I use my hand mixer a few times a month, usually for whipped cream and the like. I like hand-mashed potatoes, too. I've had good service from my Kitchenaid but I'm amused that they come with "dough hooks." I have the Breville oven and a Breville Fast Slow Pro Slow Cooker, which is their overpriced version of an Instant Pot. I will likely avoid Breville in the future unless my oven finally bites the dust. I really got my money's worth out of that thing. I have good lighting in my kitchen but the miner's hat still sounds like a viable solution.
That looks good, Kate. Is it a sweet pudding or like a Yorkshire pudding? I make bread pudding that is a sweet, custardy dish.
I'm still using my Breville convection oven almost daily. I'm baking lots of stuff I would never fire my regular oven up to do. In fact, I made biscuits tonight. Regarding a miner's hat...I have a few of these I bought on closeout: and one of these I got at a yard sale that clips to a baseball cap brim: Unlike dough hooks for a hand mixer, they have their use.
Hmmm. I just remembered that I bought a baseball cap with a light on it for when we go camping. It was handy when we had a little dog that needed walking at night and the campground was pitch black. And I use my Breville oven daily, too. It really is a great addition to the kitchen.
I'm excited to get the "ceramic bread bowl" for my Kitchenaid stand mixer. It should be here tomorrow.
I bought one of these potato peelers and it works great except on very flat potatoes. Out of a 10 lb bag of Idaho Russets, I had 8 potatoes I had to peel by hand. Easy to clean. A real-time saver and very low priced. Mine has held up over 2 years despite its cheap-looking appearance.
I have ever had any luck with those, or with the apple peeler/corer/slicer gadgets. Right now I'm using one of these, except mine has a hollow handle that stores a serrated blade.
Pealing potatoes with a peeler peals away a good part of the healthy reason for eating them. Steam them with skin on the then remove the skin without any of the white part of the thing. Or bake them and eat the whole potato, including the skin. I grew up on a farm/ranch where the main cash crop was Russet potatoes.
I have always eaten potatoes with the skins on as well as all kinds of fruit with edible skins. Now, it is harder for me to bite and chew apples (are apple skins suddenly tougher in this new millennium, maybe ?); so now I use the mini Ninja food chopper when eating my apples. It works great for chipping them to cook in my steel cut oats, and I process them to applesauce sized bites when I have apples with cottage cheese, or something similar. If I do have to peel a potato, I do it like @James Hintze ; I cook them and then carefully remove the thin outside skin. I do this for potato salad, but sometimes, if I use red or yellow skin potatoes, I just leave the skin on when making potato salad, too. I do have a peeler, and I like it for making really thin strips of carrots for salads or stirfry.
Et voila'. Le bread has been made. Turned out pretty tasty and has an excellent crust. Next time I'll add a pinch more salt but other than that it's a winner.