Food Processor: Friend or Foe?

Our camera is on the blink which is just as well as I'm not so sure I want documented evidence of the mess I make when  I "cook." It may be time to bow to reality and admit that I just don't have the cooking gene in me. None of this chopping, measuring, pouring stuff comes naturally to me and, frankly, when you find yourself screaming at the frozen spinach because it didn't have the foresight to thaw itself, chances are good you were never meant to be in the kitchen in the first place...

But my lack of culinary skills didn't stop me from purchasing a 10-cup (that's right) food processor this weekend. I've been bypassing tasty recipes for years under the "I don't have the equipment to make it properly" excuse and decided enough was enough. I too, want to join millions of family across America enjoying tasty home-cooked food processed meals.

What I didn't foresee was that one must apparently some have kind of advanced engineering degree to even put the thing together. I had tubes and plastic covers and graters and blades spread across every kitchen counter as I debated whether I needed to pour myself a cup of gin to get through the instruction manual. I powered through, however, plugged in the food processor and hit PULSE.

Nothing.

Shake, shake. I hit PULSE again. Still nothing. Rattle, shake. Silence. That gin is looking mighty fine about now.

The instructions say if the bowl isn't properly locked in place the machine won't operate. So I jiggle the bowl free only to discover that disengages the blade, which I can't push back down because the food in the bowl is now blocking where the blade needs to be and son of a @#$$@# I go to the cupboard and dump everything in the food processing bowl into a regular bowl, refit the bowl and blade onto the machine, dump everything back in, make a small sacrificial offering to the cooking gods and hit PULSE.

YES!! We have pulse action.

As I add ingredients, a little bit of the pulsed food is flying free from the side chute thingee. As I see no way to prevent this occurrence, I file it in the already overstuffed, "I'll deal with that later" section of my brain.

So I get this lasagna sauce made and everything in the crock pot and take a step back to view my kitchen. Spinach strands, tomato pulp, onion skins and every pot, pan, and measuring cup I own stare back at me. I spend 20 minutes longer cleaning the kitchen than I did preparing the recipe, including the 10 minutes it took to disassemble and wipe down the food processor. 

This is progress? It would have been quicker for me to bow hunt and dress a deer. Probably less of a struggle too. 

What Blair doesn't know is that a counter full of food processor parts awaits his return home tonight. I have no idea where we're going to store this thing. But I'm pretty sure I've decided that's not my problem.

I'll let you know how the sauce turns out. For all this work, it better kill over Ragu. 

My Day Started In The Trash. And Yours?

Coffee grounds... kitty fur... banana peel... used tissues... dental floss... remnants of last night's dinner...

That's what I was digging through around 6:30 AM. How'd your day start?

Blair had an associate from Korea (Korea? I think that's right.) call this morning about 5:30. Blair grabbed his Blackberry, set the case aside, and took the call.

When he went to leave the house--no case. We searched EVERYWHERE. He'd been feeding the fish when the call came in, so we were even scanning the tank to see if he'd dropped it in there. After looking in obvious places, we started looking in the fridge, in the cat toy box, his robe, the bed, the cupboard where we keep the cleaning supplies... Trust me when I say we took 20 minutes and tore this house apart. And still, nothing.

"What about the trash bag?" said Blair, referring to the bag I'd already taken to the curb. 

"Didn't I take that out before you got your call?" I asked.

"No, you started emptying trash cans around the house while I was on the phone."

Outside I went, bringing the trash bag back in the house. We opened it in the kitchen and proceeded to sort through it. Yuck, yuck and yuck. Thankfully, we found the case not too far down. A thorough washing with hot water and Blair was on his way. 

The good thing about digging through trash in the  morning is it's really hard for your day to go downhill from there. 

I hope.

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

Groundhog Gallop 2009

This was just an incredibly busy weekend. It's 9:20 on Sunday night and I'm just now home and trying to process it all.

Saturday morning was spent at the 2009 Groundhog Gallop Trail 1/2 Marathon. I'd never run a trail half marathon and wasn't sure what to expect. I also hadn't gotten around to running 13 miles, period, since my November marathon, and hoped my legs would hold out. I was thinking I'd run a 2 hour 15 minute half, maybe 2:10 if I felt good. I ended up crossing the finish line at 1:59:03, first in my age group for women, so I was quite pleased. My friend Neal and I ran the last 6 miles together and were by ourselves for a good stretch. We ended up chatting like we would on a normal training run which made the miles melt away. I should have some pictures to post from the site in a day or two.

Today was an Animal Protection Society of Rockingham County (APSRC) meeting. I transported a four-month old black and white kitten to the meeting to be fostered by one of our volunteers. The woman who gave her up was moving and couldn't take him. ADORABLE little girl kitty. Silky fur, soft mews, and wide eyes that gazed out at me from her carrier as I drove. Oh, how I wanted to take her home! I am not meant to transport animals. Even knowing I was taking her to a foster home broke my heart. I just wanted to take her home and hold and cuddle and love and spoil her--for life.

We had a lively meeting and covered a lot of ground which, as secretary, I have about 5 pages of notes to transcribe and send out. After the meeting I drove into GSO for our quarterly writers group meeting where we all report on our projects, writing status, blocks, highs/lows, etc. It's wonderful to be surrounded by the energy of a group of people who share the same passion as you.

I stopped at the store on the way home to pick up salmon for Salmon Pastry Puffs but the fish counter was closed at 8 PM. Who knew?

I've checked e-mail, combed Lucy, Facebooked (yes, I just made that a verb), Twittered, and now I'm going to go plunk my tired self into bed. Tomorrow it all starts anew.

Cheers.

Snail Watching

As you may recall, our fish tank has been recently invaded by an army of snails. We removed the 5 or 6 snails and thought we'd handled the problem. Nuh-uh. They're back. In force. And we think this time they're mad.

This morning I counted 15 itsy-bitsy snails crawling over rocks and logs and clinging to the glass walls of the tank. I've abandoned my guilt over killing them. Now they make my skin crawl. We've been reading up on how to handle our snail problem. Last resort is to empty the tank and start anew. This may cause trauma to our fish so we'd prefer to avoid that. Right now we're opting for a two-pronged approach.

Method #1 is to put a piece of lettuce in a small cup. The snails are attracted to the lettuce and sit on it and munch, allowing us to pick the leaf up in the morning and carry snails out of the tank.

Method #2 involves us reaching into the tank and squishing any snail on sight.

After dinner this evening, Blair and I enjoyed a little snail watching. It's harder than you think. The snails are about the size of a quarter of a grain of rice. You can stare into the tank and see none. Only when you look closely do you notice they're covering a rock, or three are inching up a wall.

My job is to spot them and Blair's job is to squish. As I was moving around the outside of the tank, I commented to Blair that my personality is well-suited to this type of work.

"Yeah. Kill 'em!" he said in his high Dena-imitating voice.

"No," I said. "What I mean is--hold on, there's a snail. Under the rock. Smash it.--What I mean is the seek and find suits me. It's a challenge."

We had agreed to watch a movie after dinner but, after washing our hands, discovered neither of us felt much like sitting in front of the TV.

"Snail killing is kind of a mood killer," I remarked.

"I don't know about that," said Blair. "I'm feeling pretty virile after smooshing all those snails."

That's a quote. I do so love that man of mine. Happy Friday the 13th!