Food Processor ?

[larussel03]

I was so excited to register for and receive our food processor, but now I''m at a loss as to what to make with it?

What are YOUR favorite things to use your food processor for??

 

[surfgirl]

HA! I''m in the same boat! I was totally thrilled to get a Cuisinart and now I look at the box and I''m thinking "do I really wanna open that huge thing and where will it live when I''m not using it, which will be most of the time, and WHY did I want this thing again? I cant remember!

 

[Skippy123]

I have a food processor and a Kitchen aide mixer. I use the mixer more and I use a the Progressive International Onion Chopper for all chopping. I rather not pull out the food processor and clean all those parts but that is just me. ETA: We use it to make salsa, shred chunks of cheese and pesto sauce but I can't think of anything else.

 

[AsscherGirl]

Did you get the one with all the different attachments? slicing disk, cheese grater, etc?

I use mine for pesto, soups (good for puree), I have a really awesome recipe with chicken that eventually gets shredded in the food processor, salsa, guacamole, etc. Oh, and sauces are really good too....I made a really cool red pepper sauce in there!

My best friend loves to make dough in the food processor and cole slaw! It''s super easy with the slicing disk.

I also can''t wait to make carrot cake with mine....the last time I made carrot cake I spent 2 hours shredding the carrots with this terrible hand cheese shredder. With the food processor it will take me one minute!

I tend to make up recipes in my mind, but when I do look in cookbooks or at recipies online, you''d be surprised how many use a food processor.

All of the parts are dishwasher safe, so I don''t worry about the clean up. Easy shmeezy!

 

[Blenheim]

If I have a ton of vegetables to slice/chop (enough that I''m willing to do the extra cleanup I need to do when I use the food processor), I often use it.

Before we got our Kitchenaid mixer, we used it quite a bit to make bread/pizza dough. The main reason that I don''t do this anymore is because our food processor is only large enough for one loaf at a time, and I usually like to bake 2. If our food processor were larger, I''d probably still be using it for dough. I did use it a couple of nights ago to make pie dough. I hadn''t done it that way before, but it was actually really easy. (If you like, I can give you the recipe. And maybe even a slice of apple pie.

)

That''s the main stuff, but I know that there''s more...

 

[eks6426]

I love to use my food processor to slice meat for stir-fry. It does a fabulous job of making chicken or round steak into super thin slivers. The trick is to have the meat almost frozen. It''s my quick dinner trick. First I use the food processor to slice up all the veggies for the stir-fry. I dump those in a bowl. Then I do an onion and dump that into the frying pan with a bit of oil. Then I slice the meat and dump it in with the onions. I transfer the meat to another bowl then stir fry the veggies, then add the meat back in with a quick sauce I make with soy sauce, corn starch & spices. The food processor does a lot of chopping in just a couple minutes.

I also use my metal blade (not the slicer or the shredder) to chop up vegetables really fine...almost to a puree. Then I add the veggies to all sorts of things such as hamburgers, meatloaf, pasta sauce, any soups etc. I usually saute the veggies a bit after they go through the cuisinart but you don''t have to. This is how I add a lot of nutrition to my family''s food. They have no idea that those nice moist hamburgers are about 33% veggies!

I also will puree the veggies that are nearing their end of life because I didn''t use them up fast enough and then freeze them in icecube trays over night. Then take the little blocks of veggies out of the trays and put them in a ziploc. Those are super nice to have for soups.

I agree that the food processor is kind of pain to clean but I definitely would miss mine if it were gone!

 

[Elmorton]

APPLESAUCE! I managed to use our rice cooker and the cuisinart in the same night - it was registry madness, haha! Seriously though, - I cut up 9 smallish apples, added 1/2 a stick of butter, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, some cinnamon, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup cider and let it cook in the rice cooker (could have easily been done in a small crockpot or on the stove, but for some reason I remembered that there were instructions for applesauce with the rice cooker). When it cooled, threw it in the food processor. AMAZING. DH thinks I''m a culinary genius - watch out Casey and Hung!

The reason I registered for it though was to make salsa - I love making my own, but chopping everything is a major pain. Haven''t done it yet though, oops.

 

[larussel03]

I''m so excited - I was craving burritos, then was thinking, hey I have all the stuff to make them (except for the guacamole, which I went out and bought - I know I could make it myself, but I''m taking baby steps haha).

So I cooked some chicken, cut it up and threw it in the food processor to make it into tiny pieces for the burrito, then did the same with a couple tomatos.

Then I''m going to take a couple flour tortillas, put cheese, sour cream, guac, and black beans down and then spoon on the chicken and tomatoes!!! I''m excited -- I think I''ll add rice too, maybe ...

YAY!

 

[Aloros]

Ooh! A food processor is great for grinding up the filling for potstickers.

Good luck with your burritos!