Cinnamon Sugar Bread

Sometimes, you just need some sweetness in your life.

Every once in a while, throw caution to the wind. 

I have been doing so well lately eating well and living an active lifestyle.  (I have lost twenty pounds over the past eight months!)  I feel amazing. 

But here’s the thing-I love baking sweets.  LOVE it.

But I refuse to gain weight and eat an unbalanced diet.  Again.  (I am soooo over that phase.)

So, I have come up with the perfect solution for still occasionally getting away with eating not so healthy (but incredibly delicious) food:  Host parties.

Karl and I live in “the inaka” (Japanese countryside)  and most of our friends have a ways to travel when they visit.  Because of this, we usually end up with overnight guests.  I have no problem with this.  When I have a bunch of friends over to share with, I can get away with baking a pie, or cookies, or…

…this delicious bread.  Ever since I saw this recipe on one of my favorite food blogs, Joy the Baker, I have been mentally drooling. 

Finally, last month, I tried it.  Three weekends in a row.  It really makes for a perfect weekend breakfast.  Especially the morning after a party when you have friends with whom to share it.  

Delicious! 

Thanksgiving with a Tiny Oven

First, watch this video.

Who doesn’t have a battle ax, chainsaw and bazooka in their kitchen!?

Ok, now watch this one.

Maybe you don’t care for the Muppets…I think they are hilaaaarious. 

Fortunately, I did not have to skewer my own turkey or deal with talking pumpkins this Thanksgiving.  Also, having been in Japan for over a year now, I was able to approach Thanksgiving preparations with much more confidence. 

If you want to prepare a turkey for Thanksgiving and you live in Japan, this is what I recommend:

Step 1: They do sell turkeys at Costco, but unless you have a big enough oven this option is out of the question.  We ordered a tiny 5 lb turkey from a website called “The Meat Guy.”  It’s great. Order about a week in advance.  The website even allows you to choose a specified day and time of delivery.  

The turkey-sitting in an 8x8in pan.

Step 2: Make sure your turkey is thawed out completely 12-24 hours before you want to roast it. 

Step 3: Brine it!  I followed this recipe (I also added an apple, as you can see) for brining our little turkey.  Brining makes a huge difference in the juiciness of the turkey.  We let ours brine for about 16 hours before roasting.

The turkey brining away.  We had to put it into a backing bag and then into our crisper-it was the only way it would fit into our fridge!

Step 4: Stuff and roast.

Stuffed with wild rice cranberry dressing. Yum!

A perfect fit for our tiny oven!

Step 5: Eat!

This is what the rest of our holiday meal looked like:

Kabocha squash with butter and brown sugar.

Mashed potatoes-because you have to!

A made-up wild rice, cranberry shittake stuffing.  Delish!

Sorry, my gravy is out of focus.  If you make gravy, for mercy's sake, make this one!

Pumpkin-one of the best desserts (or, let's be awesome, breakfasts too!) ever.

 Our holiday was delightful in every way.  Flowing with apple cider, champagne, and white wine.  Bountiful, delicious food.

So very much for which to be thankful!

Chili and Corn Bread-or-A Match Made in Heaven

This wasn't planned.  But sometimes, the best meals aren't planned.  They are thrown together in an hour.  And they are de-licious.

My amazing husband made this chili while I was away at my koto lesson. 

Guys-it was amazing.  I don't know how he made it.  He explanation was, "I'm a guy-all guys just know how to make chili!"

Ok. Not arguing with that.  

I made a super quick corn bread when I got home.  Because cornbread and chili together...they are like peas and carrots. 

I used this recipe and added a small can of green chilis and some grated sharp white cheddar cheese. 

It was marvelous.  A great end to a weekend. (We were at an awesome wine festival yesterday-post coming soon!)

Apples and Cinnamon

Don’t you hate those days where you just can’t seem to shake off a bad feeling? 

Something keeps nagging at you…but you can’t figure out what.

You keep playing over the parts of the bad dream from last night.

You create absurd scenarios in your head and wonder what would happen if they ever came to be.

I am not a depressed person, but everyone has a bad day every now and then.  One of the best things you can do to perk yourself up is to have some comfort food.

What is your favorite comfort food?  I am definitely a macaroni and cheese girl.  One of my other favorite things is hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks.  In fact, apple cinnamon is just one of my favorite flavors. 

