Onion bagels

I love fresh warm bagels, but who doesn't? Today I'm making onion bagels. Someone gave mehave a bread machine years ago, I've only recently started using it to make bread and bagels. It's so much cheaper, and healthier to make bread at home that buy it in the store. Crazy cheaper! I can buy a bag of flour for around $5 and make six loaves of bread that would cost me $18 to buy, and since I'm on a tight budget, I make them at home. Plus, there's no nasty chemicals to give me cancer in 20 years! It's a win - win! I started with a basic bagel recipe, which takes less than three minutes to put together. Here's the recipe, and you just put it all into the bread machine basket, it doesn't matter the order, either: 2 tsp yeast 2 TBS sugar 1 cup water 1 tsp salt 3 cups flour, white or whole wheat 1/4 cup minced onion (about 1/4 of a large onion) 1 TBS olive oil 2 tsp rosemary Most bread machines have a "dough" funcion. I just put the ingredients in and let the machine knead and mix it for me. After about an hour (while I'm off meantime doing something else productive out of the kitchen), I put a couple tablespoons of flour on my wood cutting board and using my hand, spread it around - it keeps the dough from sticking in the next step: take the out of the bread machine, cut it into 8 roughly equal pieces, stick a finger in the middle of each piece to make a hole, and sort of spin it around the finger to "pull" the dough out into a round shape. Do whatever works for you, it's not rocket science! This only takes about three minutes to do. Fast and easy! I let the bagels rise for about a half hour or hour, depending if it's summer or winter, they rise faster when it's warm. I go do something else while they rise, they don't need any attention while they rise, go do some laundry, pay some bills, take a shower, whatever, they're fine. When they've about doubled in size, drop them into boiling water and flip them in the water after a two or three or five minutes, longer gives a thicker crust, shorter makes them softer. Leave them in the boiling water another two to three to five minutes on the second side. Again, how long is not that critical, I just do it by feel, this isn't Julia Child! This is making something to eat that's yummy that didn't take a ton of effort. After you take them out of the boiling water, put them on cookie sheets that you've sprinkled with corn meal or covered in parchment paper and bake them at 350 degrees Farenheit for 25 minutes (I eyeball them, when they're golden brown, I take them out). Your best timer is your sense of smell. When you smell them, they're done - but keep an eye on the time, just in case your sense of smell is off and check them! While they're baking I can do more work, or read a book, or whatever, you can do what you like with your time you didn't spend driving to the store or fast food joint! Nice, isn't it? I like to slather my warm bagels with an obscene amount of cream cheese; I think of the bread as a cream cheese delivery vehicle. Honey and butter also work wonderfully. Bon Apetit!