Puzzle Saver

We enjoy solving jigsaw puzzles.  I fool myself by saying that doing so keeps my brain strong and holds off potential dementia.  Good puzzles are kind of expensive, but they can take many days to solve and I figure it's cheaper and longer lasting than going to the movies!

Then we got a new cat.  The first time we put out a puzzle after she was big enough to jump on the table, she skidded across the table scattering pieces.  Then she batted a few around and ran off with one in her mouth when I tried to get it away from her.

A fun game for her too, it seems. But unacceptable nonetheless.

I looked online for a solution.  There are many jigsaw puzzle options out there,  This jigsaw puzzle table is what I decided upon.

It is large enough for the 1000 piece puzzles we like. There are four drawers to hold different colors. For us, the four drawers aren't sufficient to hold all the different colors we want to divide.  We put some of them in the empty box the puzzle came in. 

The bottom of the unit has a textured surface so that the pieces don't slide around when the table is tilted at an angle. It can also spin around so that I can work on sides easily. 

There is a flexible plastic cover that fits over the puzzle in progress. This would seem sufficient, but it really isn't. So we cover everything with a towel.  

I assume the cat could rip up the towel and then get under the plastic cover if she really wanted. But when we leave the room, she loses interest. The fun for her is the chase!

So this is working for us.  Now I need to go online and order more puzzles!

Hawaiian Roll Stuffed French Toast

I saw online a recipe for French toast using Hawaiian Sweet Rolls.  But the store didn't have any. They did have the savory butter roll variety, so I grabbed those.  I had a plan to make some ham and cheese sliders, but I needed to find something to use up the rest of the rolls.  So French toast it is.

When I went back to the internet I couldn't find the recipe.  Oh, there are a lot of recipes with Hawaiian rolls, but not the one I had seen earlier.  So I just invented it, while trying to remember most of what I had seen.  These turned out good, so I can recommend them.

This recipe is for two people. I had left over egg mixture so I could have soaked more of the Hawaiian Rolls and fed more people.

Hawaiian Rolls Stuffed French Toast

3 eggs

2 Tablespoon brown sugar and cinnamon Philadelphia cream cheese, or sweet flavor of your choice.  I originally looked for the strawberry version, but saw the new brown sugar and cinnamon version and went with that.  Use more filling if you like.

1/3 cup dairy, I used a mix of milk and half and half

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 Tablespoon sugar

6 Hawaiian Rolls of your choice, don't separate them

oil for cooking

Place the eggs, dairy, cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar in a medium bowl and whisk briskly.

Cut through the middle of the group of Hawaiian rolls and take off the tops.  

Spread a layer of flavored cream cheese on the bottom section. 

Replace the top and then divide each individual roll.

I used an electric griddle, but this can be done in a sauté pan.  

I wanted to cook them all at once and I wasn't sure I could fit all six in one pan.

While heating up the griddle, soak all sides of the rolls in the egg mixture.  Leave them in long enough to soak up a lot of the egg mixture.  You will have plenty and some left over.

Heat some oil on the griddle.  Using tongs, place the egg soaked rolls on the hot oil. Use the tongs gently so you don't smash the pillowy puffs.

Brown all sides of the rolls. 

Plate the French toast puffs and serve with powdered sugar or syrup.  Or both!

I served them with baked bacon, 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, and orange wedges.

These pillowy soft French toast bundles were delicious.  The creamy center added a nice surprise when you bit into the center. Give them a try!

Chewy Bagels

 Growing up in California I had access to many different cuisines with just a short drive.  I don't know that New York style bagels can be classified as a cuisine, but they are few and far between. in this area. Panera has delightful flavored bagels, but their plain bagels are not quite right.

This recipe is a second attempt.  The first ones I made were over baked and too dark for me. 

The crust was shiny but a bit too salty from the baking soda in the water for boiling.  So this batch I switched out the baking soda for honey in the water.  The crust was tastier but not as shiny as I had hoped for.  I may try a SMALL amount of soda and a bit of honey in the next batch.  And maybe try some with cinnamon sugar on top!

