Ryan is my oldest son. All my kids like to spend time in the kitchen in various ways, Leah likes to bake, Isaac enjoys doing all kinds of little helpful tasks and Ryan likes to make bread. This weekend Ryan and I decided to make bagels together.

We set aside the time - because they do require you to be around and take slightly more effort than your standard bread. The kneading takes longer if you do it by hand because the dough is so stiff. They also have the additional step of being boiled. But they are oh so worth it. There is nothing like the smell of bagels straight out of the oven. This recipe makes roughly 20 bagels and by the end of the day there were only a handful left.

If you want something to potter with in the kitchen on a rainy day, these are perfect. The results are great, a chewy soft bagel that is every bit as good if not better than many that you would buy. Ours were smeared with cream cheese and smoked salmon, the best combination of bagel toppings in my book. We used the recipe from Home Cooking in Montana as a basis which has nice step by step instructions. Very clear and easy to follow. I could not find my usual bagel recipe - it’s lurking somewhere in my stack of recipe books I suspect.

Bagels with Ryan

Makes 18-20 bagels

Dough

• 7 cups white high grade flour
• 1 Tblspn salt
• 1 1/2 Tbspns active dry yeast or 1 Tblspn instant yeast
• 2 Tblspn sugar (divided use if using active yeast)
• 1 Tblspn oil
• 2 1/4 cups warm water (divided use if using active yeast)

Combine flour, salt and yeast in a bowl if using instant yeast.

If using active dry yeast - place your yeast in a small bowl with roughly half a cup of your water and 1 tspn of your sugar. Set aside until foamy before use, this takes roughly 5 minutes.

Add sugar and oil to the water and pour over the dry ingredients. If you are using active dry yeast add in your foamy mixture and your remaining warm water and sugar with the oil.

If your dough seems very dry don’t be afraid to add a small amount of additional liquid. The moisture content of flour can vary. The dough for bagels is not a particularly soft dough however.

Knead well for about 7-8 minutes if using a mixer or roughly 20 minutes by hand - use the windowpane test to see if your dough is ready to set aside and rise.

Form into a ball and put into an oiled bowl turning once to coat dough. Cover with plastic or a kitchen towel and let rise one hour or until doubled.

Ready to shape

Take a lemon sized piece of dough and shape into a ball - push your finger through the centre to make the hole in the bagel. You need to make the hole a little larger than you think it needs to be (I hope that makes sense) because as the dough rises again after shaping the hole will be smaller.

Ryan had the best technique for shaping - kind of pushing the edges under to make a smooth ball and then pressing his finger through the top. My technique - well .. lets just say I’m working on it.

Isaac had to get in on the act too, he had a somewhat interesting approach to shaping .. squeeze the dough as hard as you can then twirl it around on your finger super-fast.. I can’t say that worked very well, but it looked like fun!

After shaping your bagels they need to prove again - set them on the trays nicely shaped and leave to rest for roughly 20 minutes, cover with a slightly damp cloth so they don’t dry out.

This is what they looked like after resting for 20 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil which has the following added to the water.

• 2 Tblspns of sugar
• 5 tspns baking soda

place 2 or three bagels in the water at a time to boil for roughly 1 minute. Place the bagels in with the top side down. Lift gently out of the water with a slotted spoon and drain well before placing on a parchment lined tray.

Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle your favourite toppings over your bagel. We decided to go with leaving some plain and some with sesame seeds today.

Pop into the oven and bake for roughly 20 minutes in the centre of the oven. We only did one tray at a time since our oven has a bit of a mind of it’s own.

You will have a beautiful pile of warm, chewy bagels to sink your teeth into.

If you are not already in New York, these will transport you there with their warm scent and the shiny surface that only a bagel has.. smear them with your favourite bagel toppings, toast them, melt cheese on them or turn them into a burger by slicing them in half.

We enjoyed making them so much we are going to make them again next weekend as a cinnamon raisin version. They are worth the little bit of effort they take, there was a real sense of pride in making these glossy sesame bagels. Maybe next time I’ll be able to shape them as beautifully as Ryan does.

Today I have a guest blog from my beautiful and feisty oldest child, Leah. She’s moved back home to live with us after a period flatting and now I get to benefit from all her fabulous baking and cooking skills. Although in this case the cookies were made for another reason entirely. I’ll let her do the explanation.

This is Leah with her little brother Isaac - he has chocolate on his face from consuming a rather large amount of these cookies - mostly when he thought I was not looking.

Without further ado - a guest blog from Leah.

