The Attempted Murder of a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and a Bread not to be Repeated.

I almost killed my most prized possession on Saturday night: my KitchenAid Professional 5 quart stand mixer.

I wept. Seriously. It could have cost me $400 or more to replace my beauty. And I don't have $400 right now.

After unplugging and removing Silver Streak (her nickname since she can beat egg whites and whip cream at lighting speed) to the cool tile, to do just that, cool down.

Potential Disaster #1: In the mean time I had to knead my 5 1/2 lbs of bread dough by hand. I will admit it was a lot of dough, but SS should have been able to handle it. I began recalculating my measurements. What did I miss? My recipe is in the metric system, and when I doubled it, I forgot to add the equivalent of four ounces of water. That's a half cup. And that's a lot of water in bread dough.

So, it took me an hour to knead and incorporate that additional water by hand plus the other half cup of flour my recipe required. Are you kidding me? It was already midnight when Silver Streak died.

Potential Disaster #2: After I finally kneaded it to its proper consistency (windowpane test), I let it rise. I should have put it in the fridge at this point. Nope, I didn't.

I checked Silver Streak, still nothing.

After it fermented, I punched the dough down, formed it into three loaves, putting two in the freezer, but then I forgot to place the last loaf in the fridge for a night of rising. You see, I was just so excited! I had plugged in SS again, and although she didn't sound great, she was working.

So, by the time I came back down stairs the in the morning, my bread had over proofed. The only remedy I could think of was to remove it from the loaf pan, brush off as much cornmeal as possible, punch it down and reshape it. I let it relax for about 20 minutes before reshaping and rolling it out again for the loaf pan. I again set it to proof.

And you're not going to believe this, but not only did Silver Streak work, I even made oatmeal cookies with her. Yes, I do feel a little guilty to make her work so hard again after almost killing her.

Potential Disaster #3: The bread was taking forever to proof. After two hours, I had to leave. Not just leave for a little while, but for a day-long trip. What was I going to do? I wrapped it up, loaf pan and all, and placed it in the freezer.

Potential Disaster #4: Now I didn't have any bread for my daughter's lunch on Monday. But the disaster was avoided by the school lunch program. Fortunately, hot lunch was soft tacos (one of my daughter's favorites).

Saved! After taking the bread out of the freezer Sunday night after returning home, I put the it in the refrigerator to defrost slowly. I didn't take dough out again until Monday afternoon. The dough took four hours to warm up and finish proofing. I crossed my fingers after placing it in the oven.

Thirty minutes later I had a perfect loaf of bread. After letting it cool overnight, I sliced into it this morning. It tasted as perfect as it looked. Although knowing that a bread that rises slowing has better flavor, I thought I might have pushed the limits this time. You see, when dough is allowed to sit and rest, yeast cells are able to enjoy themselves immensely, and this allows them impart a wonderful flavor into the bread. However, I will not be following this exact method again. At least I hope not!

I crave French Onion Chip Dip

That's right. The store bought, all white except for some green flecks, chemical filled stuff that is sold next to the sour cream. I grew up on it, I love the flavor and potato chips are just not the same without it. And lately, I have been indulging in my craving for this junk food.

But there is a problem. I want to eat real food. And even more importantly, I want my daughter to eat real food. Last weekend, we were eating lunch together, when she asked me, "Mommy, I love this dip, but why does it taste so good?" My honest answer was, "Probably because of the MSG."

Yep. MSG is in chip dip. What is MSG*? It is a chemical that has been isolated that contains sodium and a glutamate. However,  a glutamate actually occurs naturally in many foods: ripe tomatoes, pickles, meat, cheeses, fish to name a few. According to the Japanese, it is what gives us umami**. U-what? Umami is considered by the Japanese as an additional taste along with sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Umami is the savory behind the things we crave the most. Which for me is french onion chip dip.

So after explaining this to a confused six year old, she asks, "Is it good for me?" Good question. Some scientists and consumers say a most definite no, while others say except for those sensitive to it, it is fine.

"So, is it good for me?" She asks again. So, I stopped skirting the issue and said, "There is a better way to eat than consuming processed food."

"Oh, not that again," she said. As you can tell, she has heard it all before. So, I went online and found Alton Brown's recipe. Here is the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/onion-dip-from-scratch-recipe/index.html

It was very easy and pretty tasty. I will need to tweak it by either changing the type of onion or at least adding more. Tomorrow I will find out if it passes the kid test.

*Interested in the science behind MSG? Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate
**What more information about umami? Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

Overnights

I work nights. Actually, we call them overnights. I start at 10 pm and leave the following morning at 6 am. And between last week and this week, I worked six of them in a row. It takes about two nights to get into the rhythm, but once I get going, I do pretty good. But switching from days to nights and back again is a pain in the ass.

I am sure everyone has their own method, but on the morning of my first night, I attempt to get up between 3-4 am. From then to about 10 am, I attempt to get things done around the house without the aid of coffee. It doesn't usually work well. At 10:00, I try to go to bed and sleep until my daughter gets home from school. After putting her to bed around 7:30, I try to nap for an hour. It doesn't usually work well.

At least the next night I don't have to attempt to get up at 3:00, because if I'm not already up, I am in some serious trouble.

On my last overnight, if I want to get back into day time living, I stay up throughout the day until bedtime. Yes, that would mean I am up 24+ hours. And you wonder why night shift people have shorter life spans?

I am not posting this for sympathy. There are definitely benefits to this arrangement for my family and for me.

One nice thing is that I am not being interrupted from my work by petty matters of the office, which for me is such a relief. Is there ever a night that goes smoothly, every step of the way? This is still life we're talking about, so the answer is a most definite, "NO!" But there is a sense of accomplishment, because I have to figure out my own solutions. All my orders need to be completed, and I must prep for the next night.

So, what do I do? Bread and cookies, mostly. At one point or another I make and bake quick breads (fruit breads/muffins/scones), sweet dough (cinnamon rolls), laminated doughs (croissants and Danishes), our daily bread plus rolls and possibly other varieties for brunch and banquets, and finally cookies. Usually, when I make cookies, I use the 80 quart mixer. Our chocolate chip cookie batter contains 28 pounds of chips alone. If I am making brownies, I make anywhere between 3-6 full sized sheet pans. That could mean 26 pounds of melted butter.

I love the variety. For me, it's like a party all night long.