However, this batch is quite tasty and chewy and I can recommend it!

Chewy Bagels

2 packages yeast

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup warm water

6 cups bread flour

2 cups warm water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 Tablespoons salt

1 Tablespoon honey

Boil water with 1 Tablespoon honey.

When making bread with yeast, I like to preheat the metal mixing bowl.  I heat it up by filling it about half way with hot tap water and letting it sit for a couple minutes.

Dump out the water and replace it with 1/2 cup warm water and 1 Tablespoon sugar.  Give it a quick stir and then sprinkle in the two packages of yeast.  Set it aside while you assemble the rest of the ingredients.

Place 2 cups bread flour in a medium bowl.  Mix in 2 Tablespoons sugar and 1 Tablespoon salt. 

After the yeast blooms to show it is still active, add the flour mix, honey and oil.

Use a dough hook on low to mix.  Scrape the bowl down and add 2 more cups of flour and continue to mix.  Scrape the bowl again and add 1 1/2 cups flour and mix for about 5 minutes when the dough will pull away from the bowl.  It will still be a bit sticky.

Sprinkle about 1/4 cup of flour on the counter and scrape the dough out the dough.  

If the dough is super sticky, sprinkle a bit of flour on top.  Knead until the dough absorbs the rest of the flour and is smooth.

       

Put about 1 Tablespoon of oil in a large bowl.  Spread the oil around and then put the dough ball in the bowl.  Flip it over until it is covered in oil and then cover with plastic wrap and place the bowl in a warm spot for one hour or until the dough doubles in size.

Remove the plastic wrap and set aside.  Punch the dough down and divide it in half. 

Divide each half into 6 pieces. 

Roll the pieces on the counter until you have a smooth ball.  

Lightly oil a baking sheet or platter. Place the dough balls on it and cover with the reserved plastic wrap and set it in the refrigerator for at least one hour. 

Set the dough balls out.  Put parchment paper on two baking sheets. Use your very clean finger to make a hole in the center of each ball. Add another finger to stretch the hole. a bit wider.  They will close a bit while baking. Set 6 bagels on each sheet.

Preheat the oven to 425°.

Boil water in a large pot.  Add 1 Tablespoon of honey.  

Place a folded dish towel between the boiling water and a prepared baking sheet, but not near the heat.  No fires, please.

Gently place a bagel in the water.  If you have room, add another one. I used my phone for a timer and told Siri to set a timer for one minute.  Gently turn the bagels over with a slotted spoon or spatula and set the timer for another minute.

Use the slotted spoon to lift a bagel out and then set it on the towel to dry off some of the water before transferring it back to the baking sheet. Repeat until you have 6 boiled bagels.

Put the boiled bagels in the preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes.  Mine took 14 minutes. While the first batch bakes, finish boiling the rest of the bagels. 

After cooling for a couple minutes, transfer the bagels to a cooling rack. 

I couldn't wait for them to cool completely.  I sliced open a bagel and lightly toasted it.  I put Nutella on one side and strawberry cream cheese on the other.  They both were so good, perfectly chewy and without the salty taste of the ones boiled with baking soda.

The two of us can't possibly eat up a dozen bagels while they are still fresh.  When I buy bagels I slice them with a bagel guillotine.  These bagels seemed a bit too soft so I used a serrated knife to slice them. Then I put most of them in freezer bags where I can vacuum out the air.

Now I have soft, chewy bagels for anytime I want one. Yay!

A Multitude Of Ducks

 I have a friend who has figured out how to cruise on a budget.  When she can get a great deal on a cruise she'll go!  Lately she has been telling me about duck culture on a cruise ship.  It seems guests are bringing ducks and hiding them. 

No, not real ducks. I guess it started with rubber ducks.  The kind kids play with in the tub.  Then they started buying tiny ones in bulk on sites like Temu. Some people branched out into other tiny cute things. Or they glue magnets to whatever duck items they have bought. Then the other cruisers interested in this started to search the giant cruise ships trying to find the most ducks and posting about it.  The staff sometimes get into it.  They use them to decorate their small quarters or to take home to their children.  

