A Little Bit Easier

 I've been thinking about getting a full size food processor for a while. I haven't had one since we came to Ireland. For years I didn't really feel like I needed or wanted one. I had a very small mini-chopper for a while that I used for certain things--it worked well for chopping, as you'd expect--but when I wanted to make hummus, I would have to do it in several batches. Eventually, Aldi had a mini food processor and I got that. Like the chopper, it had just the blade in it--no grating or slicing, although I could choose between chop and mix--but it was larger so I could do a bit more with it, at least until it started acting up. It worked fine when everything was all put together, but getting the blade out was quite a task. I would have my hands in the food trying to get a grip on the plastic part so I could pull it out. I was still doing things like veggie spreads and hummus in batches, since I like to make enough all at once to have for a few days, so I was fighting with the blade a few times each time I wanted to make something like that. It also isn't very powerful. At this point, I have enough uses for a full size machine to make it a worthwhile acquisition. I don't like to have stuff around that I am not using, especially since we live in a small place and I need to have a place to put it, so I don't buy things unless I think I am going to use them regularly. 

I was telling Bill that I thought I would like to get a full size food processor and get rid of the air fryer. We only bought the air fryer when we moved into an apartment with no oven. I used it sometimes in the year that we were there, but even though it's large, I still had to make some things in batches. That was fine when I had no oven, but now that I do, there's no benefit to using the air fryer. It's more convenient to use the oven and when I do, I make sure that I am cooking various things at the same time for the purposes of energy efficiency. I read an article not long ago that said that air fryers are energy efficient, but not if you have to cook in batches, in which case there's no energy savings over an oven. I haven't used the air fryer in 7 or 8 months. I use my slow cooker and my indoor grill all the time, but the air fryer was just sitting there taking up space.

Anyway, there is nowhere around here where I could get a food processor unless Aldi or Lidl was going to have them in the middle aisles at some point, so I figured I'd just wait and check their ads, since we don't go to those stores regularly anymore. But I didn't know that Bill was looking around online at various machines. This morning, the postman knocked on the door and handed me a large box and when I opened it, there was my new food processor (shown below with my mini one next to it).

It came with various handy accessories (including a spatula, which isn't in the photo).

Inside the box is the grating/slicing disk. The plastic thing with the paddles sticking out is a kneading tool and the black plastic disk next to it is used with the kneading disk and is an emulsifying tool. I love that it has the little bullet blender thing--just in time for summer smoothies!

I was planning to make a loaf of fruit bread today (a wholemeal yeast bread with raisins and dried apricots) and the postman delivered this before I started, so I figured I might as well try it out right away. Because I was making a wholemeal bread, which is more dense and substantial that white bread (which we don't really care for), I wasn't sure how things would go. It worked perfectly! I put all the dry ingredients in the bowl and pulsed it a couple of times to mix. Then I turned the dial to the high speed and slowly poured in the heated whey I was using as a liquid (it was left from when I made ricotta the other day). The manual said not to leave the machine running for longer than 60 seconds before letting it cool down and to be honest, I was skeptical about how useful that would be for making bread dough. I needn't have wondered about it. By the end of a minute, I had a beautiful ball of dough. I still turned it out on a floured surface and kneaded it a bit, but it was so much easier and faster to do than when I used a bowl and tried to mix things by hand. The dough was silkier, too--it felt different.

I popped it into the slow cooker for a few hours to bake, turning it over after a couple hours. 

It's quite yummy! I'm quite pleased so far. I think this will make my life a bit easier. We buy basic ingredients, produce, etc and that's what I use to prepare our meals, so I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. This will allow me to save time, eliminate stress on my hand and wrist, and widen my possibilities, so I am very happy to have this and I know I will use it a lot--Bill chose a good one.

The air fryer has been stashed in a box in the conservatory and the food processor now takes the space where that used to live. I will see whether or not I use the air fryer at all over the summer, since I try to avoid turning on the oven when it's hot out. If I still don't find it useful, I will sell it for a few euro on a local marketplace site. I have also stashed away the mini processor, which I will give away. I've placed the new accessories in the deep drawer where that used to be kept. 

What's your favourite kitchen tool?

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