Tisha B'av and Rustic Bagels

I am writing this as I am fasting the Jewish fast of Tisha B'av.  Not the best time to write a food blog. Though fasting does cause one to think about food, not only for obvious reasons.  Today, I found myself thinking about how many of us our controlled by food in our day to day lives, not completely but to a certain degree. It may be a craving that we give in to or we may feel we need to eat to be able to concentrate, etc.  On a fast day, we are all of a sudden empowered, we overcome our physical need to eat for one day.  Obviously we need to eat to live and to be healthy and I of all people love eating and all things food.  But a fast day, allows us to realize that we are not purely physical beings with physical needs and allows us to get more in touch with our spiritual side.

Along with the above sentiments, I find in my household that we still find ourselves thinking about food and we deal with it by baking.  My 10 year old, who fasted until 5:30 pm even though it is not required of her, wanted to bake both peanut butter cookies and cupcakes. I limited her to the cookies. I then decided to bake bagels as I didn't have a chance to pick up any and I've always wanted to give it a try. They don't look super successful but I hope that the taste will make up for it.

I took a break to get the break-fast meal ready and now I'm back. The fast is over and we broke the fast on the bagels.  They were delicious! They tasted like real bagels although they were a bit thinner and looked very rustic.

See them here:

Anyway, I am still looking for the ultimate bagel recipe.  I think that I found one.  I promise to post a recipe, once I am more satisfied with my product.  As you can see from the color, I used whole-wheat flour for slightly more than half of the flour called for in the recipe.  I did the whole boil first and then bake method and they were crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. But again, still waiting for a slightly more perfect recipe before I share.