coffee with my mom and aunt in a short-hour and then hopefully the AT&T people will come and fix the phone line they disrupted. Ha ha...this is a good story:

So I canceled the phone and internet at our apartment and switched over service to our house. We had a bit of trouble hooking up our internet so they sent over an installation guy and hooked it up. Well, we had no problems with our land-line service but when they sent the guy over for the internet, he did a great job hooking that up but we quickly found we no longer had a phone. So...out they come again. After this, no more installation people coming over.

We have a house. I have a professional license. Don has a great job he likes more and more. All we need are kiddos, me a job, and life will move from perfect to beyond perfect!

Licensed Professional

I got my license in the mail today. My title has officially changed I am now:

Kelly Ram, MA, LLPC

Also member in good standing with the ACA.

Homeowners

No more a secret: Don and I are homeowners.

Our house even has an occupant — one gigantic stuffed gorilla. Our TV and some shelves will be there tomorrow and we will join Fuzzy and all the other fun on Saturday. I am tired of packing even tho the Kitchen was not has difficult as I had suspected. I am so excited to live there...excitement has officially moved out of our apartment.

Pictures to follow. ...After I've unpacked.