Equipment: Food Processor

The food processor was invented back in the 70's and has become a household staple today.  Many people love their convenience for getting through the tasks of chopping, slicing and shredding food items.  It saves a lot of work for the person doing all that prepping in the kitchen.  The newest ones today can do about anything for you except wipe your,well, nose.

You as a new or inexperienced cook need to determine if a food processor is something you need and/or want.  The problem for you is that they are not cheap.  The food processor can be found from around $100 on up to $800. Now these are for a 9 to 14 cup size processor.  You can find some for under $100 but most are smaller capacity processors.  My favorite shopping locations Kohl's, Food Network and QVC have a wide variety of models and prices.  Check them out and determine which model fits your needs and price range.

You might try talking mom & dad into getting their food processor while they get a new one.  It might be worth the try.

My OLD Food Processor

A food processor usually comes with two blades.  One is for slicing and shredding foods.  It works great for shredding/grating cheese, slicing vegetables and shredding cabbage for Cole Slaw, for example.  The second blade is for chopping, grinding, mixing and mincing.  It will let you make pizza dough quickly or mince fresh herbs.  It will even make emulsions for dressings and marinades if you want.

They offer easy clean up and you can put the parts in a dishwasher or wash by hand.  The base with its electric motor can be easily wiped off but can not be submerged in water.  Depending on how much you use it and the space restrictions of your kitchen, you can leave it on the counter.  If not, find a storage location that is quick and easy to access.

I guess that I'm just old school, but I don't use my food processor all that much.  There is not enough space to leave it out on the counter and so, "out of sight out of mind."  Most of my training in the kitchen came before the food processor was a staple in even the commercial kitchens I was involved in.  Old habits are hard to break.  When I do use my food processor, I really do enjoy it.

Remember as you decide if it something you must have that there are other pieces of kitchen equipment that might be need more.  Make a good decision and enjoy the food processor if you get one.

Tomorrow we will talk about mixers, both counter top and hand ones.

This week's Update

We had a little scare this past week.  I had mailed back the "final proof" on Tuesday, the 29th of June.  My wife and I went out of town for about a week working on things for the blog and the cookbook.  When we returned home, I noticed that I had not received any confirmation from my publisher that they had received the "Final proof."

I e-mailed my layout editor and asked how things were going on the edits.  He responded with the fact that he hadn't seen the "final proof" yet.  I told him that the post office had a signature from the publisher with Wednesday, the 30th of June.

He inquired and found the "final Proof" and confirmed back to me.  I was then able to breathe again.

The errors that I found are being addressed and the cookbook should be heading to printing in the next week or two.

The marketing team has not contacted me yet because of the missing cookbook.  However, I should be hearing from them sometime this week.

I think the publisher was just checking to see if my heart was working.  I don't need any more scares.

This week I will talk about some kitchen equipment that could make life a little easier for you.  Tomorrow will be on food processors and the next day on mixers (both stand and hand).  Friday's recipe is in keeping with the season.  It calls for fresh sweet corn and has a little kick too.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce (Marinara & Vodka)

Recipe

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

(Marinara & Vodka)

(14 – ½ cup servings)

Ingredients:

2 tsp. Olive Oil (EVOO)

2 large cloves Garlic, minced or pressed

1 medium Yellow Onion, small diced

2 28 oz. cans Crushed Tomatoes

1 6 oz. can Tomato Paste

2 Bay Leaves

¼ cup Dry Parsley

1 tbsp. Dry Oregano

1 tbsp. Dry Basil

½ tsp. Crushed Rosemary

2 tbsp. Brown Sugar

2 tsp. Chili Powder

1 tsp. Salt

½ tsp. Black Pepper

¾ cup Red Wine (1 small bottle from a 4-pack)

Directions:

Add olive oil to a 3 to 5 quart sauce pan over medium heat.  When oil is ready, add the onion and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes.  Now add the garlic and continue another 2 minutes.  The ingredients from crushed tomatoes through black pepper can be mixed in and stirred until well combined.  Heat the mixture until it comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and continue for 15 minutes.  Stir in the wine, turn heat to simmer and cook an additional 45 minutes.  Remember to stir the mixture from time to time.  Taste and adjust seasoning if needed and serve over cooked warm pasta.  If it is too thick for you, thin with a little tomato juice, water or some more red wine.  Just remember to taste and adjust flavor if needed.

Note:   If you use fresh herbs (parsley, oregano, basil and rosemary) be sure to double the amount.

