Recently I checked out the Revive-Reuse shop at the recycling centre and spotted the automatic breadmaker pictured below:



It's a bit bigger and heavier than the loads I normally carry home, but when the staff member told me the price was $5, that was sufficient motivation to give it a try.  She also told me that the OK sticker they slapped on it meant only that they had tested it as far as they could, which in the case of a bread machine means that "the paddle went around when the guys plugged it in".  So I decided to take a gamble on it ($5 is the price of a Lucky Dip Lotto ticket**) and lugged it home.  I discovered later it weighs 7.1kg.
My mother is somewhat of a bread machine expert and when I told her I'd bought a Panasonic SD 250, she said it was a very good model.  She added that I could download the original manual in PDF format from the panasonic.co.nz website.  Today I tested it by making a 100% whole wheat loaf.  To my relief, it worked great!  I've made bread by hand in the past ... they never looked this good.  Can't wait to cut into it tomorrow for breakfast, lol.



While this loaf was baking I looked at the expired listings on Trade Me for Panasonic bread machines and found one earlier this year for the same model, which sold for $222.00!  I'm glad there are people in  my district who--for whatever reason--would rather off-load their stuff at the recycling centre than put it up for sale on Trade Me. :-)

** Edited to add: My Lotto FREAK of a daughter informs me that Lucky Dip tickets have been $6 since August 2004 and I should know this already, being so closely related to someone who lives and breathes Lotto.

Now this is what I call an experiment! Hypothesis: Noodles made at home by Jo will end up a gluggy, inedible mess after an hour and a half's labour and she'll end up dining late on toast and Marmite instead. Oh well, failed cooking experiments can always go in the worm bin or compost, and if it works out (like the tortillas), I'll have another tool in my toolbox.

I found it harder than making my own tortillas. The dough for these noodles was 1 cup of plain white flour, 1 egg, 1/4 cup of milk, and a pinch of salt.   However, it took up a lot more flour during the kneading and rolling. I found the homemade noodles recipe on a site called Russian Food for Kiwis.  It's hard to say how long the process took, since I sensibly started making the dough during the ad breaks of a Monk episode (the one where he gets amnesia in a small town and the opportunistic local crazy cat lady tells him he's her husband and a world-famous roofer, and could he get up the ladder and fix her their roof?).

Next time, I would use a parsley cutter (like a 10-bladed pizza cutter) to cut all the strips to an even width. I was eyeing up one in the St Vincent de Paul shop the last time I was there and I thought it would be good for noodles, but decided to try just using a knife first.  Well, this time I used a paring knife and they turned out a bit wobbly.  I'd also like to try half white/half stoneground wholemeal flour if I do it again.   I cleaned one end of the clothes airer, and hung the noodles there to dry, with a clean tablecloth covering the floor underneath in case they break and start dropping off.



So far, so good, but I haven't cooked them yet, so a gluggy, inedible mess is still a possible outcome.  I'm planning to eat them with canned sauce and stir-fry mix vegetables.



Wow, you can see the steam rising, lol. I cooked about half of the noodles in boiling salted water for about 4 mins. They tasted just fine and so ended up in my stomach instead of the worm bin. Hypothesis disproved.  Oh, and DD sat there watching me eat and drooling.  I had to keep her at bay by offering her the odd green bean as a sop. ;-)

I'll have the rest of the noodles for lunch tomorrow, maybe with a parsley "pesto".