Holy Blendtec, Batman!!!

It's here! It's here! It's here!!!!!

I can hardly believe it's finally here - the Blendtec blender I've been lusting over for months and months! I finally broke down and bought it for myself as a sort-of birthday present, so happy birthday to me! So long, Toastmaster - Hellooooooo, Blendtec! I think I'm going to name her Marge, because she's definitely large and in charge!

Isn't she gorgeous?!?!?!

This is not your mother's blender. No...she might have a Vitamix, but she doesn't have a Blendtec...at least not the Wildside, 3 qt BPA-free pitcher, 4" blade, 2 hp, 25 preset cycles, 1560 watt Blendtec. :) Um...yeah...my garage door opener is only 1/2 hp...so this is 4 times more powerful than that!

Marge came with an insane cookbook, too. She can make bread dough! Ice cream, soups, pancake batter, smoothies, about 50 different coffee drinks, the list goes on and on. Oh, and she can grind coffee and flour, turn oats and various nuts into milks, and brush my dog! Ok, I lied about that last one...wishful thinking! Since I bought my Blendtec through Green Smoothie Girl, I got a free copy of her ebook, "12 Steps to Raw Foods," and she's got some great green smoothie recipes I plan to try. The train for Smoothieville is now boarding at gate 7...

Belgian Waffles

Kim & Jen got a really cool Christmas gift - a Belgian waffle maker. So, we did what any Belgian waffle-loving person in his or her right mind would do - we made waffles!!! Jen found the best ever recipe here. It is a bit complex, but it was totally worth it! I always add vanilla, so I suggest doing so even though it's not on the recipe. Check it out!

See how fluffy they were?!?!

Waffles are part of a balanced breakfast! :)

Ethel's first job

So...I finally got around to using Ethel for the first time (that sounds really funny...), and she did a GREAT job! We made carrot cake together. :) For this special event, I made some videos of her in action. Here she is mixing the wet cake ingredients with the dry:

And here she is mixing the cream cheese frosting:

By the way...I've discovered that the longer she mixes the frosting, the creamier it gets! I know this seems really intuitive, but I honestly hadn't even thought about it until this time (I've made this cake at least 20 times...). I suppose there is probably a window of time after which the frosting becomes super rigid or something, but I haven't found the other end of that (yet)! :)

Introducing - Ethel!

I've got to be honest, the FGF kitchen is not exactly a cutting edge facility. I have one good knife (a large John Lewis chopping knife I got from Marshall's for like $9) - the rest came from Wal-Mart, and I bought them in 2001. I have a Toastmaster toaster, hand mixer, and blender - all about 10 years old, all also probably purchased at Wal-Mart. I have an old school can opener that is - again - 10 years old from Wal-Mart. I have a set of plastic kitchen utensils (you know, a giant ladle, turner, and like 5 slatted spoons) that must've all come together in some amazing economy pack at Wal-Mart, about 10 years ago. You get the point. What happened was, Michele and I broke up, she moved out and took everything with her - because everything was hers. At that point, I hadn't lived on my own yet, so I hadn't accumulated any of the things one accumulates when one lives on one's own *sigh*.

Over the past few years though (well, apparently since 2001), I've been slowly gathering items for my kitchen, and in the last 2 years I've done some major updating. For example, I got a set of KitchenAid pots and pans about a year ago (thank you, Heidi, for not allowing me to purchase the set of "Chef's Secret" pots and pans I had my eye on!). Kim and Jen gave me a Cuisinart coffee maker for my birthday this year (yep, that's right - the one that's in all the movies!). And I splurged and got myself a super fancy garlic press at IKEA and a snazzy set of aluminum dry measuring cups (with rubberized handles) at BB&B. Yep, the FGF kitchen is definitely moving up in the world - I even found a KitchenAid rubber scraper at Tuesday Morning for $3!!!

So, the obvious next step was to go all the way and get a KitchenAid stand mixer. Yes, obvious, so so obvious. Truth be told, I've been drooling over these KitchenAid stand mixers for a long time. And, as my longing became public recently, I found out from my friends that they were actually confused about how I could have such sparse and inadequate kitchen equipment when cooking, grilling, and baking are three of my favorite things! Well, NO MORE! I did a little research on the KitchenAid.com site and then did some ebay recon. I decided that I wanted to pay no more than $225 (including s&h) for the 5 quart, tilt-head mixer, new, with all attachments. The standard 325 watts was fine with me, but of course I would've been totally ok with the 450 watt KSM, too. :) Well, not too long after I started ebay stalking these things, I saw that someone had one, NIB, onyx black (one of my 3 acceptable colors) for a Buy It Now price of $240 OBO. So...I made an offer. They were saying shipping would be $17-something, so I just subtracted that from $225 and put in an offer of $207-something. I awoke the next morning to find my offer had been accepted, so TA-DA! That is how Ethel came to be a member of my family.

Wanna hear the coolest part? The seller is from Barrington, RI! How cool is that? I thought it was pretty amazing that we were less than 10 miles from each other (ok, maybe 15). The seller ended up just bringing it to my house, and he awkwardly started to make some horrible comment about how "that's a really big blender for a single...(embarrassing pause)...you can mix a lot of stuff in that mixer." Yeah...it was all sunshine and rainbows until that moment, and then I just wanted to sneeze on him and spread some of my gay germs!

Anyway - I named her Ethel after my grandma Summers. My car is named Eliza after my Grandma Tibbett, so I thought it was only fitting to name my mixer after the other one. :) The interesting part (to me) about this is that Ethel went by Connie, and Eliza went by Cathryn. Neither of them really liked their given first names, but I think they're beautiful! Of course, Ethel and I will document our experiments and projects right here on the FGF blog, and I'm looking forward to many many years of cooking bliss with the old gal!

Ethel was made in Michigan - she's a Midwesterner just like me!

Isn't she GORGEOUS?!?!?!

Yes, she's an artisan. That makes me feel so professional!