It’s the infamous Leah (devourer of Tangelo cake), and this is my go-to cookie recipe. These Chocolate Chip Cookies are also known as…. ‘Sorry I Spilled Red Wine on Your Carpet Cookies’.

I made these cookies this time around because, as you probably gathered from the beginning of this post, I had a rather shall we say ‘clumsy’ night at my boyfriend’s flat the other night. The spillage of one glass was acceptable, albeit all over the back of my dress (I don’t know how it happened either!), and all over the carpet, but spilled glasses #2 and #3 were just plain ridiculous! Feeling rather seedy and headachey the following day, I sought out this recipe, and got baking!

Sorry I Spilled Red Wine on Your Carpet Cookies

It makes about 60 cookies, is flexible with quantities (especially chocolate), and the cookies turn out delicious every time!

• 2 cups of white flour
• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1 cup of dessicated coconut
• 200g/7oz butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of soft brown sugar
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Chocolate chopped. Quantities optional!

Cream the butter and sugars together

Beat in the eggs

Add all the other ingredients, and mix.

Place teaspoon-fulls of cookie dough onto a tray

Bake at 180/350 for 8-12 minutes - adjust for your oven and if you like a crispy or chewy cookie.

These cookies are fantastic with the addition of nuts or raisins, mix up your chocolate types, use dark, milk, white or a combination of all three. This particular batch had the coconut omitted.

A really great basic recipe and perfect when you want to say “sorry”. A whiff of these warm chocolate chip cookies will melt anyone’s steely gaze.

How can you stay mad with someone in the face of such an honest and delicious cookie?

Next time you need to say you’re sorry - say it with cookies.

Someone gave us a packet of green tea soba noodles with a gift basket a while back. They’ve been sitting in the pantry waiting for the right hot summery day to make them into this favourite salad of mine. Our summer has not been much of a summer until recently, so there they’ve sat for some time. I’m glad I finally got around to making this and I wonder what took me so long.

Soba noodles are made from buckwheat and have a lovely bite to them that fits well with a cold salad dish. Their texture holds up well with no hint of stickiness and they have a delicate taste which compliments the dressing chock full of asian flavours. You can have this salad on the table within the time it takes to cook the noodles. Roughly six minutes.

This recipe is not strictly traditional for the Japanese, it’s more of a modern fusion dish. They do eat cold soba salad in Japan, but with some small differences.

The dressing ingredients are tossed with the salad, but they can be just as easily combined and set on the side in a small dish to dip the noodles into, this would be a more traditional way to serve this. The red pepper is not traditional but is a bright and crisp addition. It can be topped with toasted nori as well which has been omitted today in favour of black sesame seeds.

There is also a side dressing of wasabi peas - these add a wonderful crunch and heat to a simple and stylish dish for interest, and because I like wasabi peas. There is sometimes the addition of wasabi to the dressing, but I’ve paid tribute to it with the peas rather than including it. If you’ve never tried these before give them a go, they are very addictive and make a great snack just on their own.

Cha Soba Salad

• Package of Cha Soba/Green Tea buckwheat noodles 200 grams/7oz
• one large spring onion finely chopped on the diagonal
• half a red pepper finely sliced
• 2 tspns of black sesame seeds - optional
• Wasabi peas - optional

Dressing

• 2 Tblspns of fresh ginger grated finely
• 2 Tblspns soy sauce
• 2 Tblspns rice vinegar
• 1/2 tspn of caster/superfine sugar
• 2 tspns sesame oil

Boil a saucepan with salted water and drop your noodles in for the recommended cooking time. This is normally around 5-6 minutes for soba noodles. Do not overcook them, you want them to be still slightly firm to the bite.

While the noodles are cooking whisk your dressing ingredients together adding the sesame oil last.

Drain your noodles when they are cooked and cool them quickly under cold water. You want to stop the cooking process as quickly as possible. Drain any remaining water.

Toss your noodles, green onions,red peppers and dressing ingredients together , sprinkle with black sesame seeds and wasabi peas.

Or serve in a more traditional manner with the dressing on the side as described above.

The green tea soba and the dressing are perfectly matched, it’s really surprisingly refreshing to slurp up noodles and eat spicy little vivid green wasabi peas.

If you’ve never eaten a cold noodle salad like this before and you are feeling a little wary, think pasta salad with a Japanese style dressing - just lovely.

Can you tell school has started back again? Muffins… I have a bit of an ongoing love affair with muffins. I must have made literally thousands of muffins over the years. This will not be the last muffin recipe you see here, I have so many variations that I want to share with you. Sweet or savoury they are so versatile.

Muffins are great to tuck in your bag for a snack for work, perfect for lunch boxes for children and great whipped up for a morning tea for your workmates. I’ve never had a child object to the vegetables in here either I might add. They are too busy eating these tasty little cheesy bites.

