Mike asked about KitchenAid attachments for his new stand mixer. I
have many of them and here's my review.
Grain Mill:
I used this for years on a 5 quart mixer and it worked pretty well -
flour was considerably coarser than that produced by a WhisperMill or
an Ultra Mill but it worked fine in my Panasonic bread machine. I
have tried it with my newer KitchenAid (wide bowl) and although it
"should" have worked just fine, the mill wobbled precariously
although I am pretty sure I had it hooked in there properly. At
$149, it's a pricey gadget as you can get an Ultra Mill for that price too.
One big advantage of the KitchenAid Mill is that you can coarse grind
or even crack grains. Can't do that with the Ultra or Whisper Mill,
or if you can, I've not figured out how. It does make a lovely
coarse cornmeal.
IMO, there are 2 downsides to the KitchenAid mill: First is that you
can grind only 8-10 cups at a time and then you have to let the
machine rest for 45 minutes. I got around that problem by
pre-grinding my flour and storing it in the freezer.
Secondly, it is quite noisy and if there is a breeze, messy. It also
causes quite a strain on your mixer (or seems to).
The pasta makers:
I've no experience with the pasta roller but I have had the pasta
tube with plates - I used it several times and tried my darndest to
get pasta that didn't stick together horribly. Never did get a
successful product. EVER. Donated that sucker to the thrift store.
Food chopper/Food Mill/ Sausage Stuffer:
We have this 3-pack of accessories and pretty much use just the food
mill. The chopper/slicer does work but I had some trouble with food
flying everywhere and as I have a food processor, that seemed to do
the trick better. The food mill we LOVE. We use it every
summer/fall to make over 200 jars of tomato juice/sauce/puree and it
works a top. I have never used the hand-cranked food mills but can't
compare them to the KitchenAid. All you have to do with this mill is
cut your food to the proper size for the (small) feed tube, and push
it in. The machine does the rest. It does tend to spatter some and
makes a bit of a mess but I imagine all food mills do that. We have
used the meat grinder successfully but not often. And I must have
misspoke - we don't have the sausage stuffer.
NOTE: I see one listed on Ebay (today is Aug 16) for $98 shipped
from a hardware store in central Illinois. It is the "new" style
grain mill from KitchenAid which supposedly grinds finer. Might be a
good compromise. This is the first I have heard of a new style grain
mill but then I've not been in the market for one for years so
haven't kept up to date.
Hope this helps - happy shopping.
Bev C