A Neeeeeeeeeew Mixer!

I haven't felt much like writing about anything, on account of the horrors I am watching in Japan.  But this conversation sort of snapped me out of it.  Keep in mind that he is nine, and she is six.

Daughter: How long would it take for an ant to walk around the perimeter of the whole earth?

Son: I don’t know.

Daughter: How long?!

Son: First, to answer that question I would have to know what the perimeter of the earth is.  Second, an ant would spend it’s entire life just walking across one country – one state.

Daughter: Just TELL ME!

Son: I can’t.

Daughter: You asshole.

So it seems that now is as good a time as any to tell you about the new mixer I was sent by those good people at CSN Stores.  I had pretty much destroyed my old mixer making gingerbread houses last Christmas.  It was a Black and Decker that I had picked up at Rite Aid after destroying the previous mixer making gingerbread houses the prior Christmas.  The new mixer is a Cuisinart and she is a beaut! 

This is the Power Advantage Five Speed Mixer - POW!!!  This baby would normally run you seventy five smackers, but CSN Stores has it available for $39.85.  Pa-POW!

I had a surplus of strawberries, owing to the fact that the local market had a two for one special and I bought two packs (are they called packs?) and my husband had gone in later that day and also bought two packs.  So, you see I had four packs of strawberries.  I made a little strawberry tart.

The Cuisinart Power Advantage comes with a booklet telling you what each speed is used for.  Here I whip together one cup marscapone with 1/3 cup heavy cream and 1/4 cup sugar, on speed numero three.

Ooh la la!  I love this mixer.  LOVE IT.  It runs so smooth, with no hand-numbing rattling, even on the higher speeds.  And trust me, I tried ALL the speeds.

The crust was made by grinding up some almonds, pecans, cinnamon, sugar, butter and flour in the food processor.  Honestly, I wrote down the amounts of each that I used, but I think my husband threw out the paper it was written on.  He's very tidy.  Too tidy, clearly.  While I baked the crust at 375 for about twelve minutes, I plopped about two tablespoons of strawberry jam into a sauce pot with a good glug of brandy, melted it down and poured over the berries.  When the crust was browned and cool, I spooned in the marscapone cream, topped with berries and stuck in the fridge for a while to chill.  This step proved essential, because my renegade crust, made on the fly, was crumbly and would never have allowed for clean slices without ample time to chill.  You can see from the above picture that I could not locate my tart pan and so used my pie dish instead.  The poor quality of the photos can be blamed on the fact that they were taken on my phone because my children used all the memory and battery on my camera taking videos of our hamster.