A bread machine!

Sometime last year, my otherwise very dependable Kitchen Aid mixer decided to stop being able to knead dough. And I have to admit, that's what I used it most for because, well, I hate kneading bread dough. It's messy, it's sticky, it takes a long time, and since none of my counters are low enough, it makes my shoulders hurt. So I loved that my mixer could do it for me, but I was very sad when it decided that it didn't like kneading dough either.

So I researched bread machines and put a Zojirushi one on my Amazon wishlist in hopes that some kind person would take pity on me and but it for me for my birthday or something. Well, my mom and my stepfather did! Yay!

I finally got some more bread flour and used it to make dough last night. (We have plenty of bread at the moment, so I didn't want to use it for baking.) I made pizza dough, since that's one of the things I've really missed from not having a mechanical slave to do my kneading for me.

I used the basic pizza dough recipe that came with the machine, but added garlic and onion powder and a dried Italian herb blend. The little brown pool in the middle is yeast.

There was plenty of dough - it easily would have made three or four pizzas. But I was feeling pretty lazy, so I just made two thick-crust pizzas. Jeff's (on the left) had pepperoni, onion, and asiago, mozzarella, and Gorgonzola cheeses. Mine had faux pepperoni, onion, tomato, green pepper, and asiago and mozzarella cheeses.

They were very, very good! The crust was very thick, and nice and fluffy. And with the herb additions, very tasty in and of itself.

So thanks, Mom and Lloyd! I think I'm going to go have some leftover pizza for breakfast. :)

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