Adventures in Cooking!

There's something about making more complex bread things from scratch that gives one a sense of real accomplishment. Sunday night I made some delicious dinner rolls from scratch, and last night... last night we ventured into the world of BAGELS!

After forming into a neat dough ball in my bread machine, the dough eerily became soup-like. I held my breath and hoped it would be okay, reminding myself how tasty the uncooked dough was.
The machine beeped at me, and I turned out the dough... or tried to. It came out like a giant, ooey-gooey sienna marshmallow! Stringy and partly cooked. Like mozarella clinging to your lips from a slice of za 2 feet away in your hand. I persevered and rolled it into flour. Andy helped me form them into doughnut looking objects. One by one I placed them in a pot of boiling water and waited 30 seconds, then flipped them, watching them float to the top, and waited another 30 seconds. I turned each one on to a pan and put them in the oven.
They're cooking now. Andy just commented how good they smell.
It's so hard not to open the oven & check on these bizarre rolly-polies!
Finally they're done. Andy & I split one.
I bite in, then cry out "I'M A DOMESTIC GODDESS!!"
These are better than the store. Gosh, that's another $10/month we'll be saving.

Andy thinks they're almost as good as the store, but doesn't like the golden raisins I used. Noted.

To further our adventures in cooking, I'm making Pork A L'Orange tonight for dinner. I didn't realize it takes such a long time. I also accidentally skipped a step & added liquid to the rice too soon. The rice was supposed to brown in the critter drippings, and then you add orange juice & water. After that comes to a boil, you toss in 1/2 a cup of apples & 1/2 a cup of raisins. I used the same golden raisins that went into the bagels. They are a little spicy. Kinda fun!
When I turned it out into a baking dish, it smelled AMAZING. I wanted to eat it right then and there. I put it in the oven, only to discover you're supposed to cover it first. DOH! Grab dish out of oven. Ask hubby to put tinfoil on it for me, as I tend to be really accident prone around hot things. Put dish back into oven and reset timer. Now we have to wait 40 mins. Yargh. I'm used to eating at 6, and we won't eat until 7.
I bet it will be worth the wait!

Haven't had the opportunity to workout today, and I really want to go to the rec center, which we recently got year round passes for. I'm trying to decide whether to hit the track there tomorrow or the treadmill. I guess it will depend on how Grace feels since she's had a bout with the sniffles.

Tomorrow's adventure: Slow cooker shredded chicken taco salad.