Note:   If you don’t like using wine in your cooking, it can be replaced with water or tomato juice.  You may need to adjust some seasonings because of this change.

Note:   You can make this recipe in a slow cooker.  Just mix all the ingredients together in the slow cooker and heat on low for 7 to 9 hours.

Note:   This recipe can be doubled or halved.  It also freezes well for future

               use.

Note:   Just add ground beef or Italian sausage if you want to make this
               marinara into a meat sauce.

Note:   I use this recipe as the base for my “Vodka Sauce.”  To the base recipe I add ½ cup of vodka, 1 cup heavy cream and ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese.  I continue heating the sauce for another 30 minutes.  Taste and adjust seasonings before serving.  You will get about 16 – ½ cup portions from this recipe.  If it is too thick for you, thin with a little tomato juice, water or some more red wine.  Just remember to taste and adjust flavor if needed.

Ideas for Future Efforts

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Freezers and Freezing Food

Growing food is interesting, a learning moment, fun and challenging all at the same time.  Something you have to take into consideration when planting a garden or buying from a farmer's market is consumption.  If you grow or buy more than you can consume, it is most likely going to go to waste.

This means that you must plan to be able to handle any excess foods.  There are two methods that come to mind very quickly.  You can freeze the food or use the process of "canning" the food.  We will talk about freezing today.  The "canning" process will be addressed in a future week of the blog.

I will mention right now that you need a freezer to put the food in for freezing food.  You have a freezer that is part of your refrigerator.  The question becomes whether this freezer is big enough to hold the extra frozen food.  If not, you may need to buy a separate freezer.  You can get a chest or upright freezer.  It just depends on which will work best for your situation.  Chest freezers tend to be a little less expensive but at times harder to get at what you want quickly.  Space is always a consideration in the purchase too.  The nice thing about freezers is that they usually last a very long time.  I've had my upright freezer since 1975 and it works as good as new.  It doesn't look as good as new but function trumps looks in a freezer.

Now, if you have a garden or are buying from a farmer's market, what do you need to do to the foods you want to freeze?  Some items such as peas and green beans need to be washed and picked over to get rid of any bad ones.  The beans need to have their ends cut off, at minimum the end attached to the plant.  They then need to be blanched before going in a good freezer container.  To blanch them, heat water to boiling and drop the product into the boiling water for one to two minutes.  Remove from the water and place into a ice water bath to stop the cooking process.  This blanching helps bring out the bright color of the peas or beans.  You can place into zip-lock freezer bags or plastic containers with lids.  If using freezer bags, they can be flattened out so that you can stack them in the freezer.  This helps save space.

I freeze my peppers-whole, all kinds.  I just wash and let them dry.  Then I place them on a sheet pan, make sure they are not touching each other, and put it in the freezer.  After two or three hours I take the peppers and place them in zip-lock freezer bags.  This process is called IQF (individually quick frozen) and then when you need a pepper or two for some recipe, just reach in the bag and pull one or two out.

I freeze some of my tomatoes, but can most.  The ones I freeze I put in zip-lock freezer bags.  First I wash and core the tomatoes.  Depending on the size, I will then quarter or halve the tomatoes and put them in a zip-lock freeze bag.  Again, I lay them out in the freeze so they can be stacked to save space.  When I pull them out to use, I'll put them in a bowl or dish to thaw in the refrigerator.  I haven't skinned them yet but once they thaw the skins come off fairly easy.

I haven't invested in one of those systems that suck all the air out and prolong the life of the food.  It might be something you want to look into for your situation.  If you do, remember that my favorite shopping places Kohl's, Food Network and QVC have these and storage containers too.

Tomorrow's recipe is for homemade spaghetti sauce (both marinara and vodka).  This I freeze in freezer containers for future meals.  Have a good weekend and please let me know if there is anything you would like me to cover in a future blog.

Garden Produce Coming

We're about halfway through the summer and around here, fresh sweet corn usually hits the farmer's market around the 4th of July.  If you like fresh sweet corn, try to find some that has both yellow and white kernels.  There are several names or brands for this type of sweet corn, but I just call it "Candy Corn".  It is the best sweet corn I've eaten in my life.  The cookbook coming out has a recipe on how to cook sweet corn in small quantities.  It is quick and the sweet corn tastes as good as any other way you can cook it.

