Teleidoscope

Sun, Apr 06, 2008

Mixer

Posted at 9:37 pm MDT to Technology

I think my Kitchenaid mixer may be dying. It was making horrible grinding noises while kneading this week's batch of bread.

This mixer is about 10 years old, and I think it was refurbished when I got it: my original mixer that I bought new was killed by a power surge from a nearby lightning strike within the initial warranty period. And it's mostly been used to make bread dough over the years, which has to count as heavy-duty use.

Today has been a cooking day: besides sourdough waffles and the bread, I made a batch of chicken and mushroom risotto (with fresh mushrooms and free range chicken breast from the Farmers' Market) and boxed organic chicken broth.

Flavorings were kosher salt, dried marjoram and thyme, and fresh ground black pepper and a couple of grinds of nutmeg. Plus grated parmesan, of course. Maybe a little too much salt, given the saltiness of the cheese.

I practiced my knife skills on the onions and garlic for the risotto (also the chicken) but I followed Alton Brown's advice and used an egg-slicer for the mushrooms. Actually, I've never used it to slice eggs... maybe if I make a macaroni salad this summer, I'll put it to its intended use.

I had been thinking of baking a cake, but I'm completely out of all-purpose flour. I went over to the mall this afternoon and stopped at my local Whole Foods (that used to be Wild Oats) on the way home, but they were out of both regular all-purpose King Arthur and the white whole-wheat. I bought some other stuff -- elbow noodles for mac-and-cheese and some stuff from the fresh dairy section -- but made a point about complaining about the out-of-stock flour at the customer service counter since that is what I had stopped in for.

Maybe tomorrow after work I'll go over to Nanette's to get some fresh eggs, and stop at the Boulder Whole Foods on the way home to stock up on flour and the vitamins I'm taking (ex-Wild Oats hasn't started stocking them yet).

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