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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

In a mixing bowl, cream together 1/2 c butter (softened), 2/3 c peanut butter, 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/2 c powdered sugar.

Beat in 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla.

Stir in 1 c flour, 1 c oatmeal, 1/4 tsp baking soda, and a pinch of salt just until blended.

Stir in 1 c chocolate chips.

Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 F for 10 minutes or until the cookies are lightly golden at the edges. They are best under-baked. ;)

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Espresso Cookies

Stir together and set aside:

1½ cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

Beat together:

1 cup butter

1 cup powdered sugar

Mix together:

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

Espresso powder should dissolve in the vanilla. Add to butter/sugar mixture.

Add dry mix and beat just until combined. Mix in 2 cups chocolate chips.

Use a cookie scoop or a spoon to form 1-2 tablespoon balls of dough. Roll each ball in white sugar (granulated). Bake at 325 for about 10 minutes.

Dough can be kept frozen after rolling in sugar. To make cookies from frozen dough, bake at 325 for slightly longer, closer to 15 minutes.

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Brown Butter Chocolate Lava Cakes

1 stick butter ¾ cup sugar 2/3 cup cocoa 1/8 t salt (or to taste) ½ T water 2 eggs ¼ cup flour 2 oz chocolate (chunks or chips are fine)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Fill a muffin tin with 6 regular-sized liners or 16 mini-size liners.

In a pot on the stove, heat the butter until melted and slightly browned. Remove from heat.

In a bowl, toss together the sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. Stir the sugar/cocoa mixture into the butter. Add water and stir. Add one egg at a time, stirring until completely mixed. Mix in the flour until no white remains.

Pour the batter evenly into the prepared muffin tins. Push a chunk of chocolate into each cupcake. Use a spoon to cover the chocolate in batter.

Bake at 350 F until just cooked through, 10 mins for mini tins, 12-13 minutes for regular sized. The cakes should still look a little shiny on top and indent slightly when you press the tops.

I always err on the side of undercooking these. As long as the batter is clearly heated through, there’s no reason to risk overcooking them.

Allow to cool for five minutes and then eat them all up. Or, microwave any leftovers for 10 seconds before eating the next day. Or the following day. I’ve never had any of these make it to a fourth day.

Adapted from a recipe in Food52 Baking.

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The first condition of learning how to eat is to talk about it…no food is really enjoyed unless it is keenly anticipated, discussed, eaten and then commented upon.

Lin Yutang, My Country and My People

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My China Kitchen: Two Hotplates and a Glorified Toaster Oven

When we moved to China, we were warned: your apartment won’t be as nice or as big as what you are used to in the US. But we lucked out: our apartment is almost as nice and twice as big as our Chicago one-bedroom. The only drawback? There is no kitchen.

We live in a hotel. Floors five through eight are apartments, and floors nine through twenty-five are hotel rooms. When they built our apartments, what they really made were suites…with no kitchens: no refrigerator, no stovetop, no sink or counter space. The teachers that came before us (bless them!) protested, and the “laundry room” of each apartment was turned into a kitchen. A counter was added, a sink was installed, and a refrigerator was delivered. Plus, each apartment was given a hot plate to cook on.

After moving in, I realized there was no way I could cook in a laundry closet for two years, so I figured out ways to extend the kitchen out into our otherwise spacious apartment. I moved our hotplates to a kitchen cart in the living area and started a pantry on some of the shelves in our office. We now have plenty of room to cook, even if my kitchen is still, as I like to call it, two hot plates and a glorified toaster oven.

Here is a picture of my kitchen cart or “stovetop.” When I cook, I move the hot plates from the bottom shelves to the top surface, which doubles as extra counter space the rest of the time.

I wanted to take a picture of our glorified toaster oven, but that would require cleaning it and taking it out of the laundry closet it where it lives. So, imagine a red toaster oven, and picture it oversized by about half. That is what I bake with these days. And it’s actually not too shabby.

Despite my worries, our little kitchen has done well. On the hot plates, I have made soups, sauces, pasta, risotto, pretty much everything I made on our gas stovetop in Chicago. With the oven, I have to watch things more closely because the heat is inconsistent, but despite that, I’ve made birthday cakes (small ones), hundreds of cookies (four classes of twenty-five students times four cookies each), and more batches of granola than I can count (cereal isn’t common here).

