Bagel Making

For my birthday Holly got me a bagel making class at Flour Will Fly. We did Introduction to Bagel-Making today at 4pm.

There was 3 other people - 2 girls that came together and a German lady that came on her own. Someone bought her it as a gift. 

There was 5 of us in the class and was ran by Paola.

We got a welcome drink which you could choose - white/red wine, beer, prosecco, bucks fizz, San Pellegrino orange/lemon, orange/apple juice or coffee/tea.

Paola did an introduction what was happening in the class then we got to start. We had all the ingredients already weighed out for us at our station.

High protein bread flour, high protein wholemeal flour, milk, yeast, olive oil and salt.

We mixed all the ingredients and mixed it with boiling hot water then left it to prove.

Paola prepared a dough earlier this morning for us to make blueberry bagels. We weighed the dough, shaped them and boiled them.

Holly's blueberry bagels

I ended up with 4 blueberry well only 3 had blueberries in them as the last one was just plain dough left over from the both of us as we weighed them out to about 130g.

Once they were boiled we put an egg wash on it and could put sesame seeds, poppy seeds or pumpkin seeds on them.

I left the 3 blueberry ones plain - the actual plain bagel had sesame, pumpkin and poppy seeds on it.

As these went into the oven to be baked we had a break where we got some snacks and another drink

Salami, olives, sundried tomatoes, mozzarella and some bread with olive oil

My baked blueberry bagels and plain every topping bagel. There wasn't much blueberries in the them but they were whole fresh blueberries. They tasted so good fresh out of the oven really chewy!

We got some spreads to have our bagels with - onion chutney, Nutella, pistachio cream, butter and smoked cheese.

The pistachio cream was SO good - I ate too much I was starting to feel sick. I ate most of our spread then the girls didn't eat theirs so gave my their pot and I nearly ate all of theirs too. 

Once finished eating it was time to make our own bagels that had been proving. They didn't prove as long as I expected.

We had to weigh, shape, boil, egg wash and choose our topping.

Holly's looked perfectly round and smooth

I did a just sesame. Just pumpkin. Everything and just poppy seed one. Mine weren't as neat and smooth as Holly's. A lot more artisan and rustic

Then they went in to bake

Holly's bagels

My bagels

They were so good! I ate 2 and had so much pistachio cream. They're so much better than shop bought as they were so fresh out the oven - so soft and chewy. Don't think I'm going to be able to have shop bought bagels now. They're just not going to be the same! 

We took them home and there's just seeds all over the kitchen when I brought them home as they just don't stick but the paper bag they were in smelt SO good.

Such a good class. It says on the booking it takes 3 hours but we were done by like 6pm. Think because there was only 5 of us it was a lot quicker. Would recommend and it wasn't actually that hard or bad to make. It also wasn't as messy as I thought it was going to be. She's sent us the recipe for us to make them at home and I might maybe one day brave it. I've never bothered making bread because I just don't have the patience to wait for the proving and then the boiling, it's a lot of work. But the satisfaction you get from making something from scratch yourself just can't be bought.

You can also learn to make pasta, pizza and cannoli. The bagel one is the newest one. Would definitely like to try making pasta as again not something I would make at home and probably wouldn't as I don't have a pasta machine and wouldn't buy one.

Thanks again Holly. It was super fun and really enjoyed it!

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Brew and Bagel

Had a little lunch date with Holly - went to a new place called Brew and Bagel in Woolton Village. It's hidden down the little alley way to go down to the back of Sainsbury's. 

It's tiny with 3 tables and a bench. As the name states they do bagels and brews - teas and coffees. 

We both got green teas and they came with a cute little tea cosy on the tea pots

I got a smoked salmon and fried egg bagel. Holly got bacon, fried egg and tomato bagel. We did want avocado but they didn't have any and when we asked what the special bag was they didn't have any left. It wasn't even that late we got there after 1:30pm. We were disappointed that they didn't have avocado and they don't do poached egg only fried or scrambled but they do pancakes though which was unexpected. Holly was also disappointed that they didn't take card and should have a sign up saying cash only.

Bagel was not filling at all it was basically a snack after doing a 2 hour gym session and the day before an 18 mile run when I needed to carb up!

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Healthy Lunch Ideas

I've been meaning to do this post for months. I take pictures of my lunches but just never got round to writing the post for it. I did a post back in March called Post Gym Lunch where I had a toasted New York Bagel Co bagel with smoked salmon, avocado & poached eggs. All these are healthy ideas if you're struggling to make something. They're all really quick to make & don't need hardly any prep for! Don't even involve that much cooking either!

Baked sweet potato, smoked salmon, half an avocado & cucumber 

Whole wheat pasta, tuna, sweetcorn, carrots, cucumber & tomato

Egg noodle stir fry with roast chicken, shredded carrot, red onion & asparagus

Whole wheat pasta, pesto, sweetcorn, roast chicken, tomato & cucumber 

Toasted New York Bagel Co, avocado, cucumber & tomato

Toasted New York Bagel Co, baby spinach & poached eggs

Toasted New York Bagel Co, spinach, cucumber, tomato & poached eggs

Tricolour pasta, pesto, spinach, carrot, pepper, tuna, sweetcorn & cucumber

Toasted white seeded bread, avocado & poached eggs

Toasted white seeded bread, avocado & spinach

These are just some of the lunch I've been having I do have porridge a lot after the gym. Just normal porridge oats microwaved using semi-skimmed milk. 

1 cup of porridge oats, 1 cup of semi-skimmed milk. Microwave for a minute. Take it out, stir it, back in for another minute. Then put some sultanas in, a banana & some berries if you have any.

I'll even have any left over dinner we have from the night before. It's very varied what I have but I do try to have some sort of protein as you body needs it after a workout to repair your muscles. I need to try & eat more protein as I'm trying to not bulk up but be more muscley. Have some definition & tone up. I'll try to post more photos of the food I eat just to give you some ideas of what to have. 

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