Mid-Michigan Dining

I know.  Christmas is still 21 days away, but J and I traded presents early this year.  Mainly because we picked our own presents out.  It wasn’t planned that way, but a Black Friday ad was just too good to pass up.

I have never, repeat never, gotten up for Black Friday shopping if I wasn’t working.  When I was a news photographer, there were a couple years I had to be at Target at 6 AM for the madness and I just couldn’t figure out why people would do that.  This year, Kohls had a deal that was too good to pass up. 

The best Christmas present ever...this year! My new Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

The object in question, a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for $170….but that’s not all.  There was a $20 mail in rebate and you got $30 in “Kohls Cash” if you used your Kohls credit card, so after all that, the price came to $120 which is almost $200 off the MSRP.  How could I not get up? 

We were at my parents house for Thanksgiving and my mom was planning on getting up to the stores around 6:00, but that’s two hours after Kohls opened.  There’s no way this deal would still be there two hours later.  J and I debated it for a few minutes then just decided we would get there when Kohls opened at 4:00 AM.  The nearest shopping center to my parents house is a half hour away, so we got our butts out of bed at 3:15.  We pulled into the lot at 3:55 and by the time we walked to the store, the doors were opened.  It still took us five minutes to get in, but most people ran to the toy department.  They had 8 of the stand mixers I was going for and there was one other person grabbing one when we got there.  I grabbed my mixer and put it on my mom’s Kohls charge since neither J or I had one and I got my first Kitchen Aid stand mixer for $120.

The model I ended up purchasing is the K4SS which, from the research I’ve done, is a model that is exclusive to Kohls and Walmart.  It’s a 4.5 qt bowl lift model and it only came with the burnished flat beater, so I still had to buy the dough hook (which will be used very often) and the wire whisk (more flour less chocolate ancho cakes for J!).  We bought the mixer on Friday, but didn’t get back to Lansing until Sunday.  As soon as we got home, I made sugar cookies which is a Christmas tradition in our house and something I had planned on doing anyway.  The mixer just made it easier.

The raw ingredients to my Oreo Cheesecake

In less than a week, I’ve made two batches of the sugar cookies.  Today, we ran to Kroger to pick up more baking supplies since there was a pretty good sale on chocolate chips.  While there, we also noticed a sale on Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  For Thanksgiving, I made an Oreo Cheesecake.  Since cream cheese was on sale, we picked some up then headed for the rest of the ingredients to make the cheesecake.

I was going to wait, but J talked me into making it today.  Another excuse to use my new mixer.  When I made the cheesecake for Thanksgiving, it took about 45 minutes to put everything together.  Today, I had it in the oven in less than twenty. 

My new Kitchen Aid stand mixer working the cheesecake batter.The batter of my Oreo cheesecake right before it goes into the over.

The batter of my Oreo Cheesecake before it goes into the oven...it's not the prettiest thing you'll ever see, but it's good!

(I know what you’re all wondering, how could I top this.  On the way home from Chicago, we stopped at the Michigan City Outlet Mall and I bought her a new purse from the Coach Outlet.  You should see how good it looks with the new coat she got at Carson’s (Younkers for you guys only familiar with that branch) on Black Friday.  $170 coat she got for $70…and it looks just like the yellow one Kate Gosselin from Jon & Kate Plus 8 wears in that promo running on TLC right now that everyone loves.)