It has been difficult cooking without a stove or a proper oven, but I am grateful for two hotplates that always seem to work out and for my little red oven that could.

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Mandarin is a hard language to learn. It is tonal and fast, and there are many dialects. But certain vocabulary words are easy to remember because they are so descriptive. How could you forget that a giraffe is called a "long-neck-deer" or that an owl is a "cat-head-hawk"? Or that China's most famous resident, the panda, is literally called a "bear cat"? It's specific (and adorable) and it reminds me that English has its own challenges because our English-learning students have to remember "giraffe" rather than "long-neck-deer."

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Genghis Khan, Millet, and Mongolian Script: Life in Inner Mongolia

Three hundred miles west of Beijing and three hundred miles south of the Mongolian border lies Hohhot, the capital city of China’s Inner Mongolia province. When my husband and I decided to move there, we had to search to find it on a map. When we tell Chinese people outside of the province where we live, they usually don’t know it, and if they do know our city, they are surprised we live there. As one Shanghai-born and New York-raised man put it, “Wow, that’s out in the boondocks!”

Yes, it is. It is the smallest town of three million people that you can find. It houses many universities, malls, and a museum, yet compared to the coastal cities of China, Hohhot is far off the grid culturally, even if it is close geographically. When we first moved to Hohhot, we were unsure of what would greet us there. (The answer: Genghis Khan. He is very popular here. Here we are at a park that bears his name and giant face with some of our friends.)

Filled with Mongolian influence, the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia is home to more ethnic Mongolians than the country of Mongolia itself. Only about 17% of the province’s population are Mongolian ethnicity, but that still constitutes over 4 million Mongolian people versus 3 million Mongolians living in the nation of Mongolia.

Inner Mongolia is also the only place in the world that retains the traditional Mongolian script, a vertical writing created with strokes and notches, creating keyhole-like shapes for each word. The country of Mongolia switched to Cyrillic writing in the 1940s because of their proximity to Russia. Where we are, the traditional Mongolian script sits alongside the Chinese characters on all signs and storefronts. (See below for our school crest with our name in Mongolian script on the upper left, Chinese on the upper right, and English across the bottom.)

Many parts of Inner Mongolian life seem to reflect this border between the two places. Public transportation announcements are always in both Mongolian and Chinese. The first Mongolian phrase we learned was: “Please get ready to get off the bus.” It was also one of the first Chinese phrases we learned. The hero of our area is Genghis Khan with parks named after him and statues in his honor. Most people who visit the province come for the famous grasslands or singing sands desert.

Beyond the signs and the language, the restaurants also reflect a melding of Chinese and Mongolian heritage. Mongolian restaurants will serve Chinese dishes alongside Mongolian food and they will often add the traditional Chinese spice, la jiao, to bring extra flavor.

To North Americans whose perception of food is a battle to be healthy, the historic Mongolian diet can be shocking. It isn’t about careful calorie counting, low carb, or getting enough fruits and vegetables. Because most Mongolians come from a nomadic background of herding on the grasslands, the food groups reflect their laborious schedules. According to a book on the history of the region, the three Mongolian food groups are: meat, grain, and “white,” meaning any of the dairy products that add substantial fat to the diet, such as cream, milk, and cheese.

Perhaps the best example of this style of eating is in the classic Mongolian milk tea. While it is technically a milk tea, it might be better described as a broth. It is salty and rich, and if you don’t go out and ride a horse after drinking it, you will probably feel way too full of food groups you usually limit.

When we go out for Mongolian food, we sometimes order milk tea in a large Thermos, set beside our table. When visitors come, we order it in the traditional style, where it is assembled in front of you. The staff brings a tureen to your table with a small flame underneath. In the bowl, they place dried beef, millet grains, and cheese skin (the top of the milk after it has been boiled). Over this, they pour the milk tea. Letting it simmer as you eat, the milk tea is infused with the meat, grain, and dairy, melding together all the nutrients that you might need to take on the chilly grasslands.

