Now I can be a foodie...

If you check my facebook, then you already know that my husband Hector surprised me with a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer this past weekend. :) It's just beautiful! It's purple! or Plum? Whatever the technical name is, it's gorgeous!

Am I right?

It was such a surprise, y'all! Hector saved his own money and ordered it behind my back. Then I took a nap with Cohen on Sunday and when I came downstairs it was on the counter with a big bow on top! 

I was pretty excited to jump right in and make something, but of course had NO idea what to make. We were making spaghetti with meatballs (meatballs that we MADE, mind you..) and so I grabbed some strawberries and some heavy whipping cream. That's right, I'd decided to make whipped cream on this, my mixer's maiden voyage. 

First, let me tell you about these amazing meatballs we made! I got the recipe from foodnetwork.com and it was from Bobby Flay. 

-ground pork

-ground beef

-bread crumbs

-diced garlic, sauteed

-eggs

-grated Parmesan cheese

-Italian parsley

-olive oil

-salt & pepper 

It may, or may not, have called for onions which WE chose to leave out. :)

What a tasty meal! And something we'd never tried to make before. That's homemade garlic and Parmesan bread there, too. :)

So, then I hopped back into the kitchen to prepare our dessert!

I pulled my mixer bowl and whisk attachment out of the freezer where I'd been chilling them and attached them to the stand. 1 Cup of heavy whipping cream went into the bowl.

(it's spinning there, can you tell??)

After that mixed on low for about a minute, I think, I added a Tablespoon of vanilla extract and a Tablespoon of powdered sugar and gradually worked to mixer up to about 6.

And here's where it can go from perfect to butter in seconds... It was looking amazing, I turned to put away the vanilla and sugar and turned back to find this:

Is that all I did wrong? A few too many seconds? Or was the speed up to high?

Besides texture, it tasted soooo good! We put it on some strawberries we had sliced, sprinkled with sugar and refrigerated a few hours earlier. So yummy! 

I'm so excited to make some cupcakes, cake, cake balls, biscuits, or SOMETHING, sometime soon. Any suggestions? I have my eye on a few cookbooks at amazon.com that are specifically for stand mixers. I'm not the type of person who can just think up a recipe (that actually tastes good), it has to be written out for me. 

This is the first of many posts you'll find of me featuring my Mixer. I probably need to name her. :)

In other news, how cute is Cohen here, while out shopping with my Mom and me in Paris??

He gets all the girls' attention with that face :)

Oh, that face.. [sigh....]