Today a Dream Comes True

Since I moved out of my parent's house and had to furnish my own kitchen, I've dreamed of owning my own Kitchen Aid mixer. I say dream because furnishing an apartment let alone a kitchen is an expensive endeavor for a 21 year old with college loans to repay.

I grew up using my Mom's Kitchen Aid mixer which was handed down to her by her Grandmother. It was one of the old ones that doesn't have the 3rd prong on the outlet and has 2 beaters instead of the one that's found on the current models. The bowls are ceramic and very flat instead of the more rounded bottomed metal bowls of today. Also, because of it's age, it's almost impossible to get additional attachments for it. Nonetheless, it was the mixer that I used when I first learned how to make a souffle, whip cream, and frosting (and let me say that it can still make a mean souffle despite it's age). All of the food blogs that I read seem to assume that their readers possess a stand mixer as a part of their kitchen equipment and often don't detail how to make the recipe without this vital piece of equipment.

Now, at 25, I'm finally able to afford this expensive kitchen plaything. After much searching and deliberation, I found the Kitchen Aid Professional 600 Series 6-quart stand mixer on sale on Amazon.com for 46% off! I couldn't believe it. Not only could I actually afford a mixer, but I could buy one with the dough hook and beater attachments as well as the pouring shield. I finally got it in the mail on Friday and already unpacked it and made it at home on my counter. Now, I can't wait to have time to make all sorts of yummy things that I couldn't have made before with no mixer.

MixMatchCake!

In light of MixMatchMusic's latest accomplishments at Demofall in San Diego. I decided that they needed a little treat to celebrate their major award, DEMOgod. What better way to celebrate them and get out my recent desires for creative pursuits than to make a MixMatchCake!

First off, I have to admit that I totally cheated and used cake mix and pre-made frosting. I did this because I really wanted to decorate the cake and not spend hours making both cake and frosting from scratch. Besides, cake mix always tastes great.

The first challenge of this endeavor was how to make grey frosting for the cake. Luckily, Safeway now carries black food coloring. This was a pleasant surprise because I figured I was going to be making black out of red, yellow, green, and blue food coloring. A possible, but challenging escapade. When you mix enough black food coloring into the frosting to turn it the dark grey of MixMatch's logo, it starts to lose it's sturdy consistency and get more liquidy. This made frosting the cake (or rather getting the frosting to stick where you put it) rather challenging. I can't really offer any pearls of wisdom for getting this to work except persistance! It will go where you want it to eventually.

Here's what it looks like after the first frosting...


To decorate the cake, I used toothpicks, a spatula, butter knife, and a nifty reusable plastic pastry bag and tips that I also found at Safeway. I drew all of the white outlines and white shapes with the pastry bag and then used the toothpicks and knives to spread out the frosting inside, kind of like outlining the shape in the coloring book and then filling it in.

Here's what it looks like after the addition of the MixMatchMan...


After I finished all of the frosting...


I plotted to figure out how to bring this to a restaurant. ChuThis suggested that I go to Whole Foods and see if they'd give me a pastry box. They gave me both a pastry box and one of the gold cardboard thingy's to put under the cake. I had to very precariously transfer the cake from the plate to the cardboard, but luckily all went well. Here's the finished look.

My First Mystery Box

I figure that since I've already gotten my second Mystery Box from Mariquita Farm that I should take a moment to write about the first one. Let me just say first of all that 15 lbs or so of veggies is a lot for one person, particularly someone like me who doesn't eat a ton. But, let me also say that it was amazingly yummy produce. Check out how full my fridge was when I stuffed the Mystery Box in it.



I first looked through the contents of the mystery box and tried to determine what everything was. Luckily, each one comes with a sheet that lists the contents and I've included photos of some of the items below.

Breakfast Raddishes

Collard Greens

Tokyo White Turnips

Erbette Chard

Fennel

Also, without pictures:
-Cilantro
-Tarragon
-Spinach
-French Fingerling Potatoes
-Genovese Basil
-Little Gem Lettuce
-Chantenay Carrots
-Arugula

All in all, it was a really yummy experience. Though my fridge did do some weird things and render some of the foods inedible (like it turned the fresh genovese basil black and crispy in about 2 days). I didn't particularly do anything exciting in terms of recipes for all of this food, but I did do a great tarragon white wine butter sauce with some talapia, though I've since lost the recipe.

It was so yummy that Tara and I decided that we should share a Mystery Box the next time. More on that meal which did have great recipes later.