Going out for Mongolian also means indulging in the other two Mongolian food groups: grain and meat. One of our favorite foods here is tai yang bing, literally translated to sun flatbread, although it is closer to an empanada than anything else we eat in the States. These pockets of fried dough are filled with beef and onions. In China, beef is expensive and often scarce. One of the perks of living in Inner Mongolia is regularly indulging in local beef and mutton.

Our other favorite Mongolian food (and my personal favorite) is what we like to call “Mongolian cereal.” The true name is nai you ban chao mi, which translates to cream stirred with millet. The millet is puffed, so it is a lighter, crunchier version of regular millet. In the States, it is hard to find, but here, Mongolian specialty stores keep it by the barrel and sell it by the pound. (See picture below.) The cream is thick and tangy, and restaurants often small dishes of white sugar alongside the millet and cream so you can sweeten it to your taste.

When Matt goes to lunch with his Mongolian students, it is not uncommon for each of them to order their own bowl of this to go with the meal, just as Chinese students will add their own bowls of rice.

When Matt and I first found out we would be moving to Inner Mongolia, we were a bit disappointed. Last time Matt lived in China, he lived in an area with heavy Russian influence. This time, the Mongolian influence is strong. We were both hoping to be closer to the current of modern China in one of the major cities.

But living here has had unexpected blessings and perks: we get to eat beef when our other friends across China rarely see it. We have learned a bit of Mongolian in addition to our Chinese, and perhaps the best of all—we have made friends with Mongolians who live here, learning more about their heritage and their food. We have also been treated to several performances of Mongolian throat singing, perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful sound I have heard in my life.

China is a big place, and we are now grateful to have spent two years living here, at a crossroads of Chinese and Mongolian culture, and especially Chinese and Mongolian food.

[natalieeatschocolate]

In Praise of Sweetened Condensed Milk

I remember the first time I used sweetened condensed milk in a recipe. I was making my grandpa’s cheesecake recipe and had just opened a can of it into the mixing bowl. Setting down the can, I did what we all ought to do—swiped around the edge for the last remaining drops and licked them off my finger.

Why, I thought, do we not eat this straight with a spoon? I am a grown-up now, and I know why we don’t do that (cavities, calories), but I still think there is more of a place for the stuff than dulce de leche or buried in a different dessert.

Last year, I traveled to Thailand for the first time and found that they have accomplished what I had not: finding the best possible ways to bring sweetened condensed milk into my mouth without the indignity of eating it with a spoon.

The foremost way to eat it is drizzled on top of roti (or rotee). A circle of flaky dough is rolled out and fried on a griddle with optional toppings, the most popular being banana and Nutella. The crunchy crepe is then chopped up into small squares and drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. My favorite roti is made with Nutella and sweetened condensed milk and is eaten while walking on the chaotic Thai streets at night.

The second way I saw Thai vendors utilize the cans of succulent goodness are in drinks, both the ever-cloying and effervescent Thai milk tea and in espresso drinks, such as my favorite iced mocha. Using sweetened condensed milk as a stand-in for syrup, the drinks are as sweet as you want an indulgent drink to be without crossing the line.

I am sure there are more places and chefs holding on to great ways of using sweetened condensed milk. What other ways am still I missing out on besides, of course, the classic straight-with-a-spoon?

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Recipe: Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

One of my staple recipes is a lemon chocolate chip muffin recipe given to me by my mom. The recipe uses yogurt to add moisture, which keeps the muffins light and delicious for days after they are made. I wanted to see how far I could push that recipe and retain the tart-yogurt taste that is so good about the original recipe. 

I stumbled across this banana bread recipe from Smitten Kitchen and decided to merge the two recipes. Because our glorified toaster oven can be unpredictable when baking in loaf pans, I have opted more recently for muffins, all the time. They cook faster and are more stable in unpredictable oven temperatures.

With the double chocolate in these, the banana plays more of a light harmony to the chocolate’s melody. For me, that is perfect, because I always opt for chocolate to be the star of the show.

Double Chocolate Banana Muffin Recipe 

3 bananas  ½ butter, melted ½ cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg 1 cup flour ½ cup cocoa ¼ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ cup plain yogurt 1 cup dark chocolate chips 

In a mixer, mash the bananas. Add in the butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and egg and stir until incorporated. Mix in the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda until fully combined. Stir in the yogurt. Add the chocolate chips. Bake in muffin tins at 350 F for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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A Trip to the Culture Market

If Harry Potter visited Diagon Alley in China, I imagine it would look something like Hohhot’s culture market. Two blocks north of our campus, the culture market sits on a corner, hidden inconspicuously behind a grocery store and a bakery.

