Monday Q&A | Winners, Mixers, Leftovers, and White Wheat

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

First, a reader recently asked how I choose the winners for the giveaways that I do over on my review page (and I’m sorry, but I can’t remember who asked!). I always choose winners using random.org so that the choosing is completely impartial. You’ve got as good a chance of winning if you’re the first commenter as you do if you’re the last or anywhere in between.

Speaking of which, today is the last day to enter in the current $50 Visa gift card giveaway from Kellogg’s. My last few winners have all been in the last 50-100 comments, so do go enter. You might be $50 richer for it! 🙂

I’ve had a look at some KA mixers, but there seems to be many different models. Which one would you recommend?

Is it at all possible to get a machine that does the work of a stand mixer as well as a food processor?

-Franci

I own the Kitchen-Aid Artisan mixer (I have the black one) but I originally had the KitchenAid Classic (I burned up the motor in that one by leaving it unattended. The screw-on piece that covers the front (where you attach attachments!) fell off and got stuck while I wasn’t paying attention.).

The Artisan mixer has a slightly bigger bowl than the basic Kitchen-Aid does, and I’m glad that I chose the upgrade.

There is a larger Kitchen-Aid mixer available, but I find the large size to be frustrating when I want to do a small task (the bowl is so big that beating a single egg white is impossible). So, the Artisan is a good middle option for me.

The Kitchen-Aid does have some attachments for meat grinding, grating and such, but I’ve always felt that the food processor is really simpler to use for that kind of task. The attachments are kind of expensive too, so unless your main consideration is space, I’d recommend purchasing a food processor separately.

How do you work leftovers into your menu plan? I struggle to know how much of something will be left and some weeks we have too many leftovers and end up with waste…and other times I plan on leftovers and then we have none and end up scrambling for a meal. I guess I have a hard time planning portion sizes in general. It’s just me, my husband, two preschool girls and a baby. And appetites tend to fluctuate so much…I never know if we’ll have too much or not enough. Do you have any tips for me?

-Gina

We rarely eat leftovers for dinner but we do deal with them in several other ways.

My husband eats them for lunch. Unless we eat everything I made for dinner, my husband eats leftovers every day in his lunch. This is hugely helpful to me!

I eat leftovers for lunch when necessary. My husband prefers leftovers over a sandwich, but I’m not like that. However, when we have more leftovers than I can send with my husband, I eat them at lunchtime. If the leftovers are something my kids really like, they help me eat them at lunch as well.

I use the leftovers to make something else. This only works when the meal is a fairly simple one (you can’t exactly remake a casserole!). If I’ve got leftover grilled chicken, some leftover pasta, and some random veggies, I sometimes combine them and make a salad (same goes for leftover taco or fajita fixings). Leftover grilled sausage makes a nice addition to scrambled eggs, and sometimes leftovers can make a pretty good soup.

I freeze leftovers. If I’ve got enough leftovers to make an entire meal, I sometimes freeze them to use later.

Predicting the amount of food you’ll need at a meal is a fine art, and I don’t know that anyone has it down pat. Since my family generally prefers leftover side dishes (salads, breads) to leftover main dishes, I usually plan on a fairly minimal number of main dish servings and figure that people who are still hungry can always eat more side dishes.

For example, if I’m making panini sandwiches, I make one for each of us (small ones for Sonia and Zoe) and make plenty of corn and fruit salad. I can repurpose corn and fruit salad much more easily than I can paninis, I’d rather make more of those and fewer paninis.

I know that won’t work for every family, though, so hopefully my readers will have some good ideas to add to mine.

I was wondering what kind of wheat you use when you grind your own? Soft white, hard white, hard red, etc.?

I just purchased my first bag of bulk wheat, and it is an organic hard white wheat…just wondering if this should be treated as wheat for wheat breads only or if it can be used as regular unbleached flour?

-Jill

I usually buy a bag of hard red wheat and a bag of hard white wheat. The white wheat is still whole wheat…it’s just a lighter variety. The flour made from white wheat will not behave quite like unbleached flour (that’s had the brand and germ removed). However, it does generally produce a lighter product than hard red wheat flour, which means that it’s a less noticeable substitute for white flour.

I wouldn’t use it to bake a cake, but you can definitely try it in muffins, quick breads, and yeast breads. If you’re adding it to a recipe that normally calls for white refined flour, I’d use a 50/50 combo of white refined flour and white wheat flour and then go from there based on the results.

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Readers, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on mixers, leftovers, and white wheat. Comment away!

Today’s 365 post: “Can I have da state puzzle down, please?”

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