Michael in the Kitchen

I have been blessed with a husband who likes to cook.  Not just grill, although he loves that too.  But really cook and try new twists on classic recipes.  Today we came home from church and he immediately took over the kitchen.

He started out making bagels.  We love his bagels!!!  He always makes several batches and we freeze them for future use.  Today he made two kinds...savory herb and sweet cranberry cinnamon.  I can not tell you how awesome the kitchen smelled as the were put in the oven.  He took this task on several years ago when we decided to take corn syrup and artificial colors and flavors out of our diet.  We love bagels and missed them in our diet so he decided to try his luck at making a simple plain bagel.  Since that time, Michael has ventured out into various flavors.  I am so thankful for this treat from time to time.

This is not an easy task either...there are several steps that go into making bagels.  First, the dough is made and goes through an initial rise.  Then the bagels are formed and rise a second time.  Then the bagels go through a boiling process before being placed in the oven.  Because we make so many at once, we have stacks of bagels cooling on the counters before they are placed in freezer bags for future use.  It takes about 3-4 hours to go through the full process.

This would have been enough for one day in the kitchen but then we decided to make stuffed manicotti.  I had the boys in the kitchen mixing up the filling.  Then I learned that you can fill the shells before they cook (so much easier than boiling them and dealing with hot pasta!), so we began that process.  However, half way through I had to go feed the baby so Michael took over.  He got the sauce ready and layered the ingredients.  Next thing I know I am told that dinner is ready (I guess I took a nap with Zaira!).  He made a nice salad and French garlic bread to go with the manicotti.

Still not done in the kitchen!  We are scheduled to compete in a hushpuppy competition next month so Michael tried out a new recipe.  The recipe we created has strawberries and bacon in the batter.  I know it seems like a strange combination but tastes really good.  We also added chocolate to half the batch and that made it even better.  We still need to play around with the ratios but we might just have a winner!  More on that next month!

Throughout the kitchen experience the boys had "The Muppet Show" playing in the background.  A crazy combination of events for one day but lots of fun was had by all.  To add to the fun, the boys found a grasshopper exoskeleton!  They insisted I add this to the experiences of the day.