Thankful for an old friend...

I've had my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for nearly 7 years.  I got it for Christmas from my Mom - she knew I wanted/needed one as we were preparing to head to the mission field.  You see, missionary wives tend to do a teensy bit ton of cooking from scratch...ask any MAF wife - she has some sort of high-powered mixer and she uses it almost daily.  I know I do.

I love my KitchenAid - even though it's kinda old, showing a little bit of wear character, and a smaller model. I almost sold it in one of our many moves.  I had put it on our list of things to sell and then that night I couldn't sleep just thinking about it.  I had butterflies in my stomach and broke into a cold sweat.  I promptly got out of bed and crossed it off the list, breathing a huge sigh of relief that I wasn't so stupid as to part with my faithful friend.

Today I made a rather rash decision that I must start making our sandwich bread - because the bakery bread here is really expensive, comes in small packages (we're always having to run out for more) and, even though I can actually find "whole wheat" bread, I can pretty much guarantee that it ain't....which makes me wonder what they put in there other than food dye and grassy stubble.  (And weevils, I just found one in Brooklyn's bread today.  It was well-cooked, I'm sure.  No harm done....Well, except to the weevil.)

So, I found a recipe for homemade bread that looked good.  I don't have whole wheat flour right now but the recipe also called for some oats and it seemed like a healthier option.  It was to make 6 loaves.  I thought about cutting that in half, but...I didn't.

Wish I had.

It was a disaster!  Flour sprayed the entire kitchen, dough made it's way up the dough hook and all the way up to the arm of the mixer.  In the end I had to knead the dough in bits and pieces and a little by hand too.  I got it done at last and then I had a huge mess to clean up.  To top it off, the motor felt quite warm on the KitchenAid - maybe that was just the way our electricity works here, I hope it isn't a bad sign that my mixer is on it's last leg.  Nooooooo!

Meanwhile, I'll probably be finding bread dough in every nook and cranny of my kitchen for months to come.

I think the bread turned out pretty yummy and I'm still grateful that I didn't have to do ALL the kneading on my own, even though I still worked twice as hard just cleaning up the mess I'd made.

Every once in a while I ponder getting a new mixer like a bigger Kitchen Aid....or even a Bosch - which, incidentally, I know is probably superior in function but a Bosch doesn't look near as pretty sitting on the counter top as a Kitchen Aid does. And I'm just as in love with the look of my Kitchen Aid as I am with it's many useful attachments that make my day easier.

Yes, I do sometimes think about making an upgrade.

The truth is, though, that I don't think I can do it.

I'll probably just keep the one I have and learn to make less bread at once.  I still feel all jittery and cold/hot when I think about giving up my mixer!  We've been through a lot, me and her.  Somehow, trading her in for something newer, fancier, bigger, stronger, and more expensive feels like a ruthless betrayal after all the hard work she's done for me these past several years. On the other hand, maybe she's ready to retire.

What to do, what to do?

So what do you think?  Stay faithful?  Upgrade to a bigger Kitchen Aid?  Ditch the fancy looks and get a Bosch?  Knead by hand?  Just buy the expensive mystery weevil bread?