Review: Oster Food Processor

Greetings, readers! I know that the 2 of you will be thrilled to hear that on Monday, Emily and I went to The Bay together and both bought food processors. And then we grinned all the way home because we were so excited, even though all of our respective mucous membranes were rioting since the lady sitting in front of us on the streetcar was wearing enough perfume to fill a bathtub.

I bought an Oster, and Emily bought... something else that I can't remember but we're going to use them and compare notes!

So far, I have used my food processor to make:

PESTO

recipe here

This stuff was effing delicious and everyone should effing make it because it will effing make your life. I seriously died when I ate it. Em and I made it for a pot luck dinner on Monday and everyone agreed it was great. GREAT! I can't believe how great food processors are. You drop stuff that's mostly just ok into them, and then it gets blended up, and then turns into the greatest thing you've ever made.

HUMMUS

Tonight I made hummus, because everyone who has a food processor has to make hummus. It's one of those things, right? I may have just made that up, but I know that as a person who now owns a food processor, I have to make hummus. Did I mention that I now own a food processor? This was my first time making hummus, although I have possessed the knowledge required to make hummus for many moons now. So an hour ago I decided to put that knowledge to the test and just put all the stuff that I think constitutes the ingredients for hummus and blended them together with MY NEW FOOD PROCESSOR.

-1 can of chickpeas, plus some leftover chickpeas (about half a can) I found in the fridge
-3 large glopping tablespoons of tahini which had grown extremely viscous in the fridge*
-Juice from 1.5 lemons
-a couple of cloves of garlic
-Salt, cayenne pepper and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
-1 teaspoon cumin
-Olive oil and water (to thin it out, till it looks right; more oil = more rich tasting)

It was the greatest. I did discover while engaging in hummus creation that the blade of the food processor doesn't lock into the motor axle, so that it can move through the food and chop it evenly. This sounds like a good thing, but it also means that if you don't watch it, sometimes the blade will fling off of the motor axle and get wedged between the axle and the side of the container. I don't know if this is a normal feature of food processors, so hopefully Emily will take that up in her review.

To sum up, things that are great = food processors, pesto, hummus. Tomorrow, we will try baba ghanoush, which I believe Emily has already attempted. Also in the works: apple sauce and pear sauce. Whoop!

*Big ups to my new fridge, which is also the greatest. I clearly can't decide what I think is the greatest, so I'll just say that food processors, pesto, hummus, and my new fridge are all contenders for the title. The fridge is the most energy efficient one I could find, and has a brushed metal finish that doesn't let fingerprints stick. Although for some reason Cosette has managed to leave some pawprints on the side from one of her failed attempts to jump on top of it.

More dehydrator love

This weekend I made an abundant abundance of delicious food. Two and a half batches of butternut squash soup (Dom's delicious recipe), chocolate flax crackers and raw veggie burgers. I took some photos of the veggie burgers but they are on my camera at home and I am currently wasting time at work. I will add them later.

Chocolate Flax Crackers:
I used the left overs from a full flax cracker batch with which I was experimenting was various flavours. The ones with garlic, tomato and red pepper were my favourite. The chocolate ones turned out tasty too though.
To make the basic flax cracker recipe:
http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/flaxcrackers.html

I don't use braggs though... I've substituted the soaking water from soaking the dehydrated tomatoes and peppers, or made other seasoning like liquids. Basically once you soak the flax seeds you can do anything that makes sense.

For the choclate ones I used about 3 tablespoons of honey and 1/3 cup cocoa powder for about 1/3 of the 4 cups of soaked flax seeds. Put honey in a saucepan and don't cook it, just kind of heat it gently until it melts a little and you can stir in the cocoa powder. I also added about a 1/2 tsp of allspice and 1/2 tsp of cayenne. Mix it up good then mix it in to the flax mixture quickly because it hardens fast. I didn't add anything else, though you could possibly add some fruit juice or something.
Dehydrate. Eat. Be regular.

Raw veggie patties
Frick these are super tasty.
Also they would be easier if you had a food processor, but I don't. If you had one you could just throw all the ingredients in together with an S-blade and blend a bit. For you other poor, food-processorless students out there, here is how I made 'em.

