Stand Mixers are gift from heaven. You don't know how useful it is until you start making fondant cakes, and boiled icings. These babies are practically saving your arm :P

Yes, your stand mixer will not do everything for you, you still have to work but it's not as hard as if you don't have one with you.

With fondant, the mixing stage all happens in the mixer. The initial kneading stage also happened in there. Once it's no longer sticking on the side of the bowl, that's when I do manual kneading. It's the only way to know when your fondant is ready.

With boiled icing, the part where I'm supposed to slowly pour the boiled sugar on the sides of the mixing bowl while beating is definitely the part my KitchenAid handles very well. I remember doing this stage when I didn't have my stand mixer, both I and my reliable nanny almost burned our arms and fingers and I had sore arms for few days too. There is a stage in this icing process where you have to continue beating the icing in a bowl until it goes down to room temperature. Believe me... it doesn't cool down to room temperature even after half an hour with ice on the sides!

There are so many more complicated tasks that stand mixers make simple, all I say is, you'll never know when you'll really wish you have one with you.

For silly mixing, like basic cakes, pancakes, cupcakes, I normally use my handheld beater. My stand mixer is reserved for big time jobs.

Today I realized the importance of having a rice cooker... aside from a normal function of cooking rice, you can use it as a life saver when your cooking gas run out!

Yup! That's exactly what I did today. We ended up with a fantastic dinner.

I cooked a based Penne with Broccoli, a recipe I recently discovered. Easy, tasty, versatile, perfect, especially for stressful times like losing every inch of cooking gas on a Friday when everything is closed! (I live in Dubai, Fridays and Saturdays are weekdays, Friday in particular is a holy day). 

I cooked a whole pack of the pasta in the cooker, when al dente, I drained pasta in a bowl. Keep some pasta water in case your pasta gets too dry.

On the same cooker, I cooked the sauce then poured it in a the bowl, tossed and voila, a little sprinkle of parmesan and a bit more tossing and we had a great dinner.

Rice cooker, you'll never be disregarded ever again!