Seth's House

100% Whole Wheat Everything Bagels

Inspiration and original credit goes to this site

Well, add one more thing that I will be making at home and never buying again – bagels.  This recipe is extremely simple, if you have a stand mixer, then you need to try it!

Base Recipe

This base recipe is good for just the bagel – variations are highly suggested, I put a few ideas below.

Making the Sponge

You will need:

• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast (active yeast also worked fine for me).  I picked up this stuff, as I need it often and the price is damn good compared to a retail store.
• 8 oz. (2 cups) Whole Wheat Flour.  I use this stuff, usually priced about 75cents a pound at Wegmans, and there are often coupons in the Sunday paper.
• 2 tablespoons Vital Wheat Gluten. If you’re having a hard time finding it, go to Whole Foods, it’s cheaper in the bulk section than in the box
• 11oz. water (warm enough to activate yeast, read your yeast package for temperatures)

In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the above 4 ingredients and whisk together until everything is incorporated. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours, by then it should be bubbly and will collapse a little if the bowl is tapped on the counter.

Sponge, after 2 hour rise

Dough Ingredients

You will need:

• 1/2 teaspoon yeast
• 7 oz. (1 3/4 cup) Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Vital Wheat Gluten
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon diastatic malt powder (I did 2 batches without it so far, no issues. Not sure if this makes a difference yet, but I will post an update once I receive some)
• 2 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• Variations (see below)

Mix the yeast in with the sponge so it is well incorporated, then add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl.  Using the dough hook on low, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, it took about 5-6 minutes for me.  If you have any variations that you want to be part of the dough, add them during this kneading cycle.

Dough Ball, everything seasoning mixed in

Divide the dough into 3 oz. portions for smaller bagels, 4.5 oz. portions for larger bagels.  Put the dough balls on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, and cover with a damp towel and rest for 20 minutes.

Bagel Dough Balls

Pick up each dough ball and push your thumb through the middle to make a hole, then stretch out to make bagel shapes.  Put the bagels back on the baking sheet and let rest again for 20 minutes, cover with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with cooking spray.

Bagel Dough.. taking shape

To see if the bagels are ready to rest in the fridge overnight, put one of them in a shallow bowl of water. If it floats within a few seconds (See below), then it is ready.  Dry off the test bagel, place it back on the baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and place into the fridge for the night and up to two days.

Dough is floating.. it's ready to rest

Cooking the Bagels

• Preheat your oven to 500 degrees, and bring a wide pot of water to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon of baking soda to the water pot.
• Remove the bagels from the fridge, and gently drop into the boiling water.  Boil for one minute, turn them, and boil the second side for another minute.  Remove them from the boiling water and onto a rack to dry out for a few seconds.

Boiling Bagels

• Once they come out of the boil, now is the time to dip them into any seasoning, such as for everything bagels, rye bagels, garlic bagels, etc..

Bagels, out of the boil and seasoned up

• Place each bagel onto a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray.  Bake for 5 minutes at 500 degrees, rotate the pan 180 degrees, then lower the heat to 450 degrees and bake an additional 3-5 minutes or until the bagels are nice and brown
• Remove from the oven, cool on a wiring rack for as long as you like, and enjoy!  I would wait about 10-15 minutes until serving.

100% Whole Wheat Everything Bagels left / Cinnamon Raisin right

Enjoy with some of your favorite spread!

100% Whole Wheat Everything Bagel w/ homemade Lox spread

My DIY PID Controller for BBQ, Sous Vide, Home Brew

I’ve been slacking on the blog, I know, been busy!

Here’s a project that’s been in the works for a while, and I wanted to test it out to make sure it works well before sharing with everyone.. well, here it is! A DIY PID controller for a smoker, sous vide cooking, mash tun, whatever you can think of, that doesn’t break the bank. After a few runs in the smoker and sous vide (a la crockpot), I can say, it’s awesome !!!!

What is PID? Basically you tell it what temperature you want something, and it figures out how to hold that temperature. It’s nerdy and involves lots of math.  I can’t explain it too well, so go and read about it here.