1/2 cup each sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. Soak for 6 hours.

Grate:
1 small butternut squash
1 red pepper
1 large carrot
1 medium beet

Finely chop about 1/2 medium sized red onion, or you could use green onion, whatever you like.
Garlic to taste (I crushed one giant clove of fancy "music" garlic... it was a lot)
Finely chopped cilantro

Mix all the above ingredients together in a big bowl. Then take soaked seeds and drain. Blend (I used a hand blender) with a little bit of the vegetable mixture and some lemon juice and a bit of temari (which isn't exactly raw but I don't like braggs and don't think braggs is raw either). Add this to the bowl of veggies and mix together with your hands. Form into patties about 1/2 inch thick and place on to sheets on dehydrator. They don't stay together that well when they are wet but they were nice and sturdy by the time they were done. Dehydrate about 6-7 hours on the vegetable setting then flip and dehydrate another 6-7 hours. Should still be chewy in the middle but a bit crispy on the outside.

I could probably eat the whole batch in less then a day. Nom nom nom.

Photos soon!

Dr. Freeze

No pictures yet, but I am on a freezing binge.

Curry butternut squash soup, check.
Veggie chili, check. And made with home canned tomatoes!

Next up: root vegetable soup!

In unrelated news, my winter bike is on its way to being awesome. Woo!

I love life. I also love Lemily, who is gifting me a dehydrator.

P.S. No one has died from our home canned tomatoes yet. Success!

Dehydration for self preservation

First foodblog entry! I have been delaying forever because there seems to be too much to talk about but I figured eventually I just have to pick something and write about it.

Boy howdy have we kept our two dehydrators busy for the last couple weeks. The poor beasts have been running near constantly, laden with all sorts of delicious foods. It started with blueberries shortly after the organic blueberry lady appeared in the Kitchener farmers market with her 4L baskets. 4L of blueberries = one ziploc freezer bag of dehydrated berries. We ended up making a run to the St. Jacobs market which is much more bulk-buy friendly. Observe our piles o' food!
I am a fan of the dehydrating 'cause you aren't adding a heap of salt/sugar/vinegar or requiring your veggies to be cooked so they lose their enzyme-y goodness. I do also enjoy canning and pickle making though.
Here is what the dehydrators have begot so far:
Blueberries : sometimes the insides dehydrate and shrink and the skin stays like an intact dry little puffy carcass. Neat!
Tomatoes : So sweet and delicious. A little dry and crunchy but I'll take that over something moist and preservative laden. Dried maybe 3/4 of a bushel for ourselves and another half for Dom.
Sweet red peppers
Peaches : Really delicious but we lost a whole bunch to bruising and general rot-ification. Make sure you spread 'em out right away if you buy a whole bunch at once and don't leave them all stacked in the bag.
Pears : Free complimentary of a local tree and despite the lack of pruning of the tree, super flavourful and delicious.
Apples : From John's apple farm.
Flax Crackers : these turned out really well. I used my home-made braggs substitute and added dried blueberries, some pumpkin seeds I chopped up and soaked a bit and some cayenne. The flax seeds get all gelatinous when you soak them which I found kinda pretty neat.
Chickpea Bread : Tasty but would have been better if I had a food processor. It was difficult to blend the different sprouts in the blender becuase the mixture was too dry. We made some with red pepper in it and some with garlic and basil.
Pineapple : David bought a 3 pineapples for $2 from the dude who sells fruit from the food terminal up in TO. He gets what is pretty much on the edge for really cheap and sells it for really cheap. After the fuzzy bit was cut off the bottom David dehydrated these bad boys up and I am pretty happy to eat dried pineapple until my mouth starts bleeding from the delicious acid.
Beets : OK, these were a little weird. Not bad tasting but still a little weird and chewy.
Zucchini : I think we were a little surprised at how tasty dehydrated zucchini is. Then we ate all of the first batch really fast. Don't need seasonin' or nuthin'. Taro Root : I love those taro root chips and thought I would attempt a healthier version on the dehydrator. They dried really fast and they taste pretty good but have a strange, powdery like texture and instantly suck all the moisture from your mouth and throat. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of that effect... maybe toss them with a bit of oil or something.