This post is a bit of a gratuitous post to pass the time during my holidays, while showing a bit how I leverage freezers as useful tools for day to day cooking and eating, and highlight how, beyond the strictly obvious (or conversely, as an example of the obvious, whichever you prefer 🙂 ), my cooking efforts actually do fit into and serve everyday life — literally!
Yes, the breakfast shown at the end of this post is a very typical daily breakfast for me these days, barring the days, often on weekends or holidays, when I might choose to make other breakfast foods from my collection of recipes (or of course, something else completely.)
Note: I must confess that despite claiming to be a proud Montrealer, for these breakfast bites, I favour a commercial, industrially baked bagel typical of the fluffy, New-York style (here is my archive), instead of Montreal-style bagels (here is my archive).)
Making the Bagel and Cream Cheese Bites:
After coming home from the store and having bought bagels and a cream cheese spread flavoured with “herbs” and roasted garlic, I took out a cutting board:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/01cuttingboardtakenoutcroppedresized.jpg)
A bagel slicer, basically a serrated edge attached to a wooden guide, and a table knife, were taken out:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/02bagelslicerandtableknifetakenoutcroppedresized-2.jpg)
A bag of commercially produced bagels, purchased earlier in the day, was taken out:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/03bagelspurchasedearliertakenoutcroppedresized-1.jpg)
The bag clip was taken off the bag in order to open the bag of bagels:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/04bagelbagscliptakenoffcroppedresized.jpg)
The bagels were taken out of the bag:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/05bagelstakenoutofbagcroppedresized-1.jpg)
The empty bag was kept and put aside:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/09bagelbagkeptandputasidecroppedresized-1.jpg)
A bagel was sliced (be careful, some industrially produced bagels may be partly pre-sliced):
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/06bagelslicedwithbagelslicercroppedresized-1.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/07bagelslicedcroppedresized-1.jpg)
… and the rest of the bagels were sliced:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/08bagelsslicedcroppedresized-1.jpg)
A 227g (8oz) container of a commercially prepared cream cheese spread, in this case flavoured with “herbs” and roasted garlic, purchased earlier in the day, was taken out:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/10creamcheesepurchasedearliertakenoutcroppedresized-1.jpg)
The lid was removed from the cream cheese container …
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/11lidremovedfromcreamcheesecontainercroppedresized-1.jpg)
… and the plastic seal was also removed from the container:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/12sealremovedfromcreamcheesecontainercroppedresized.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/13sealremovedfromcreamcheesecontainercroppedresized.jpg)
The knife was used to pick up some of the cream cheese:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/14knifeusedtoscoopupcreamcheesecroppedresized.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/15knifeusedtoscoopupcreamcheesecroppedresized.jpg)
A couple of bagel halves were placed on the cutting board, and the knife holding the cream cheese was brought to them …
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16knifeandcreamcheesebroughttoopenedupbagelhalvescroppedresized-1.jpg)
… and cream cheese was spread on one of the bagel halves:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/17creamcheesespreadonbagelhalfcroppedresized-1.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/18creamcheesespreadonbagelhalfcroppedresized-1.jpg)
The two bagel halves were put back together:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/19bagelhalvesjoinedcroppedresized-1.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/20filledbagelhalvesjoinedcroppedresized-1.jpg)
Cream cheese was spread on a few more bagels, and after spreading cream cheese on half of the bagels, the container was about half empty:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/21abouthalfthecreamcheeseusedafterthreebagelscroppedresized-1.jpg)
I continued to spread cream cheese on the rest of the bagels; I scraped the last of the cream cheese out of the container, and I spread the last of the cream cheese onto the last of the six bagels:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/22containerscrapedtogetthelastofthecreamcheesetospreadonbagelscroppedresized-1.jpg)
At this point, all six bagels were filled with cream cheese:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/23creamcheesefilledbagelsstackedcroppedresized-1.jpg)
At this point, a clean knife was taken out, and a bagel was cut at a single point:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/24creamcheesefilledbageltakenoutandknifeusedtoslicebagelcroppedresized-1.jpg)
… and then the bagel was cut in two other places, resulting in three pieces:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/25bagelslicedintothreepiecescroppedresized-2.jpg)
The bagel pieces were placed back in the bag:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/26bagelpiecesplacedinbagcroppedresized-1.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/27bagelpiecesfromonebagelplacedinbagcroppedresized-1.jpg)
… and as I continued cutting up the rest of the bagels, I placed the bagel pieces in the bag:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/28halfofbagelpiecesplacedinbagcroppedresized-1.jpg)
… until all the bagel pieces were in the bag:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/29bagelpiecesfromallbagelsinbagcroppedresized-1.jpg)
A tie wrap was taken out:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/30tiewraptakenoutcroppedresized-1.jpg)
The tie wrap was used to seal up the bag again:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/31bagsealedwithtiewrapcroppedresized-1.jpg)
The bag of bagel and cream cheese pieces was placed in the freezer:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/32bagofbagelpiecesplacedinfreezercroppedresized-1.jpg)
The next morning, I took out a bagel and cream cheese bite, and defrosted it along with a mini raisin bran muffin, made earlier in the week using my mom’s bran muffin recipe, a pickled egg, some cheese, and some peanut butter scooped from the jar:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/33breakfastisservedcroppedresized-1.jpg)
Yummy!