PID Controller, Sous Vide style, powering a crockpot

When I set out to build this, I wanted to keep costs down (obviously), but I wanted it to be versatile, so I decided to build everything with modular plugs, so that thermocouples and outputs could be swapped in a matter of seconds.  Everything fits into a project box, and all you do is plug in power (input), a thermocouple (thermometer for you noobs), and then plug in an output device, whether it is a blower fan, a crock pot, a heating element, whatever. All of the components in my design are good for 15 amps, so a ~1500 watt heating element should be no issue. Wiring is simple and contained completely within the project box. I chose to do a simple design for the first incarnation of this device, but I have some ideas for another one. The PID controller has alarm outputs (such as over/under temperature) that could potentially control other items, such as a damper to release extra heat in the smoker, outputs to my X10 devices to page me, etc… the possibilities are endless.

Parts List

• 1x JLD612 PID Controller - $33.50 US
• 1x Submersible thermocouple - $19.50 US – this is for Sous Vide only
• 1x PT100 thermocouple - $16.50 US – this is mounted in my smoker
• 1x ESSR-25DAC 25amp DC in / AC Out Solid State Relay (SSR)- $8.95 US
• 1x EHS-SSR25A  heat sink for the SSR – $4.25 US
• 1x TPJ-U-F thermocouple panel jack – $4.50 US
• 2x OTP-U-M thermocouple male plug – $3.50 US each (only need one per thermocouple
• 1x 486-1083-ND - female NEMA-15 outlet (output outlet) – $1.42 US
• 1x CCM1909-ND - power entry module w/ switch (input) – $7.66 US (you can go with a more simple input plug without a switch, but I wanted a switch on mine, and these fit your standard computer power wires)
• 1x HM928-ND project box – $17.82 US – Digikey’s site is very easy to search, if you need a bigger box, then look around – just make sure the dimensions are deep enough for all of your components.
• 1x 1053-1118-ND 14CFM blower fan – you can go bigger or smaller, this one seems to work great on my Chargriller
• 2x Barrier strips, at least 3 positions – like these - don’t forget the jumpers
• 1x stainless steel pet water bowl, to mount the fan to the BBQ – see picture.  Found it at Walmart for a few bucks
• Various M4 screws, to mount SSR heatsink to the SSR. Take them both with you to Lowe’s/Home Depot and figure it out
• Heat sink paste for the SSR
• Various quick disconnect crimp connectors.  If you have a well stocked electrical connector box for automotive stuff, that will get you through it
• Hot glue gun to mount components like the barrier strips
• Dremel tool / drill, to mount everything in the box

Wiring

Wiring is pretty easy – you can see most of it in the picture.  Use at least 14ga on the 120volt stuff.  The DC is low current, but I still used 16gauge because that’s what I had around.  Thermocouple wiring comes with the thermocouples, I just changed the connectors.  Specific wiring info:

• For 120v - the hot side of the input module goes through the switch and feeds a barrier strip.  One barrier strip output goes to the output side of the SSR, the other output goes to the PID controller on pin #1. SSR Output goes to the output module hot.
• The neutral side of the input module feeds a barrier strip.  One barrier strip output goes to the neutral of the output module, the other goes to the PID controller on pin #2.
• The ground wire goes directly from the input module ground, to the output module ground.
• The thermocouple panel has one plug that is larger – I used that for the red. Connect that to pin #8 on the PID. Connect the two blues to pins #9 and #10
• Connect Pin #6 of the PID to the + Input of the SSR
• Connect Pin #7 of the PID to the – Input of the SSR

PID Controller, wired up in the project box

Component Mounting

Mounting components was simple.  The input module, output module, PID controller, and thermocouple plug all require some dremel work to make mounting holes, then they snap into place. I used some hot glue for added security. My input is on the rightin the picture above, the output and thermocouple  is on the left.

The heatsink mounts to the project box with screws, those are the 2 screws that you see on the first picture of this post that show through the front.  I did not want to use glue for this part, as this part gets hot, I don’t need it coming loose inside.