Two corridors lead into the market, each to a courtyard at the center. The entrances are flanked by stone lions that are almost forgettable in the chaos of bicycles, pedestrians, and uniformed school children that hustle around them. We enter through the north corridor, where a parade of goods are spread out on tables and vendors look up from their phones as we pass by.

We always stop at a wide table of pens near the entrance where Matt tries out dozens, scribbling on the provided scraps of notebook paper to see which pen he will walk away with today. I drift away to the other side of the aisle where the latest pets for sale sit in plastic cages. I watch hamsters scurry like tumbling cotton balls, red-eyed rabbits dart to their corners, and mice pile up on top of each other in an effort to keep warm. The woman selling them sees me eyeing a small brown hamster asleep in one corner. She tells me the price and waves her hands toward the cage, egging me to buy one of the furry animals. I shake my head and smile. “Cute,” I say. That is the extent of my language, and she smiles in agreement.

After Matt chooses his pens, we walk past the textbook stores and enter the courtyard. In one corner, a knot of elderly men hover over their friends’ chess game. Only in the rain and the bitter winter months is the wooden board unused. When they don’t have customers, vendors drift over to watch their friends play. An umbrella pops up from time to time to keep the game going on particularly sunny days, which come often at Hohhot’s high altitude.

We loop around the main building, talking ourselves out of what we don’t need (another notebook, a Totoro pillow) and realizing what we never knew we wanted (mushroom-shaped sticky notes, binder clips in the shape of mouths!).

Around us, goods spill out of their stores and onto the concrete walkway. We pass a table stacked with Rubik’s cubes and bootleg DVDs, and another spread with pencil cases emblazoned with inspirational nonsense. “Today is your day.” “Believe in a sunshine.” And a bag stamped with the expositional: “My Bag.”

We have our favorite stores at the market now, and that is where we head. Inside the main building, tiny shops dive back into dark corners, each filled to the doorway with variations of the same item: a music store where dozens of guitars shine in the stark overhead lights, a paper store where rolls of parchment as thick as tree trunks stand upright on the ground, an electronics store with extension cords coiled on every wall and a disinterested worker sitting at a table, watching videos on his phone.

In the board game store, cardboard boxes are stacked floor to ceiling, emblazoned with the names of the games they hold, some in English, most in Chinese. An old woman flits around putting tipped boxes back upright and telling customers the price of games. Occasionally, she slows long enough to make a recommendation, an unlikely candidate for being a game aficionado, but she never hesitates when a customer asks her opinion.

Two doors down from the game store, my favorite store is different from the other nooks. This one is filled with the same trinkets—papers, notebooks, mugs, and bookmarks—but the floor is swept clear and soft lights are installed overhead. Each time we visit, the woman working is organizing new stacks of bird-stamped notebooks or dusting the two llama clocks on the wall. I shop here while Matt is at the game store, glad to sort through the organized piles for gifts to bring home.

Before we leave, we visit the far end of the culture market, where there are a few stores that truly seem to fit the label of “culture.” They are Mongolian specialty stores, and the owners watch us as we circle displays of silver jewelry, shelves of milk tea tureens, and rows of Mongolian children’s books. When we go to negotiate a price, we realize that even our meager Chinese is unhelpful here. The Mongolian man at the desk has little Chinese and no English; we have little Chinese and no Mongolian. He punches a price into an oversized calculator, and we nod in assent.

On our way out of the market, we pass the calligraphy stores. We watch through the window as an old man brushes ink on paper in large strokes. Another man in a rimmed hat looks on with his hands folded behind his back, watching the characters come to life in the thick, black ink. On the counter, brushes as thin as chopsticks sit in canisters, while one as thick as my arm hangs down in the window. Rolls of paper are piled along the far walls, and I see a woman running her fingers over them as she waits for her turn with the clerk.

