BAGELS AND BEYOND

Having sampled a bagel at a Rally Downtown in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I decided to visit their location at 349 Bedford Avenue on the corner of South 4th St. in Williamsburg.  I thought I'd be sitting down to a pumpernickel bagel with a lox cream cheese spread.  I then took a look at the vast amounts of bagels and spreads.  OMG!  Aside for the usual bagels it seems that Scott Rossillo,  the baker/co-owner comes up with artisan bagels that no one else has.  Here is Ross, the other owner, describing the bagels.

Then we got to talking about the various cream cheese spreads of which  are not flavored but actually have the ingredients in them.  

I needed to do a photo shoot so we set up a variety of bagels and cheese spreads.

Here are some photos of the store.

I have been experimenting at home.  For instance, I had the bacon, egg, and cheddar cheese bagel placing an egg over easy and sundried tomato cream cheese in it.   Another was a sundried tomato with parm cheese bagel of which I put a thin pork cutlet and a shmear of garlic and herb cream cheese.  Then there was the spinach and artichoke with parm cheese bagel that I shmeared a scallion cream cheese and added mashed avocado and a piece of poached chicken breast.  Although it is not Thanksgiving, I had an egg bagel with a shmear of cranberry and horseradish cream cheese adding slices of turkey.  As for the lox thing.  The best is taking a challah bagel with a shmear of lox spread and scallion cream cheese.  This morning I substituted the scallion cream cheese for the olive cream cheese.

Dinner. steaming shrimp and chopping it up.  Mixing with spinach and artichoke cream cheese and mashed avocado.  Placing it on a sundried tomato with parm bagel.  I will be scooping out some of the bagel to use to dip into olive oil from California Olive Ranch and one imported from Italy to taste the difference. 

Not all are savory!  Take the French Toast bagel for instance.  There was a strawberry cream cheese, blueberry cream cheese,  nutella cream cheese and chok-olat mousse cream cheese to tantalize the taste.

What is great about these bagels and spreads is that the combos eliminate having to add any herbs or spices to a protein.  I'm working on a few other ideas....stay tuned.