So, I ordered a new belt plus another one to last through the research that I can now start because I am out of vampire (phlebotomy) school. Hopefully you will start smelling the aroma of new adventures in your inbox soon. I can taste the warm, honey spread bread now. MMMMmmmmmmmm.
My silence hasn’t been a snub, I promise you. Frankie took the Christmas holiday off. Which was disheartening because I was fretting that he was gone for good. The, almost like a Christmas miracle, he started to do his thing again. So, I made bread….nay, I made AWESOME bread. Yes, bragging isn’t very attractive, but I’m telling you, even my sister who shuns eating carbs loved the bread. I call that an AWESOME loaf of bread. Then, like a greedy child, I tried to get it to work overnight so I could have nice warm bread for breakfast since I’m going to school now. And then NOTHING. No action whatsoever from my Frankie. I had to settle for something less that stellar for my rush to the trolly for school. After I got home I took it apart and tried to make another loaf, thinking (hoping actually) it was because I made some sort of heavy-duty ceiling that it couldn’t knead through. Nope, all growl no bite. Long story short, the belt broke again.
Future posts will happen, I promise. But I’m not sure Frankie will be the master breadmachine for much longer. The belt is only $10, not biggie. And I will be ordering one in the very near future, but I’m starting to realize that Frankie isn’t the best teacher for my current skills. Or maybe I’m getting too big for my oven mits, I don’t know. I look at it like Frankie is a Jr. College professor who walked me through the basics so I could go onto University. Now, like an eager student, I need to find the right college that will teach me everything I want…..and like a girl I want it ALL.
So, future posts will be dedicated to eReviews on my part of the different machines out there while I still work with Frankie. I’m not dis’ing Frankie by any means, I owe my free machine a debt of gratitude. I’ve learned a lot from him, but I want to learn more. If you have any brands you know about, want to share your ideas, or if you want to point me to a direction please share.
More soon…..
Okay, I know I said in my last post that I didn’t think I could fix the drive belt because of my general lack of aptitude for mechanical processes. I’m so glad I was wrong! And it was soooo much easier than I imagined. I guess Hitachi realized the belt would be a weak link and placed it just above the plate on the bottom of the machine where any Tom, Dick or Sally can access it.
Since the machine was built in the early 1990′s it has since been End-Of-Lifed from Hitachi so parts and extra pans and paddles are going to be an issue. I did my normal Google-ing and went to my on-line owners manual there was an additional page added by the company that scanned it onto the world wide web….Breadmaker Guru….it’s the place to go if you have a bread maker and want extra stuff. They made the belt for the machine because it doesn’t match the one I took off, but it still works….and if it breaks again I’ll just order a new one. For $10 and a little elbow grease I now have bread kneading and taking in my machine ready for dinner tonight!
I’ve been thinking about a name for him since he’s come back from the dead. I am one of those people that name items that give me trouble just so I can yell at them by name. I thought about Lazarus as a name, but I didn’t so much as raise him from dead as I adjusted the mechanics, so the only other dead mechanically coming to life is Frankenstein. So, I have christened him FrankenBrot, Frankie for short. So, if I slip and refer to my machine as Frankie, you’ll of whom I speak.
I’ll get back to perfecting the apple bread to post soon.
Pamela
