Saturday, August 11, 2012

The 5 Best Attachments for your KitchenAid Stand Mixer

The 5 best attachments for your KitchenAid Stand Mixer include the food grinder, juicer, ice cream maker, slicer and shredder and the pouring shield with a wide chute.   I like these specific attachments because it turns my KitchenAid into an all around appliance.  Why have all these applicances to store when you can use your stand mixer to do all these things?  Here are the reasons why I picked these attachments:

1. My family has been making homemade pork sausage for years.  It is part of our tradition to grind up pork, season it, stuff into casings and save for the holidays.  My grandfather and grandmother would grind the meat in a hand grinder, but today I use my KitchenAid stand mixer to grind the meat quickly and easily.  It also comes with a tool to stuff the ground meat into the casings.  You can't beat that!  This food grinder attachment is useful when wanting to grind other foods too.


2. I love fresh juice and when our large juice stopped working, I bought the juicer attachment for the kitchen aid.  We even juice fresh apples during the fall when apples are abundant. 

3. If you have children at home or grandkids like I do, then the ice cream maker attachment is a must.  The KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker comes with a basic recipe to make homemade ice cream or use your favorite recipe too.  When the kids come over in the summer, we make some ice cream and let it chill in the freezer for a while.  They get a kick out of making their own ice cream.  With the price of ice cream today, this is a inexpensive way to go.


4. Lately, we have been watching our diet and eating more vegetables than ever before.  The slicer and shredder attachment turns the mixer into a food processor or mandoline tool.  When wanting to slice up a large amount of cucumbers or shred cabbage for cole slow, using this attachment sure makes the job quicker than cutting or chopping by hand.

5. Last but not least, I really recommend adding the pouring shield with wide chute to your baking and cooking needs.  This attachment really helps keep ingredients such as eggs from splashing out of the bowl when adding them for a baking recipe.  The chute attachs to the bowl and helps with pouring too.

If you cannot buy all these attachments at one time for your KitchenAid Stand Mixer, buy one at a time until you have the ones you need.  Or put them on your wish list for someone to buy you as a gift!

Saturday, August 4, 2012

The Best Stand Mixer for a New Cook

The best stand mixer for a new cook is one that is simple to use with basic speeds.  It does not need to have lots of extra attachments or numerous functions like a professional stand mixer.  A new cook may be a young newlywed or even a pre-teen learning to cook for the first time.  I learned to bake and cook using a classic Sunbeam MixMaster Stand Mixer.

I remember my mother's Sunbeam stand mixer very well.  It was a sturdy mixer with 2 glass mixing bowls.  A small one for icings, eggs, and other small mixes while the large 4 quart bowl was used for everything else.  It had all the necessary speeds such as fold, knead, mix, stir, beat, whip, cream and blend.

Our Sunbeam Stand Mixer only came with the standard beaters, but today they have improved this by including a dough hook and wire whip to the mixer when you buy it.  I would have loved having those extra tools when I was a teenage using our stand mixer.  I had to mix everything with the same basic beaters.

This Sunbeam Stand Mixer lasted for many years.  I took it with me when I was first married and used it for several years more.  I made lots of Lemon Meringue Pies with beaten egg whites since that was my dad's favorite pie and this sturdy stand mixer never let me down on whipping nice stiff egg whites for meringue.

I would recommend this basic Sunbeam Stand Mixer as a gift for anyone who is learning to bake and cook or as a gift for a newlywed couple.  It will last them many years of wonderful baking.

Click here to learn more about the Sunbeam 2371 MixMaster Stand Mixer featured on Amazon.com