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Bagels are the perfect hangover food :). I don’t drink wine often, especially red, because it really hits me the next morning for whatever reason. But it was tough to turn down the red wine on Valentine’s Day! We had a bottle in our apartment and drank it along with eating the Turkish food that we had delivered (yes, I realize that I’m insanely lucky to be able to get vegan Turkish delivery). A pretty low-key and fun Valentine’s Day for us. I hope that you had a nice one too!

I’m feeling really happy today because I am finally sensing the end of probably the most brutal winter (weather-wise) that I’ve endured. Mind you, I spent a majority of them in Seattle, where things are pretty mild. But, still. Baltimore does get a real winter each year, but we have never had this many separate snow events or days of sub-freezing temperatures since I moved here. Training for a marathon has been pretty brutal in these conditions, but my bike ride to and from work is probably the worse part. But hey, it’s what I signed up for.

I know that many of you have had it even more frigid and I hope you’re staying warm. We are finally seeing temperatures rising back to what they normally are and the sun peek out a little bit, and it’s like my whole life just brightened up again, you know? Already my cold, grumpy, dark bike rides home of the past few weeks are starting to feel distant =]

Long runs in the morning cold -> carb loading. I don’t always post about it, but I usually make whole grain bread at least once a week. It’s an easy way for me to take in plenty of calories when I’m on the go. Sometimes whole grain bagels can be tricky; bagels seem to miss the higher gluten of AP flour more than almost any other baked good. I thought about how I used mashed potato in my lower-gluten brown rice spelt bread, and realized it might be a good way to add some hold and some fluff to my bagels. So whole grain potato bagels it is!

It worked so very well, and thus another bagel variation has been added to our rotation. You can taste just a slight hint of potato flavor (it’s a good thing!) and all of the classic bagel qualities are there: slightly crisp on the outside; chewy but not too chewy; and a nice malty flavor owing to the long ferment. A bit time-consuming, but not difficult!

Keep warm, everybody! We are getting into the home stretch!