Oops, I forgot to take a picture before enjoying.

Ingredients

1 red rose black tea bag

1/4 teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon fresh-grated ginger

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2-3 cloves

1 scant handful almonds

A few raisins

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Instructions

Bring a mug's worth of water, less an inch or so, to a boil. Steep the tea for a few minutes.

Pour the tea and everything else into the vitamix.

Run a smoothie cycle.

Pour into mug.

Enjoy.

Notes

Tastes as good as a "chai latte" and who the hell knows how much sugar (and perhaps fat?) is in those.

If you haven't worked with whole nutmegs before, the "small holes" side of any grater can handle it just fine. Ditto grating fresh ginger.

Mnemonic

Cinnamon and ginger, nutmeg and cloves

That's what gave me this shiny red nose.

I whipped up a Thai pizza tonight.

Ingredients:

1 large pizza dough ball. (Walk into a pizzeria and ask for a "dough ball." They will sell you one for around $3. Offer void at major national chains.)

1 red bell pepper
1 large onion
4-5 leaves of broccoli rabe
Olive oil
1/8 cup coconut milk
1 clove garlic

Preheat oven to 550 degrees. Seriously. Don't mess around, this is pizza.

Meanwhile, sautee onions in 2 tablespoons olive oil and a little salt until starting to brown.

Coarsely chop bell pepper, broccoli rabe and garlic. Toss in food processor and add coconut milk. Process briefly; don't let it completely homogenize.

Roll out dough ball. Stretch out onto pizza pan dusted with cornmeal to prevent sticking. 

Pour contents of food processor onto dough and spread around well.

Top with the onions. Bake for around 14 minutes or until allllmost blackening at the edges. (If your oven can't get to 550 degrees you may need to bake a little longer.)

Don't drown the pizza. This is the most common mistake and the reason you have to go easy on the coconut milk.

"Hey, don't you add any spices to this?" I find it's quite flavorful as-is, but sure, knock yourself out.

This recipe is heavily inspired by the New York Times no-knead bread recipe and has snuggled intimately with various bagel recipes on the Internets.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Clock time: 18-24 hours
Yield: 8 bagels

Ingredients

3 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oatmeal (plus more for dusting)
1/2 teaspoon instant dry bread yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons honey (optional; improves the crumb)
2 cups water, and just a smidge more
Corn meal, for dusting
Kosher salt and crushed anise seed (or other toppings, or none)

Method

Day One

Mix the dry ingredients well in a large bowl. Add the water and mix, just enough to form a dough; do not knead. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. let it sit overnight, ideally at room temperature. In winter I stash the bowl in front of a heat vent.

After at least 18 hours, wash your hands well and remove the dough, laying it on a surface sprinkled with oatmeal. Fold it over on itself a couple times; really, that's it. You don't have to knead it.

Wrap it up in the plastic wrap you just used for the bowl and let rest for 15 minutes.

Put down a cotton towel or napkin and sprinkle it with oatmeal. Then wrap the towel around the dough.

Day Two

Let the dough rise for 2 hours. Around the 1:45 mark, start preheating the oven to 450 degrees, and boil water in a large pot. Add the honey to the water and stir it in well. The honey greatly improves the crumb of the bagels.

Lay out the dough and cut into eight pieces. Pick up each piece, roll it out briefly between your hands and pinch the ends together to complete the ring. Don't worry if it doesn't look pretty! It just adds authenticity.

Dust a baking sheet liberally with cornmeal to prevent sticking. A non-stick baking sheet can't hurt. If you're out of cornmeal flour or oatmeal will do.

Boil three bagels at a time, until they float or for 20 seconds, but no longer. Remove bagels to the baking sheet. Don't put too many in at a time or the water will cool. Let the boil resume between batches.

Sprinkle lightly with kosher salt and crushed anise seed, fennel seed or other toppings. The middle eastern place around the corner from my office just happens to carry crushed anise seed and I bought some on a whim. I am not as cool as I sound.

Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

Fresh bagels are insanely great right out of the oven with your favorite fixins. They also freeze well. I usually eat one almost immediately, let the rest cool, then put three in a bag on the counter and four in a freezer bag.

I tend to alternate between this recipe and simply making bread, which can be done with the same ingredients, but you'll want to add another 1/8th cup of water or so. Bagels pick up extra moisture in the boil and need to be tough enough to resist.