I Have A Confession

Hello dear readers! Welcome back to the farm! It’s 60 degrees, sunny, and my sheets are hanging out on the clothesline.

Welcome to the new folks joining us this week. We are glad to have you here. The sheep are getting itchy from their winter coats and would be glad to let you scratch on them.

Everyone is doing well here, for the most part. Seems I caught a cold again, and have been dealing with mass quantities of snot, sneezing, and coughing. Feels like I’ve been constantly sick for the past several weeks. Whatever that flu/covid thing I had is hanging on and keeping my immune system shut down. Doing what I can to boost it, but it’s been slow going for sure.

The sheep are doing well, eating, drinking, and generally being lazy boogers. What else is new right? Some of the younger ones are out there playing king of the hill at the moment. It’s nice to see them bouncing around out there.

Tally is back to his door troll ways. He was getting pushed off the hay bale by the others so it’s better for him to have the yard to wander and the corral bale to eat off of. He’s old enough that his teeth are worn down and he can be unsteady on his feet. We have found him flopped over a few times and have had to help him back up. But he keeps plugging along and trying to open the back door every chance he gets to let himself in and beg for cookies.

Dear readers, I have a confession for you. A confession that pains me to disclose. A confession that comes from my soul.

I put this out there, to you dear readers, as I know there are many others out there with the same affliction as me.

My name is Judy, and I am addicted to kitchen gadgets.

I am so addicted to them that in order to support my habit, I resort to…..

“gasp”

Getting paid to do online surveys, which I convert to Amazon gift cards to buy my next trinket, gizmo, wunderkind, must needed object.

I know that looking at me you would never guess. There is no flour in my hair, no whisk sticking out of the pocket of my shirt, no tart pans scattered around my person. However, if you are ever in my kitchen, or see the obscene number of cookbooks I have, you will see how serious this is.

I have been busting my butt voicing my opinion to all and sundry to earn enough to get my latest kitchen helper.

I have been wanting to get back to baking bread, something I did on a weekly basis with four of us in the house. We went thru a lot of it. Rob was big on slicing a chunk off and smearing some honey on it for a snack.

Anyway, since his death, I had gotten away from the baking habit. Plus, as I am getting older (UGH!) it’s harder on my shoulders to do the amount of kneading required to get a good loaf. Also, my kitchen counter is unnaturally high, and I have to stand on a stool to reach it well. I have a tough enough time with standing on the flat floor without tottering over, as evidence by my fall down the stairs at work.

Enter the dough mixer as my savior.

I told ya I have a problem.

Now, I do have a regular mixer which I have used in the past, but it is almost 30 years old and I am afraid of burning out the motor.

This is the one that came to live with me this week. Sunvivipro 5.3 qt mixer

It has a good-sized bowl on it, that locks to the base, a blade for the mixing part, a lid that locks down to keep the flour from flying all over, and it heats up for your first rise. Plus the suction feet keep it from walking off the counter on me.

The mixing/kneading cycle is anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, and the fermentation is up to 1 hr 45 mins. All you do is add your ingredients, and it does a really good job of pulling the dough together.

The motor does make some noise, but it isn’t too obnoxious.

The one thing I did notice is that when the kneading is going on, every time it starts/stops it made my light flick on and off, so it seems to draw some power for sure. I just unplug the light when I’m using it.

The bowl is stainless steel and cleans up beautifully. The blade also, washes up quickly. The lid is plastic and clear so you can see your dough whipping around in a frenzy. FYI they do not recommend you put the bowl, lid or blade in your dishwasher. And please don’t attempt to put the motor in your sink full of water. That would be a bad thing.

And I like the greenish color.

So far I’m on my 3rd batch of bread this week. First was a small French loaf, second was a medium sized rustic Italian, and as I type, a 2 loaf batch of honey whole wheat is on the rise. All three of these are new recipes to me and I found them online.

Edited to add: The above 2 loaf size at the end of its rising time actually popped the lid off the bowl on me. 7 cups of flour seems to be the limit for this mixer. Good to know!!

First loaf of honey French bread

Second batch of rustic Italian

This mixer has handled everything exceedingly well so far.

The only drawback I have found is the constant need for me to keep sticking my fingers in to see if the dough feels right. Is it too wet? Too dry? And so on. Small adjustments are all I have had to do to make sure it’s the right consistency.

I did try to fire up my sourdough starter last week, but it just didn’t do anything for me. I don’t know if my kitchen is a bit too cold or my starter has pooped out one me. The batch I had on the counter also started to smell funky, so into the trash I put it and have started again. Fingers crossed this one gets its act together. The boy child has been asking for homemade sourdough bread.

There ya have it. My confession to my addiction, which I have no intention of changing. Apparently, I need to do more surveys to keep it going.

Eat Bread!

Blessed Be!

PS In the interest of transparency, I do not receive anything from Amazon in the way of compensation for anything I mention about them or my purchases from them. Too bad huh? A few kickbacks would be helpful for my addiction.

(hint hint Amazon)

Yeah, I’m sure they read my blog LOL!

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I am grateful for your financial support to help keep the farm going. Thank you for your blessing!