Mixer Trial Run 2.0: French Baguette

So far so good, but things are in the early stages. If it's this easy I'm totaly in love with the beautiful silver hunk of metal sitting on my kitchen counter!

I put in the flour with some salt and herbs and a little garlic and then added some proofed yeast and some water and mixed it with the dough hook on. After about three minutes the dough had been kneeded. I exerted little effort into this process at all and I have a ball of kneeded dough rising. Un-freaking-believable. Fresh baked bread every week? Possibly! Now I just need to let it rise, punch it down and fold and shape it into baguettes and then let it rise again, then cook it. In about three hours I'll have bread! (No matter how much I know about bread or how many times I make it the simplicity of it amazes me. With some flour, yeast, and water you can have a loaf of bread.)

Anyway, now we shall see. Also today the book that I went onto Amazon to look at when I saw the amazing deal on my mixer came. So I'm going to start reading it.
- posted by Nick @ 12/02/2005 06:39:00 PM | 0 comments

 
I baked banana bread tonight, mixed in my brand new mixer! I ran an extension cord from the den into the kitchen to run it.

My grandfather grounded out two outlets in there, I'm guessing one was so he could run the TV equipment with a surge protector and one looks like it was put in when he did the porch. There's one in my room which I figure he put in for the computer. I tested them and those are actually grounded outlets and not ungrounded three-pronged outlets.

I could either keep using the outlet in the den or install a GFCI in the kitchen (ground-fault outlet, those outlets with the red and yellow buttons like in modern bathrooms that trip when they detect a short) which I read can be installed ungrounded and thus protect you from shorts, but won't work with surge protectors which need the grounded third prong to function properly. So rather than figure out which breaker goes to the outlets in the kitchen and possibly ending up with more trouble than I want to when I discover some reason that installing a GFCI isn't going to be as easy as it should I'll just get a 10' or so extension cord to use when I want to use the mixer.

In other news, the oven actually stayed at 350 the whole time, and it was SET at 350. Wow, I'm amazed.

Now the main kitchen tool I really want is a food processor. But I'll wait until I have my own place -- I'm running out of space to store kitchen stuff!
- posted by Nick @ 12/01/2005 01:07:00 AM | 0 comments

 
It came!








I don't have any grounded outlets in the kitchen, though! Ack!

In other news: I have a virus on my tower that I think is lagging my internet connection so I have to plug my laptop into the phone line instead of using the wireless until I get that taken care of...
- posted by Nick @ 11/30/2005 05:57:00 PM | 0 comments

 
Well, UPS is more hopeful than Amazon! They have the scheduled delivery for TOMORROW! It shipped out of Greensboro, NC so it's really just a short drive to here with no air time. It's a good thing that I don't work tomorrow, I can play with my mixer! I can also take the delivery of the 27lb package since I don't think my grandmother could move it.

TOMORROW!
- posted by Nick @ 11/29/2005 04:18:00 PM | 0 comments

 
UPS has been notified for pickup on my mixer! It should go out today and it is scheduled to be here on Tuesday! (That is, next Tuesday and not tomorrow.)
- posted by Nick @ 11/28/2005 02:22:00 PM | 0 comments

 
I have no idea where I'm going to put it. But it'll be mailed out soon! Wheee!
- posted by Nick @ 11/27/2005 09:53:00 PM | 0 comments

 
So today on the way home from work I was listening to NPR and there was an interview with the author of a book I found interesting (dealing with the history of American Indians prior to European colonization of the New World) and when I got home I looked it up on Amazon.

When I was there it showed me a list of recomendations for me and one of those was the KitchenAid Artisan mixer. Some of you may know that I drool over this mixer all the time.

They had it for $199 and there was a $25 mail-in rebate offered from KitchenAid. In addition to this it qualified for a $25 instant rebate online and free shipping. In addition to this I had a $25 Amazon card that needed to be used.

So I ordered it. $125 for the amazingly beautiful KitchenAid Artisan mixer. I will have my mixer. My KitchenAid mixer... It will be mine. After all this time.

I'm still in a bit of shock at the whole thing. Here is a picture of the one I got:



Mmmmm, beauty!
- posted by Nick @ 11/27/2005 12:43:00 AM | 0 comments