Which is why I made a bagel version.  Sweet apples+spicy cinnamon=delicious bagels. 

What makes them even better is the cinnamon walnut cream cheese I made to enhance their delightfulness.  It totally worked.  (Making new cream cheese flavors is so fun!) 

 

Nothing hits the spot on a bad day like a delicious toasted bagel with cream cheese.  Especially with some hot apple cider on the side.  

Apple Cinnamon Bagels

Note: The apple and applesauce provide enough liquid for the recipe.

5/8  cup applesauce

medium apple, cut up into tiny pieces

1 T vegetable oil

2 T honey  

1 t salt

5/8 cup whole wheat flour

2 3/4 cup bread flour

2 1/2 t active dry yeast

1 t cinnamon

1. Mix all ingredients together.  Knead and let rise an hour.

2. Shape dough into six bagels. ( Roll dough into balls and poke a hole in the middle.)  Let rise 30 min. During this time prepare your pot of boiling water.

3. Boil the bagels.  About 1 min per side.  Preheat oven to 400 F.

4. Bake 25-30 min.

5. Smother with cream cheese and enjoy!

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

 

I had searched and searched and really could not find a staple item for my kitchen…

...muffin pans. 

I get that baking doesn’t really seem to be a thing here…(Seriously, options are limited with such tiny ovens.)  But no muffin pans? 

What about cupcakes? 

Such joys are possible when you have yourself a nice set of muffin pans.

Thank goodness for awesome sisters who send you things!  My sweet older sister sent me two cute little silicon muffin pans a couple months ago.  One green and one blue.

I have never used anything silicon in the kitchen before besides rubber spatulas.  I did a bit of research online before baking with them.  I discovered some really cool things:

1. You don’t need to grease silicon bake ware.
2. The pans cool down significantly faster then regular metal pans.
3. They can be folded up and put away-space savers!

The one drawback is that they can take a little while to clean, by hand anyway. 

Since it is autumn, I decided to christen the new muffin tins with pumpkin spice muffins.

With cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top.

They were divine.

they just keep getting better

There’s a thing about making bagels…you can make them taste like any season you want.

It’s awesome.  And really fun to come up with delicious flavor combinations.

It's Autumn in Japan.  We just had Halloween.  Leaves are changing into a brilliant matrix of color. The air is crisp and fresh. 

So how do you make bagels taste like autumn? 

Easy.

Pumpkin.

Cinnamon.

Allspice.

Ginger.

Cloves.

Result: the best bagels I have (yet) made.

Ready to be boiled.

 

Autumn Pumpkin Spice Bagels

5/8 cup warm water

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

2 T honey

1 t  salt

2 t  pumpkin pie spice

1 1/2 t cinnamon

3 1/3 cups bread flour

2 t  active dry yeast

1) Mix flour, water, salt, honey and yeast.  Knead, let rise for an hour.

2)  Separate dough into six sections and shapes into bagels. (I knead the dough into a small ball then poke a hole through the middle with your finger to form the hole.)

3)  Allow formed bagels to rise for 20 min.  Prep your pot of boiling water.

4)  Drop the bagels gently into the pot of boiling water for about 1 min per side.

5)  Place on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal.  

6)  Bake at 400 F for 20-25 min.

If at first you don't succeed...

Last month, I turned 25.  I had an awesome party.  I ate delicious food.  I drank delicious drink.  I spent time with excellent people. 

I also received some awesome gifts, one of which was a bagel cookbook.

Remember this episode?  My first attempt at bagel making: result…disaster.  But hey, you can’t win ‘em all.  Right?

Well this time, I actually read the directions and…

Ta-da!

Mission accomplished.  Delicious bagels acquired. 

They were so easy and quick to make…I can’t wait to try more of the recipes.

I’ll keep you updated in my bagel adventures. 

Maybe blueberry for next time…

Baking

I miss baking. 

It’s just too hot now.  We are trying to subsist on salad and sandwiches and anything that doesn’t require cooking or baking.

But in order to make sandwiches, you need to have bread.  Sure.  We could buy bread.  But finding delicious whole wheat or whole wheat bread here is next to impossible. 

And we like whole wheat bread.

So sometimes, I turn that AC on and bake.  In the name of bread.