When mounting the Thermocouple in your smoker, you want it as close to the cooking surface as possible, and also nearest to any potential hotspot.  Remember, with smoking, high temperature is bad and will ruin fod, low temperature only extends cooking times. On my Chargriller Smokin’ Pro, this meant the thermocouple was mounted about an inch off of the cooking surface, on the right side of the cooking area, nearest to the side fire box.  My smoker can vary temperatures up to 15 degrees from side to side.

That’s about it as far as construction goes!  You will want to familiarize yourself with the PID controller manual  and set all of the configuration parameters properly on the first use.  My settings are:

• IntY =  PT 10 0   (Pt100 thermocouple, this setting will show temp in .1 increments)
• OutY = 2 (PID controls SSR )
• rd = 0 (heating control)
• CorF = 1 (Fahrenheit)

Blower fan, mounted on the side firebox of a Chargriller Smokin' Pro

Here's a brisket that was done using this controller

 

Teriyaki Chicken Breast, Sous vide

Some more pictures of the box:

Another wiring view

Thermocouple port and output port

Input module, accepts standard computer power supply plug

Thermocouple mounted on the smoker (since moved to the other side)

My garden that I built way back when (ok, so a few months ago..) is doing great.  For as much work as I put in, I am starting to reap the benefits, and I can’t wait until next year where I don’t have to focus on construction.   I thought I would update everyone on the lessons learned so far, and some things I will be doing differently next year.

First..  I severely underestimated how tall my tomato and cucumber plants would get. I was used to having a dinky container garden at my old apartment, now that the plants are in the ground and being properly watered, they are growing like they should – and my trellis is definitely not tall enough. Next year, I will be building a much taller trellis, using the 3/4″ electrical conduit and tent parts that I built the protective cage out of.  Total height will be in the 8-10 foot range, it will be the last time I build it for sure!  When the plants were young, I trimmed back the lower branches to promote upward growth – that was definitely successful!

The cucumber vines are ridiculously long, one of them I would guess is at least 10 feet. You can train them to go where you want, but I just ran out of trellis for them – I’m letting them go wherever they want now.  Good news is the tomatoes are already mature and they don’t seem to mind.

For reference.. the random poles holding up tomato plants on the right of the big bed are 10 feet long!

Part of the garden.. holy tall tomato plants!!

Next.. the hops plant will require some sort of extraordinary system to climb up as well, as it’s well over my garage roof already. Some sort of 30′ tall contraption with pulley system is in order.

Probably the best money spent so far is the irrigation system.   I water twice a day, 5pm & 5am, for 95 minutes.  The plants are doing great!  I have been adding some vegetable plant food per the directions on the container at the recommended interval, and it’s helped tremendously, probably because this is brand new soil and was lacking some nutrients.  I have a nice compost pile going that will be great for the next growing season.

Honeydew, Canteloupe, Watermelon vines

The watermelon, honeydew, and canteloupe vines are EVERYWHERE.  Next year, I probably won’t plant as many as they are hard to manage.  There are overgrown weeds in the neighbor’s yard, on the other side of my fence, which I need to cut back, but you can see how the melon plants have taken over this area.

Peas – thanks to my cousin’s advice, I found out why they are not doing so well.. they do not do well in the heat. I just put some seeds in the shade of the tomato plants, we’ll see if they do well or not.  Next year, I’ll be planting these much earlier / later in the season, when it’s not so hot.

 The squash plants are in the main bed with all of the pepper plants.. they have really taken off and are HUGE. They are starting to overtake the pepper plants, I will be keeping a close eye to make sure this does not hinder the peppers at all, if it does, I will cut back the squash if I have to.

I’m a fat Jewish guy – of course I love Pastrami.   Normally I enjoy it over at Harold’s Deli, but Lee and myself  got some good deals on corned beefs at the restaurant depot (I’m talking sub $2 a pound).  These things were bohemoths, the smallest ones we could find weighed in at 15 pounds. 

Besides boiling to make some delicious corned beef, I decided to throw part of one in the smoker and make some Pastrami.  It’s pretty routine as far as bbq goes..  rub, smoke, slice, and eat! 

