Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

The other day I made homemade dishwasher detergent, and it was awesome! It worked just great...here is the recipe:

1 cup of Borax

1 cup of baking soda

Vinegar as a rinse aid

Mix Borax and baking soda, then use a tablespoon or two where your normal detergent goes. Use vinegar as a rinse aid. Put it in the rinse aid compartment when you add the detergent. MAKE SURE TO USE THE VINEGAR! It should keep your dishes from being cloudy...good luck! :)

I got this recipe from: TipNut

Making Bagels

The other day I decided I wanted to try my hand at making bagels. They turned out amazingly delicious, and everyone loved them! Here are the steps to making bagels:
First put in a batch of bagel dough into your bread machine or make up a batch and set it to rise. I just used the bagel recipe out of the book that came with our machine.
This is the recipe I used:
1 cup of water
1 tsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of salt
1 1/2 tbl of sugar
3 cups of bread flour
2 1/4 tsp of yeast
This recipe makes 6 bagels. I doubled it for about 12 bagels. Put the ingredients in the bread pan as listed. If you don't have a machine, mix the ingredients together and set it aside to rise.
Once the bread looks like this, you are ready to create your bagels.

Now, turn the oven to 400 degrees F. Then, split the dough into balls. For a single recipe, you should have 6 balls of dough, for the double, 12 balls of dough.

In the center of each ball, create a hole 1-2 inches wide. Flatten them down, and place on a greased cookie sheet. Cover with a towel, and let them rise for about 10-15 minutes, or until your bagels are nice and fluffy. Put a 3 quart pot of water on the stove, and bring to a boil.
Bagels before Rising:

Bagels after rising:

Now, a couple of bagels at a time, drop them into the pot of boiling water. Let boil for 3 minutes, turning them once, so each side boils for about a 1 1/2 minutes. Then, remove from water and place on greased cookie sheet. Do this with all the bagels. Once out of the water, brush the bagels with one beaten egg so that they are shiny. If you are going to add a topping, such as cinnamon sugar, chocolate chips, onions, etc, place the topping on the bagels after brushing with the egg.
My chocolate chip bagels are egg brushed and ready to go:
 Place bagels into the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.
These bagels are perfect!
Let cool, then either eat them or save them for another day. These bagels didn't last long in my house! :) Enjoy!
Feel free to print this page for the recipe. If you decide to make your own bagels, let me know how it works!