Mike Nolan
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I've used my son's 6 quart bowl-lift KA mixer a number of times, I find it clumsy to add items or check on texture, and I've had the bowl pop off more than once. (So has he when I've seen him use it.)
I've used bowl lift commercial mixers without any problems, but they have much heavier bowls and seem to lock down better.
I'm currently getting 5 pound bags of KAF AP flour for around $3.50 at WalMart, and if I bought a 3 pack from walmart.com I could get it for around $3.09 a bag.
I've never seen a 12 pound bag of flour! 50 pound bags of flour are around $20 these days through restaurant supply outlets, but you have to know what type of flour you're after.
There isn't a BJ's anywhere near us. There's a Restaurant Depot in Omaha, but you have to have a tax permit to buy from them or even see what they carry. I've been to a few GFS stores, but there isn't one of those near us, either. Sams and Costco mostly carry bleached flours.
Viking mixers had a good reputation, but they got out of that business. The Bosch Universal looks interesting, 800 watt motor and 6.5 quart capacity. The biggest problem I have with mixers like the Bosch or the Ankarsrum are that I'd really want to have a chance to try one before plunking down cash for them, at least with KA mixers you're familiar with the design concept, you just have to figure which line and size you need.
Glad to hear you've got a solution worked out.
I'm not sure KAF still sells the 10 pound bags in some parts of the country, the only place I've ever seen one in Nebraska is at the Whole Foods in Omaha, the one in Lincoln doesn't carry that size. And the 25 pound bag seems even scarcer.
We had beans-and-weiners tonight.
I'd suggest making sure there isn't something clogging either the beater or the spindle it attaches to.
I have two bowls for my 4 1/2 quart mixer, one with a handle, one without, the one with the handle is much easier to get on and off. These days they also make a 4 1/2 quart glass bowl, but I've read reports that it tends to chip on the bottom where it locks in and it is a lot heavier.
A few years ago I actually had a dough hook break in the middle of a kneading cycle. Getting it off was a bit tricky, and I wound up throwing out that batch of dough.
KitchenAid has been through several quality phases since Hobart sold them.
The Hobart-built KA mixers are IMHO still the best, ours is nearly 48 years old and still performing like a champ, though it makes some grinding or clicking noises from time to time.
Hobart sold the KA line to Whirlpool in 1986, and some people think the brand went downhill within a few years.
There was a period where the KA mixers had really cheap nylon gears in them, I guess the engineering concept was that the gear would fail rather than burn out the motor, but almost nobody liked that.
According to several sources, they went back to metal gears some time around 2000, not sure exactly when, and I'm also not sure if that applies to all lines.
To me it appears there are 3 lines in most of the sizes of current KA mixers, with 3 price levels, 3 power ratings, and, most likely, 3 quality levels. The discount stores appear to have the lowest price ones, with power and quality to match. However, I've not figured out the distribution of the higher priced higher quality lines. It'd be nice if someone like Consumer Reports did a comprehensive report on all the KA mixers, including taking them apart, but I've not seen them do that.
Personally, I don't like the bowl-lift models, so if I ever had to replace mine I'd probably stick with the smaller size, since the larger ones are all bowl-lift style.
I don't think I do enough large-scale breadmaking these days to justify the Ankarsrum mixer, and I don't know that it has the ability to whip egg whites, which I probably do almost as often as I do bread dough. To be honest, I'd think about a $1200 table-top commercial mixer if I wanted a big one, but I'd want something that had pasta attachments, because I use those a lot, too.
Our kitchen is 17 x 18 feet, with a large center island that has a prep sink on the south side, along with a 2 drawer SubZero undercounter refrigerator, and an electric cooktop on the north side. There's a stack of drawers beside the prep sink, and drawer/cabinet space on both sides of the cooktop.
The west wall has a 48" DCS Dual Fuel range with a vented range hood, with granite countertop to the right and butcher block to the left. The granite extends to the north wall, which has the dishwasher, a double sink and the pantry cabinet, plus additional under-cabinet storage (we call it the 'overstock' area.) There's a lazy susan in the corner with 2 shelves.
The south wall has more butcher block countertop, lots of under-cabinet storage and a 48" butcher block table that has a marble slab on it. The butcher block countertops is at a lower height than the granite countertop. The lower cabinets are all 30" deep (standard is 24") and the upper cabinets are all 16" deep (standard is usually 13"). There's bookcases above the table.
The east wall has side-by-size SubZero refrigerator and freezer, some more storage areas, and a desk area that has a microwave on it and another bookcase above it.
The under-cabinet storage areas all have a drawer at the top, so we have a total of 9 top drawers around the outside and 3 more on the island. Every top drawer has a pull-out cutting board surface, which gives us extra temporary work space. (The desk drawer is the only one that doesn't have the pull-out). All of the under-cabinet storage areas have pull-out shelves, 2 per cabinet.
There's a warming drawer below the cooktop, though we generally just use it as a snack drawer, and pot storage below that.
There's also a butler's pantry just off the kitchen, mainly for fancy dishes and stuff we don't use every day.
I don't remember eating much cole slaw as a kid, my mother was more into making sauerkraut in a 10 gallon crock. After 2-3 weeks it starts tasting pretty darned good!
If we had it, it was probably made with Miracle Whip, as we were a MW household, though my mother's favorite salad was a wilted lettuce salad made with bacon grease. I couldn't stand it, and I didn't really develop a taste for any kind of salad until after college.
When Cass calls, ask him if you can post his recipe here.
I prefer a separate kitchen, which is what we have. My son's house has an open kitchen, the first floor is essentially one big room.
I also don't like eat-in counters in the kitchen. We have an informal dining area just off the kitchen that is part of the family room on first floor. We also have a formal dining room that is used mainly when there are more than 5 people eating. Currently my wife is using the dining table for a sewing project, her sewing room is off the formal dining room, and she also has a big jigsaw puzzle on the table, one that is too big for the table she usually uses for puzzles.
Apparently what they did was harvest yeast spores from the pottery, then used that to grow enough yeast to make bread, using ancient grains. They're also analyzing the yeast's DNA.
I have a number of small dishes that I bought to fit our small oven (they have to be no more than about 8 1/2 inches wide to fit on the lower or middle rack), some glass and some metal. I find them handy when making multiple dishes in the big oven that I either want to keep separate or that have different cooking times.
Do you have the KAF whole grains cookbook? It's got an excellent Hot Cross Buns recipe in it. It's a 50-50 whole wheat/AP flour recipe, though I've made it using 2/3 whole wheat and 1/3 AP. I find it gets a bit chewy that way, though. I divide the dough into 32 parts rather than 24 and bake them in 6" pans, 8 per pan, so they're more of a snack. According to MyFitnessPal, they're 20.7 carbs and 128 calories each, not counting frosting.
We had tuna melts made with marbled rye bread and tomatoes from the garden tonight.
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