peabody's culinary concoctions

A food blog that I check periodicaly is Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. And yes, her name is actually Peabody. I was happy to see today that she has a few things that I would love to try. #1 being her Real Honest Purist’s Bagels. I've never made my own bagels before, and these look just as good as Einsteins, don't you think? I also like that you can use malt syrup and honey in place of the sugar in the recipe. I'm all about finding natural substitutions whenever possible.

Flaky Apple Turnovers would've been a really cool Independence Day dessert, but since we were hanging out with a certain family that doesn't eat anything not derived straight from the earth, we were out of luck with having dessert during the festivities. I think Peabody went to French pastry school, so the stuff she makes is totally beautiful. What's so cool about this recipe is she gives you the recipe to make your own puff pastry.

Gateau Basque. I'm not one for fruit in my dessert other than apple pie, but this is something I would totally eat. For this recipe, you can leave the rum out, obviously, or the substitution for light rum is to use pineapple juice flavored with almond extract. Check out this list of alcohol substitutions.

I have been looking for years it seems for a good chicken salad recipe. I like the one at Costco that has celery in it. I don't mind grapes, but I don't like much of anything else in it like nuts (cashews are okay), or cranberries, or pineapple bits. Does anyone have a good recipe for that? All the ones I seem to make end up tasting like Dookie. I've also had a good one with rice and almonds in it before. Possible winners?: Chicken salad at allrecipes.com. Maybe this could be a basic salad that you can add all the other stuff to like grapes? green onions?