Because I bought a corned beef already in the brine (you can go ahead and work for weeks to do your own, have fun with that), and there is salt in the rub, I want to get some of the salt out of the meat before cooking.  Put the corned beef brisket in a big pot of water and let it soak in the fridge for 4-6 hours before smoking, changing the water out a few times. This will get a good bit of the salt out of the solution.

The rub consists of:

• 1/4 cup salt
• 1/4 cup paprika
• 3 tablespoons coriander seed
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorn
• 2 tablespoons mustard seed
• 8 cloves minced garlic

Finely grind the seeds and peppercorns in a spice grinder. Take the brisket out of the pool of water and dry it (if you went this route), then combine all of the ingredients above and rub the brisket nice and good. 

Pastrami, out of the smoker and rested

Place it in a 225 degree smoker, but don’t do a heavy smoke like you would a pork butt or bbq brisket – you want a light smoke for pastrami.  I went with hickory and apple, light amounts at a time.  You can t ake the pastrami off of the smoker when it reaches 165 degrees, and place in a tin foil tent and let rest for 20 minutes, then slice against the grain.  The end temperature is a big subject of debate on the Internet, it seems.  For BBQ brisket, I’d let it go to 185.   I took this Pastrami off at 165, I will probably let it go to 175 next time to see the difference.  It wasn’t bad at all, don’t get me wrong, but I think the extra 10 degrees would help with tenderness.

Pastrami sliced up. Sorry for the crappy pictures, I forgot to take a picture with a real camera before I ate it all.

Continuation of DIY Raised Bed Garden Construction…

It became apparent about 2 hours after planting some of my first vegetables, that I would need some sort of security fence around the plants. The squirrels or birds around my house seem to think it is fun to chop the plants in half and leave them for dead.  Originally, I made a wooden frame with some plastic poultry netting to keep them out, but I knew that was temporary and I needed something more permanent.

Cage installed, and you can see the tomato/cucumber trellis as well.

I took out my tomato cages and changed over to a trellis system, using some electrical conduit – this stuff is very cheap and easy to manipulate. To do that I needed to buy the conduit pipe cutter, so I figured I would get my money’s worth out of the investment in that tool.  I decided to use some 3/4″ EMT conduit along with some tent frame pieces that you would normally find vendors using to build tents at outdoor flea markets and shows.  Above is what I came up with, a nice “box” around the plants, that has plastic netting on all sides to keep out the creatures.  The temporary wood structure worked great, I’m sure I’ll get many a season out of the metal version.  It’s also hinged on one side so it just swings away.   You can find the pieces you need via a google search, mine came from http://www.ysbw.com/ .

1/4" Drip line connected to 1/2" main line

The next item I wanted to tackle was an automatic watering system.  I started to clear out the area along my fence to make way for some items like berries, and melons, and along with the second bed I built, I had things to water that were not so easy with a regular sprinkler. On top of that, sprinklers suck – they spray the leaves and it’s hard to get the roots in the beds soaked properly.  I decided to build a drip irrigation system and permanently install it.  Pieces for drip irrigation are available at Home Depot and Lowes under various brands, but right now the shelves are pretty barren because of the time of year, so I suggest buying online. I went with Drip Depot.

The systems are very simple to set up.  On top of that, they are efficient.  You will only be soaking the roots of your bed, for exactly as long as you need, so it doesn’t waste water. Mine runs on a timer, for 75 minutes each day at 5:30AM.   

 Basically, you hook it up to your hose outlet, run a main line near your beds, then branch off smaller lines to directly feed the plants. It literally takes minutes to install.  Mine took a little longer as my garden is nowhere near the hose hookup, and I opted to bury the 1/2″ line in the ground all the way to the garden.  The main line is called 1/2″ poly tube, the feeder hoses are 1/4″, and your garden hose hookup is a 3/4″.   At a minimum for the “foundations” of the system, you need:

• 3/4″ female hose thread to 1/2″ poly tube - This hooks up the poly tube to your garden hose source
• Backflow preventer - This keeps water in the irrigation system from leeching back into the house
• Inline filter – this one or this one
• 25 PSI Pressure regulator - required so you don’t blow out the emitters
• 1/2″ main line
• Various fittings for the 1/2″ main line.  This stuff cannot make 90 degree turns so get elbows. Also, the end of the line needs to be capped off.