To pump up the cheese flavour you can add additional parmigiana cheese to the cheddar, or for a more grown up version use some interesting cheeses and a dash of chilli or Paprika to the mix. If you want to reduce the fat, use a low fat cheese or reduce the cheddar and add more parmigiana.

One of the wonderful thing about muffins is that they’re really very flexible, you can toss in your favourite ingredients and create your own flavour combinations easily. This muffin has the addition of cornmeal which gives it a slightly interesting texture and taste. I often add a little grated carrot, pumpkin or Kumara (sweet potato) or finely chopped red pepper to these.

There are no school cafeterias here at primary school level and only a small shop at high schools normally, so the majority of children will take a packed lunch to school.

There is a growing trend in New Zealand to remove all unhealthy foods from schools and that includes in packed lunches. No juice boxes, no potato chips, no sweets and no high sugar foods. Personally, I am all for this and think it’s a wonderful move to help our kids develop healthy eating habits right from the start. That’s not to say my children don’t have sweet treats - they do, but in moderation.

Cheddar & Zucchini Muffins

Makes 18 standard muffins

• 2 cups plain flour
• 2/3 cup of fine yellow cornmeal
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 4 tspns baking powder
• 3/4 tspn salt
• 3 tspns sugar
• 2 spring onions including green tops, chopped
• 4 oz of sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• 1 Tblspn Parmigiana cheese, grated
• 1 1/2 cups of low fat yoghurt or buttermilk or sour cream.
• 2/3 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 large zucchini, grated
• 4 eggs

Add your dry ingredients to a bowl and whisk together to blend.

Add in your cheeses, onions, zucchini, eggs, yoghurt, and oil and mix together gently until just combined. Do not over mix or your muffins will be pointy and tough, and we don’t want that!

Place into greased muffin pans or use liners.

Cook for 12 minutes at 180C/350F. Muffins are done when they spring back lightly to touch and are golden on the top. Cool on a rack and store air tight.

These will freeze well.

Sometimes the best things are the simple ones. Something you can come home and make in a few minutes and have out of the oven just as quickly. Muffins were a typical afternoon snack for my older children when they came home from school, each child having their particular favourite. I think muffins were one of the first things they learned to bake, with the “do not over mix them” firmly implanted.

Muffins are baked in our house at least once a fortnight and they disappear just as quickly as they were made. Muffins are one of those things that are best fresh and warm and I am afraid to confess that the one you see above should actually have had a few more shots taken with my camera, but I ate it…..

These little mushrooms are usually part of an Italian antipasto platter, they are a wonderful accompaniment to cheeses, glossy black and green olives, sun-dried tomatoes, ciabatta, marinated artichokes and cold meats like prosciutto and salamis. You don’t have to be assembling an antipasto platter to enjoy these though. Often we will have them as part of a light meal beside thick slices of cured ham or chicken with green salads in the summer.

They are vinegary, spicy mushrooms with the aroma and flavour of the herbs magically able to break through the stronger spicing. This pickle is both exotic and very rustic.

These unassuming little mushrooms have quite a bite to them. People that are unfamiliar with these will often be quite surprised by them. If you can find small button mushrooms they are the best ones to use for this. Unfortunately when I went to the store they all seemed to be a little on the large side, so I had to slice these into quarters when I really would rather have left them whole.

I’ve used wine vinegar in this particular version, but you can also use a good quality balsamic if you would rather. Put on your favourite Soprano’s episode and transport yourself to Italy with these little gems.

Antipasto Marinated Mushrooms

• 500 grams button mushrooms left whole - or halved if larger
• 1/2 cup good olive oil
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• 2 Tblspns fresh parsley chopped
• 1 Tblspn fresh Thyme chopped
• 2 tspns fresh chilli (or to taste)
• 1 tspn caster/superfine sugar
• salt and pepper

Wipe mushrooms with a damp cloth and trim stalks if needed, place in a bowl.

Place your other ingredients in a screw top jar and shake well to combine.

Pour your marinade over your mushrooms and leave to marinate for at least two hours and up to two days. The mushrooms in the pictures have only been marinating for the minimum 2 hours. As they marinate for longer they soak up more of the marinade and get a little stronger in flavour and take on a slightly different hue, looking darker. The texture changes too with the mushrooms becoming less spongy.

Serve at room temperature as part of a platter or as a side to a light meal.

Gustare il pasto! - If anyone speaks Italian please let me know if that is correct and that I have not said something incredibly silly. Oh well, it would not be the first time. Enjoy.