We leave the culture market through the east entrance, carrying a few small bags with the day’s purchases. The east corridor is filled with food vendors who look up at us as we leave. Before them, dozens of metal containers sit simmering on rolling carts. Skewers of meatballs and tofu hang limp in the mist, and the sellers watch us complacently as we exit, waiting for the dinner rush to begin. The smell of the food follows us as we leave the market and reemerge onto the busy street. Behind us, the culture market seems to close up like the turned page of a pop-up book, an alternate world that closes behind us as we rejoin the rest of China, heading home for dinner after a day out.

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Recipe: Baanta Iced Mocha

One of the joys of leaving China for Thailand in the winter is the weather—it’s a fifty degree difference I will gladly take. The other joy is moving temporarily from tea country into coffee country.

I am not a coffee connoisseur or even a casual coffee lover, but I have finally made that adulthood transition from having “a little coffee in my hot chocolate” to having “a little chocolate in my coffee.” In other words, I have grown to like that beginner drink: the mocha.

In Thailand, I would often take breaks during busy days to visit a small coffee stand a few blocks from where we stayed. They had everything I was looking for in a coffee spot—good drinks at a cheap price (a mere $1 for a large) and owners that I was convinced I could win over through politeness and smiles. (I succeeded.)

Each day I visited, I would watch them make my favorite iced mocha. It was only this past week back at home in tea country that I took my careful mental notes and tried making one for myself, hoping it would ease my Thailand cravings. It turned out spectacularly, and much closer to the original than I thought possible, but only it made my desire to return to Thailand stronger.

Baanta Iced Mocha Recipe

2 shots of espresso* 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk ½ cup of milk Enough ice to fill a 16 oz cup (or two 8 oz cups)

Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a glass measuring cup. Top with the cocoa powder. Pour the espresso shots over the cocoa, stirring vigorously to break up any chunks. Continue stirring until the liquid is somewhat cooled. Fill your cup (or cups) with ice and pour the mocha over it. Pour the milk slowly on top. Drink slowly, letting the ice dilute the sweet mixture, as if you were walking down a sunny street in Thailand on a hot January day.

*I was surprised how well a mock shot of espresso turned out using 2 tablespoons of ground espresso-roasted beans (Intelligentsia Black Cat Analog) and 8 oz of water in a French press.

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Chinese eat with their mouths. Japanese eat with their eyes. Americans eat with their stomachs.

A Chinese friend. Agree or disagree?

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When we give directions in China, it is easier to use landmarks (by the market, by the college, etc.) than to use street names. Fortunately, we have this convenient landmark when we need to give directions north of our campus. "It's by the Steve Jobs statue." No one does statues like China!

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Food Tip #1: Microwave Your Peanut Butter M&Ms

Question: What could be better than a peanut butter M&M? 

Answer: A microwaved peanut butter M&M, with the chocolate and peanut butter soft and melting and the candy coating still crunchy and sweet. This is one of those food “hacks” that could only be invented by teenagers. 

More than a decade ago, I was taught this trick by a friend. Take a microwaveable bowl. Fill it with peanut butter M&Ms. Microwave until you see cracks start to appear on the first few M&Ms. Growing up, we used a glass bowl and microwaved it for a minute, but every microwave is different. Keep an eye on the candies to make sure that they don’t burn. You don’t want them scorched or even scalding on the inside. You want them to be just a bit hotter than what you would get if you accidentally left the bag out in the sun. They should have a delightful crunch, a smooth layer of chocolate, and a smushy peanut butter interior.

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Recipe: 5-Ingredient Hot Chocolate

Milk. Chocolate. Sugar. Vanilla. Salt.

My new favorite hot chocolate is rich, simple, and easy to make for a group or for just one person. It is lighter than a drinking chocolate, but much richer than the powdered packs. The clean-up is minimal, but the cost of a better hot chocolate will be a few extra dishes.

We buy our chocolate in bulk bags here of 2.5 kilograms each, which means we have a LOT of one kind of chocolate. It is fun—delicious and high-quality—but even the best chocolate gets old when you only ever eat one kind. (Or is that just me? Maybe I am too chocolate-oriented for my own good.)

Now that we’ve reached the end of first semester, I am getting tired of this chocolate. We’ve had it in brownies, scones, muffins, pie, and pudding, and it is time for a change of pace.