If you have a garden, it has probably already produced some vegetables for you.  Of course it depends on what you plant.  We don't usually plant any early vegetables, so it is late July before we start harvesting any product.  Our main crops are tomatoes and peppers.  We plant a variety of both items but not a large quantity.

In fact, we have some good friends that plant the large quantity of these items.  Howard and I have gotten into making salsa the last few years.  Each year the amount of salsa has increased.  This past summer, it was around 60 to 70 quarts and this year will be much more.  I believe that between us, we have a little over 40 tomato plants.  We also have quite a few pepper plants.  Mainly they are green peppers and jalapeno peppers.  Although this year we are trying to grow a new one.  It is called the Ho Chi Minh pepper and it is HOT.  It has the same heat as a Habanero pepper on the Scoville Scale.  The difference is the Habanero has a quick burn and it is all in your mouth or on your lips.  The Ho Chi Minh has a delayed heat and it makes your whole body warm from the inside out.  So this year Howard and I will make our medium salsa and then make a new hot variety with our new yellow HCM peppers.

Sorry for getting carried away there.  I'm going to guess that many of you don't have a garden.  It is something you might want to consider some day.  Just remember to start out small and try only a few items you really like in the garden.  You can always expand it or find friends for a community garden.  Give it a try next year.

So under that assumption, let's talk about farmer's markets.  I don't know it for a fact but almost every town has some kind of farmer's market.  If you have not been to one, find one.  They are great with usually more variety then you can imagine.  At this time of the year, you really need to take advantage of all the fresh food products you can find at these markets.  The prices are comparable to the stores you shop at for your groceries.  One of the neat side benefits of buying at these markets is you are helping your local economy and keeping neighbors in business.

In many towns the markets only operate on Saturday mornings.  You can find them that are open one day a week to six day and everything in between.  Get out and support them in your community.  It really is a fun adventure so take a friend or two.

I'll continue tomorrow with freezing vegetables.

Tuesday Update

Last Tuesday I shipped off that "Final Proof" for the cookbook.  This week I should be hearing from the marketing team to start putting together the plan to move (sell) the cookbook.  We're in totally new territory again but I'm looking forward to it.  It is really getting exciting now as we approach the release date for the cookbook.

So what am I doing now?  I'm putting together a list of all the colleges in a 250 to 300 mile radius of Maryville, Missouri.  We are interested in setting up book signings with the Bookstores at each college.  Hopefully this will just be the start of connecting with colleges throughout the country.

We will also put together a list of Bookstores, Libraries and locations to have more book signings.  If anyone out there has some suggestions, please pass them on to me.

The marketing team and I will be setting up a website too.  Hopefully when the cookbook is released both the website and this blog will have links to buy the cookbook.

Have I mentioned that the cookbook will be in e-book form as well as the traditional print?

This week I'm going to talk a little about fresh garden produce.  Where to find it if you don't have a garden of your own and what you can do with it.  I'm also going to talk about freezers and freezing food.  This week's recipe is Homemade Spaghetti Sauce.  It covers making a marinara sauce and how to make it into a vodka sauce.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend.  We certainly enjoyed the fireworks.

Bleu Bacon Burger

Bleu Bacon Burgers

(8 servings)

Ingredients:

2 lb. Ground Chuck (85/15 or 80/20)

1 – 2.8 oz. jar Hormel Bacon Pieces

1 – 5 oz. tub Bleu Cheese Crumbs

2 tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce

As needed: Lawry’s Season Salt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Black Pepper

8 Hamburger Buns of your choice, toasted on grill

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix the ground chuck, bacon, bleu cheese and Worcestershire sauce.  Then form the mixture into 8 four ounce patties with your hands.  Refrigerate the patties while you get the grill ready.  When you are ready to put the patties on the grill, sprinkle them with a good dose of the four spices.  Put them on the grill seasoned side down and repeat seasoning on the top side.  Grill for 4 to 6 minutes per side depending on thickness and desired doneness.  I like mine a little pink.  That also helps keep them from drying out.

Note:   If you really like cheese, try topping each burger with a slice of sharp

               cheddar.

Note:   If you are not into bleu cheese then try crumbed feta.

Note:   The numbers behind the ground chuck are the meat to fat percentages.  Either of these will give you the best flavor for ground beef.  My personal opinion is that ground chuck at those percentages is the only way to go for burgers.

Note:   You can adjust the amounts of bacon and cheese to meet your personal tastes.  If you make larger burger patties, it will add a little time to the cooking process.

Ideas for Future Efforts

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