That’s it for the foundations, then you need to accessorize in order to be able to water the plants.  How many emitters do you need? Well that depends on your plants. I did a good bit of reading to figure out which plants required which amount of water.  What I gathered is that Tomatoes needed the most water while peppers and just about everything else in my garden was good with 12″ spaced dripline running on either side of the plants to soak the roots.  I highly recommend a hose timer, so the garden waters itself. This Orbit one (and ones that look like it) had great reviews, that’s what I went with.

To water the plants, you have a variety of emitters to choose from.  My raised beds use mostly 1/4″ drip line which just plugs right into the 1/2″ main line with barb fittings.  The lines also need to be plugged at the end just like the main line, so you’ll need 1/4″ goof plugs for each run.  My raspberries and blueberries that are in the actual ground have adjustable drippers on them so that I can crank up the water as they grow if I need to.

Drip line for peas, and adjustable emitter on the oregano

Do some reading, and piece together what you need. My total investment for the irrigation system was about $100.  I work at night, and I travel a lot, so having this on an automatic timer is worth the $100 for peace of mind.  Plus, I don’t have to wake up at 5:30am and water the plants, ever!

I know many of my friends took advantage of the Saturday/Sunday Triple Coupon deals at Pathmark… I sure did.  If you didn’t, well I hate to be rude, but you’re an idiot.  Keep an eye out because rumor has it they will be back, if I were you, I’d snatch a nice assortment of $1 coupons (the maximum they will triple) either from the paper or a coupon clipping service.  I had a nice collection of $1 coupons for things that cost around $3, and many things were on sale, so I ended up walking away with a bit of free stuff.

Triple Coupon Day Haul

For once I didn’t walk away with a bunch of body wash or cleaning products …  some real groceries that will last quite a while. I spent about $30 total out of pocket for all of the above – I took advantage of the huge discount as some of this stuff would not come this cheap again.

10 Bottles of Tabasco – free
8 Boxes of Popcorn – free
8 Boxes of Chex Mix 100 Calorie snacks
6 Bags of Quaker Rice Cake Snacks
2 bags of herr’s potato chips – free
2 bags of tortilla chips – free
2 bottles of Bailey’s coffee creamer – free
4 packages breakfast sausage – .50/each
2 pounds of mozzarella – $1/each
6 bottles KC Masterpiece bbq sauce – free
3 bottles soy sauce – free
4 bottles Teriyaki marinade – $1/each
9 bottles Frank’s – free
2 bottles Budweiser bbq sauce – free
6 Weber seasonings – free
12 Wacky Mac pasta – free
8 Garden Delight pasta – free
2 hot dogs – $1/each
6 cans Shave Gel – free

So if you’ve been following, you know I make my own frozen dinners.  Following the theme of this post, I picked up two small roaster chickens for about $10 from the store, and put them on my rotisserie (charcoal, of course).  Using the chicken, along with rice and vegetables that I already had in storage and were cheap or free, I made myself about 16 dinners.

Rotisserie Chicken Dinners

No need to waste the leftover chicken parts.. they all went in to the pressure cooker and I made some chicken stock. I got almost 7 quarts!

Chicken parts, vegetables, into the pressure cooker for stock

If you have been keeping up with the coupon nerds, this shouldn’t be news to you.

May 6,7,8 Pathmark will be doubling coupons up to and including $2

May 14-15 Pathmark will be tripling coupons up to and including $1.

If you have any coupons more than $1, I would use them this weekend.  Save the ones less than $1 for the 14th and 15th. I haven’t seen the Pathmark ad yet, but just looking through my stash, there will be some very cheap stuff to be had. Enjoy.

Here’s my take on Chinese food crossed with Philly – Provolone Wit Cheesesteak Egg Roll.  You’ll want to do the preparation at least a day in advance before you plan on serving these.