In an effort to conserve my other kinds of chocolate that are carefully carted over from the USA, I have been trying to play with this kind of chocolate but tweaking it in ways that make it less dark and ominous for people who aren’t as chocolate-loving as me (namely Matt).

This hot chocolate recipe is my new obsession. We’ve had it at least four times in the last week, and we have started sharing it with friends. It is simple and easy to make, but it is infinitely better and easier if you have a stick blender (for bigger batches) or a little battery-powered foaming whisk (for single-servings) that you can find for two or three dollars at Ikea.

Here’s the recipe:

Makes: two big servings or three small ones Time: less than 10 minutes

Ingredients: 3 cups of milk 1-2 tablespoons of brown sugar 1 teaspoon of vanilla A dash of salt 1/3 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips (we use very dark, like 70%)

In a saucepan, put 3 cups of milk, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, a dash of salt, and a splash of vanilla. Heat until it is hot but not scalding and the sugar is fully dissolved. Turn the heat down a bit to make sure it doesn’t get too hot.

This is your chance to add extra sugar if your chocolate is very dark like ours. If you are using semisweet, 1 tablespoon should be plenty of sugar, but anything darker and you might want more.

Add 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and let them melt in the milk, stirring with a spatula as you go and raising the heat as needed to keep it a good drinking temperature.

Once the chocolate is melted (it will probably be in little pieces rather than fully immersed), blend the mixture using either your stick blender or a whisk. If you do this by hand, it will take longer and not look as pretty. If you use a blender, it will turn the milk a chocolatey-brown within seconds and add a nice layer of foam on top.

Pour into mugs, distributing the foam evenly among them.

For a little extra indulgence, serve with whipped cream, marshmallows, or a side of shortbread, as I did.

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Little Potatoes…the Perfect Chinese Street Food?

We found it…the perfect Chinese street food.

It is simple to eat as you walk, easy to share, and good during any season of the year. Plus, though it is loaded with flavor, it isn’t too hot for those of us with a weaker tolerance for spicy foods.

Small chunks of potato are deep fried and then topped with a wonderous assortment of cumin, sesame, spring onions, and garlic. The inside of each potato is soft and tender while the outside is crispy and full of flavor.

We first tried these potatoes last spring on a trip to Xi’an. It is a popular food in the Muslim market there, and it was our favorite of all the street foods we tried. Several weeks ago, we discovered a stand that sells them two blocks from our campus, and we have already become regular customers. Most often, we will buy these at night and eat them as we walk up and down the street, shopping or looking for other food. They are served with small skewers that you can use to spear the potatoes as you walk.

A friend of ours mentioned that this season—fall striding into winter—is the perfect time to eat these outdoors. Your hands aren’t too cold even ungloved, and the chilly air cools the potatoes down to an edible temperature.

For 8 kuai or about $1.20, we can get a paper bowl full of these potatoes. Picture the largest dish size at a DIY frozen yogurt place. It is big enough for a dinner for Natalie or a pre-dinner snack for Matt.

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Everything Bagel Bombs

Several years ago, Matt and I were visiting New York and looking for a cheap place to eat and work for a few hours. We settled on bagels at a nearby deli. I opted for the everything bagel with cucumber dill cream cheese. To me, the everything bagel is the only one worth eating—it is everything you could want. Matt usually opted for something else, but ended up stealing bites of mine.

When we returned back to Chicago, we lamented the lack of nearby bagels. Searching online for a solution, I found this recipe, which answered our cravings in Chicago, when we could only get subpar bagels, and continues to answer it now in China, when we can’t get any at all.

Bagel bombs are a comfort food, a last minute meal, and a taste of home all rolled into one. So comforting, in fact, that I assembled my own everything bagel mix before moving to Asia, just to ensure we could make them whenever the craving hit.

I modify the linked recipe in a few ways. First, I typically don’t add flavors to or freeze the cream cheese. I just chop the block into eight pieces and use those squares in the dough. It works fine and saves a lot of time and several bowls. Second, since we recently inherited a breadmaker, I often make the dough in that on the dough setting. Another bowl saved.

I have only ever made these everything-flavored, but I’m sure you could make them other ways as well. Although in my mind, a bagel that isn’t everything is a waste of a bagel.

Recipe link: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2012/04/everything-bagel-bombs.html