Then Marcy told me about classes being offered by guests to learn to crochet ducks. Marcy can't see well enough to crochet, so she thought I could make her some.  I found some patterns on Etsy and got busy.

I have some yarn left over from other knitting projects.  I started with that.  Then JoAnn Fabric had a yarn sale.  So I bought a bunch and kept going.  I stuck with one pattern as I could make them faster that way.  

I played around with the colors for a Mallard duck. I tried a poof on top. 

I used different thicknesses of yarn and different sizes of crochet hooks. All the ducks I made had the same pattern but they turned out different.  That made it more fun for me.

For my first ducks, I embroidered an eye while I waited for some safety eyes to get here from Temu.

 Then I used those for the eyes.

I shipped off a box of more than thirty this morning. I know she can't fit all of them in her suitcase, but this should last her for awhile. 

Now I can use some of that yarn I bought to try to figure out how to make some other animals or at least different patterns for the ducks.

Buttery Sandwich Bread

 Making bread has become a regular thing for me.  And not just the same kind of bread.  I'm having fun exploring new recipes.  Maybe I'm enjoying it because it has been so cold this winter.  

Kneading and baking and then posting the recipes keeps me busy and warm when I can't really do anything outside.

Buttery Sandwich Bread

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups warm milk

2 packages yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) room temperature butter, cut in pieces

1 Tablespoon salt

6 cups bread flour

Because it is cold, I warm the bowl of the mixer.  I fill it with hot tap water and sit it aside.  

After I get out the bread ingredients, I dump out the water and put in 1/2 cup warm water, sugar and yeast. 

This activates the yeast and it will bloom to show that it is still alive.

Heat the milk until warm.  I tested it on my wrist like I would for a baby bottle. If it's too hot it will kill the yeast.

Add the warm milk, 2 cups flour, cut up butter and salt.  Mix slowly with the dough hook.  If you don't have a Kitchen Aid mixer this can be done by hand, but it will get harder to mix as you add more flour.

Add about 1 cup at a time and mix slowly with the dough hook.  The dough came together after I had about 5 1/2 cups in the mix.  It pulled away from the sides of the bowl. I mixed for about 4 or 5 minutes, then I scraped out the dough onto a floured surface.

The dough was still sticky so I sprinkled some of the additional 1/2 cup of flour on top and began kneading.  Even though I have a dough hook, I like the process of kneading and I can tell when it has absorbed all the flour it needs and it is smooth and not sticky.

Put a Tablespoon or so of vegetable oil in a large bowl.  Spread it ip the sides and place the dough ball in the bowl.  Turn it around until the dough has oil on the surface. 

Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot for about 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.

Spray two bread pans with Pam.  Punch down the dough and cut it in half.  

Roll each piece out into a rectangle about 8 X 12 with a rolling pin.  

Roll it up tightly from the short side.  

Pinch the edges closed and fold the ends over.  Pinch those creases, too.

Place each dough "log" in a bread pan with the seam side down and cover it with the saved plastic wrap. 

Let it rise for about an hour or until it rises above the edge of the pan. 

Preheat the oven to 350°. Remove the plastic wrap and place the pans in the middle of the oven for 30-35 minutes.  The bread should be a golden brown and sound hollow when tapped.

Brush melted butter over the top.  

Let cool a few minutes and then turn them onto a cooling rack.

Cool the bread about 20 minutes.  When just warm, cut a slice and try it.  I like my fresh bread plain and also with a bit of butter

We can't eat two whole loaves before they will go bad.  I freeze one loaf.  This time I took the suggestion I saw on a blog and wrapped some of the pieces I was going to freeze. 

I cut the loaf in 18 slices, then wrapped each 6 pieces in plastic wrap.  I put the wrapped bread in freezer bags and froze them. This way I can take out a few pieces at a time and it will be fresher longer.

This bread turned out great.  It is buttery even without butter.  And with butter it is delightful.