Kitchen Aid to the rescue

After all the gross information last week in the news about commercially bought ground beef, I decided that the best thing to do was buy the Kitchen Aid Food Grinder attachment so we can make our own.  My step-mom had this when I was growing up and I remember her making the most amazing meatloaf with fresh selections of meats.  The Kitchen Aid website says that the attachment is good for making breadcrumbs, grated cheese, and grinding up fruits and veggies too. 

Mama Express

My 6 year old daughter has a new favorite restaurant, "Panda Express".  I'm not sure why she loves it so much.  When we went to Costco a few weeks ago they had a frozen meal of Orange Chicken.  We got some and tonight I made that along with white rice (I was too tired to attempt a fried rice) and potstickers.  When I told her what I was making, she said "Oh, like Panda Express".  I said yes, but called Mama Express.  So all throught dinner she kept saying how much she liked Mama Express.  It made me smile.

Favorite kitchen tools

I unpacked two of my favorite kitchen tools tonight.  They have been sitting in their boxes in my pantry since we moved in November.  One is my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, the other is my Pampered Chef loaf pan.  I'm baking some "Best Banana Bread" right now and the apartment smells so good.

While I was unpacking I was thinking about some kitchen related things and since it's been a month since my last post, I thought I would share my random thoughts with you.

The Kitchen Aid mixer is so wonderful.  I generally use it a few times a year (I need to make this bread more often!) for birthday cakes and chocolate chip cookies.  But it has some great uses.  When I was living at home with my parents, my step-mom would make the most wonderful meatloaf.  She would put the meat grinder attachment onto the Kitchen Aid and we would have a mixture of fresh ground chicken, steak, and pork.  The flavors were so good....now I'm thinking that I want to save up for one of those.  The other neat thing you can make is perfectly smooth mashed potatoes (I haven't done this in about 8 1/2 years though).  They are so creamy and fluffy.  It takes a few more minutes, but then again your arm doesn't get tired from all that mashing.

Another thing I was thinking about was how much I love Pampered Chef stoneware.  We use the round pizza stone all the time.  It just stays in the oven, partly because we don't have any storage space for it and partly because we use it so much.  If I had unlimited money and storage space, I would buy all the Pampered Chef stoneware.  I have the pizza stone, the loaf pan, and a small baking dish.  It cooks so evenly and I've never burned anything.

Which led me to think of my ideal kitchen.  It doesn't have to be huge, but it has to have lots of storage.  The only other specific thing I would like would be a sink that you didn't have to use your hands to turn on.  I hate having high bacteria food on my hand and then having to touch the faucet to turn on the water.  I saw an episode of a kitchen planning show on one of those decorating channels one time that had two surgeons who installed the same type of system in their house that they use at the hospital.  I would love that.  No more raw meat or egg germs having a party on my faucet handle.

So those are my kitchen thoughts for the night.  As an added note, I was not paid any endorsements from Kitchen Aid or Pampered Chef for my post tonight. =)

Memories

Cooking and food for me is something the evokes memories.  The smell of chocolate chip cookies baking reminds me of making them with my step-mom while growing up.  Banana bread makes me think of my dear friend (and co-blogger) Jen.  Pumpkin pie reminds me of my grandma and the lovely dinners that were had at her house over the years.  Making Rodeo Ranch Chicken Salad reminds me of my aunt who introduced me to that wonderful recipe on a visit home.  I remember going to Long Beach every summer and eating salt water taffy and ice cream from a wonderful restaurant (now closed).  One of my favorite memories of a trip to California was eating at a fancy (to an 8 year old) restaurant and getting to eat not only my chocolate mousse dessert, but my uncles too.

  Why was I thinking of this and decided to blog about it?  It made me think of the memories that I can start making with my little girls.  We make brownies together (in matching aprons lovingly made for us) and muffins.  The girls love the smell of food in the crockpot when we get home from church.  My older daughter loves her treat of going out with her grandpa weekly for lunch and an ice cream.  Sharing my cooking moments with the girls can help them have good memories too, and I can share my memories with them also.  I regret the times that I missed out not learning to cook with my grandmas.  They are from the generation that starts with a basic recipe and over the 60 years of cooking, they perfect it.  I never learned the special little changes made to make it "just right".  So I'm making notes now when I use a recipe that I will pass along someday.

My half-year resolution is to make some good memories this summer.