Ingredients  (recipe makes about 22-24 egg rolls, depends how generous you are with the filling)

• Very thin sliced Ribeye steak.  You can find this at the butcher, or I find it easier (and cheaper) to go to the H-mart (Korean grocery).  The amount I used to do this post was a little over 3 pounds

Thin Sliced Ribeye

• Sharp Provolone, diced into small pieces. The good stuff, don’t get crap

• Sweet onion, about 2 medium ones, diced up
• Egg roll wrappers  (DO NOT USE SPRING ROLL WRAPPERS, they suck for this application. You’ve been warned)
• Ketchup (optional flare: mix with truffle oil)

Truffled up Ketchup

• 1-2 eggs, beaten and in a bowl 

Preparation

Ribeye in the pan

1. Heat up your pan to medium-high heat. Toss in as many slices of steak that lay flat.  They will cook quickly, maybe 30 seconds a side, tops. You just want to quickly take the red out, don’t overcook them. Do this for all of the steak, and whatever you do, don’t even think about getting rid of the juicy goodness left in the pan.  Transfer the cooked steak into some sort of vessel on the counter for cooling.

Cooked Ribeye.. takes about 45 seconds

2. Once you’ve cooked all of the steak, toss in the onions and back the heat down to medium. Cook them til they start to become translucent and brown a little.  Toss them around in the juicy goodness left behind from the steak.

Assembly

Egg Roll Assembly area

1. Organize all of your ingredients around a work area, as pictured. Lay the empty wrapper on your work area, they are not perfectly square and I prefer the long side to be top to bottom.
2. 

   Smear on some ketchup

   Take a spoon and shmear on some of the truffled up ketchup on the empty wrapper.

3. 

   Pile on the insides

   Add steak, cheese, and onion. As I add the steak on, I rip it apart into smaller pieces, that way you don’t have all of the steak yanked out on the first bite and the eater left with an empty egg roll wrapper.

4. 

   First fold

   Time to roll it up. You can follow the instructions on the egg roll wrapper, or see my guide here. First, fold the bottom corner up into the middle and over the ingredients. Make sure the ingredients are on the inside of that crease otherwise they will come out when you cook… no bueno

5. Fold the left and right edges over, then roll upwards. Again, make sure everything is tucked in.  Paint on some egg wash on the top flap and roll all the way, the egg will act as glue and seal it up. Place on a rack and keep going.

That’s it, after a short while you’ll have a ton of Egg Rolls. Put them in the freezer so they set up, at least overnight. I let them freeze solid on the racks, then transfer to vacuum sealed bag for cooking at some later date.

All Rolled Up

Cooking

1. Preheat your Deep Fryer to about 355-360 degrees, this should be about the setting for Chicken.
2. Drop in egg rolls, don’t crowd the fryer with too many or you will end up with defrosted egg roll mush and not crispy goodness.
3. Fry to Golden Brown and delicious.  Remember, the inside is already cooked, so we are just cooking the outside and reheating the inside, melting the cheesey goodness.  I like my egg rolls crispy on the outside but still chewy dough on the inside.
4. Transfer to rack to cool for a few minutes, serve quickly and enjoy.

If  you want to cook these and reheat later, you’ll want to microwave for about a minute to heat the inside, then move to an oven at 350 until about crispy.  This seems to be the only way to preserve the crispy skin.

Cooked Cheesesteak Egg Rolls

Yep .. watch this thread and the coupon nerds will find you free stuff

http://www.afullcup.com/forums/pathmark/469645-pathmark-triple-coupons-possible-deals-april-29-30-may-1st.html

There is a limit of 10 coupons per person per day – bring friends.

Ok ..  pretty good price here.  Some of this stuff isn’t half bad if you load it up with hot sauce like me.

Acme/Albertsons has Weight Watcher’s Smart Ones Classic Favorites and desserts on sale for $1.79 or $1.29. Buy 10 and you get $5 off instantly. Below is a coupon for another $4 off 10. Makes them cheap.

Coupon – $4 off 10 Weight Watchers smartones