Homemade Bagels!

Friday night, Katie, Beth, Amy and I had a fun girl's night watching "Hairspray" and eating the delicious mint-brownies. Not even the unpredictability of the toaster oven could stop us from enjoying those brownies. Watching that movie brought back fun memories of good times spent with my sister this past summer. Beth decided to stay the night and we ended up making home-made bagels (the only kind of bagels that exist in China)! Amy, Beth, and Brad had tried the homemade bagels last week, but Katie and I were gone so we didn't get to try them. It's a bit of a process - making dough, letting it rise, shaping the dough, boiling the dough, and then finally baking them. We started, took a break to watch the movie, and then didn't finish making them until about 1:00 a.m. Some of our bagels were slightly flat and the toaster oven was making it hard to get them to bake evenly, but the last batch was perfect. Since bagels are non-existent here (when I go back back to the States, cinnamon bagels with cinnamon swirl cream cheese are one of the first things I want . . . right after a cold glass of milk), it was an amazing treat. We even had some cream cheese from our last trip to Wuhan that we were able to put on our bagels. So have any of you ever made homemade bagels??? To add to our bagel breakfast, we made pumpkin pancakes, scrambled eggs, and Starbucks coffee. Fun Friday night and Saturday morning. Props to Beth for her amazing and adventurous cooking skills. Points to my American non-stick flat griddle that mom talked me into bringing for making perfect pancakes. Thanks to Amy's mom for sending Pillsbury mint brownie mix. Yeah for my fun Yichang friends.

Bagel dough

Boiling the bagels
Baking in the toaster oven
Bread for Brad (who is often mistakenly called "Bread" here)!!
Pumpkin pancakes on our fun Christmas plate that we found at a shop here in Yichang amazingly enough.