I have a question about grating carrots in the easiest way possible for carrot muffins. Perhaps I’ll ask it here. But I’m looking for the best cooking forums you’ve come across that might be a good place to ask the question as well. I’m particularly interested in asking questions about kitchen gadgets sold at places like cooking.com or Pampered Chef, etc. I’m used to the vbulletin format, so I’d prefer those if possible.
What are your favorite cooking message boards?
I probably wouldn’t go with a grater on any mechanical processor. Unfortunately, I think you need a finer, hand ground, “juicy grate”. Perhaps in a blender apparatus… but then I would fear too much of a breakdown in texture. Nope, sorry to say, an old-fashioned fine grater or box grater is the optimal machination… that, and a little elbow grease.
Somethingawful.com actually has a great cooking forum. In keeping with the theme of the site there can be more attitude than you’d find somewhere else. If you post a thread about your ‘recipe’ for pasta mixed with a bullion cube and nothing else (this really happened) you can expect some ridicule, but for the most part earnest questions get good answers from people that really love cooking. Some of my favorite dishes have come from recipes on that forum. Just be sure to read the rules thread and post in the right place and it’s a valuable resource.
Thanks. I probably should have written out the whole question in the OP.
If I had, I would have noted that I’ve done it in my food processor with good results. But I was hoping to find a solution that wouldn’t require me to take out my big food processor which doesn’t sit on my counter.
Wow, that looks like a pretty serious cooking website. You have to submit a 100 word personal statement to post there?
I’m not a cook, just curious about some really basic food questions. I probably should have said that in my OP too. Is that still the place to ask basic food questions?
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
Get a rotary grater. Fits in a drawer, grates just about anything really fast with no effort and is easy to clean - most of them go in the dishwasher I believe, though I don’t have a dishwasher so I can’t vouch for that. I use mine all the time, and I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to the trouble of getting the food processor out for anything. You can get different drums for fine or coarse grating or slicing. The linked item isn’t the one I have (which is a Mouli and has no plastic parts), but it’s similar. I would recommend getting an all-metal one if you can. If you have children, they also love using it and can’t skin their knuckles (the grater blades are completely enclosed in use) as they have a distressing habit of doing on a box grater.
Chowhound used to be a terrific food site, but seems to have been overtaken by food purists who can be quite condescending about “ordinary” (non-gourmet, top shelf) food. I wander over there occasionally, but end up exiting quickly after reading one too many snobbish posts. Too bad. Used to be entertaining and useful.
Cooking question? Ask it here. Most other sites I’ve seen are either way too serious, or full of un-edited garbage. Here you can usually find some people who know the answer, are willing to share their knowledge, and will post tested recipes. And people who think they are full of crap. 
Teacake, that’s fantastic! I have a rotary grater, but rarely use it. Thanks for a) reminding me that it’s a pretty good tool and b) giving me another use for it. (Good lord, but I do love carrot cake.)
That’s great! Thank you. I took a look at that at Sur La Table, but wasn’t sure if it would work with carrots. Sounds like you’re saying it would.
I was also thinking of a salad shooter, that used to be popular a while back, but don’t know how well they work or if it’s worth getting for just that one application.
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
I’ve been enjoying the food forum at SA that someone mentioned earlier in the thread also.
Yeah, it works great with carrots. I mostly use mine for cheese, potatoes (for rosti), and apples, carrots, pears etc when I’m making bread, cakes or muffins. My apple and linseed bread wouldn’t be the same without it! I’ve also used it on fresh coconut when making curry - it worked pretty well on that too. It’s definitely the “gadget” I use most in the kitchen.
The salad shooter looks interesting, but I do like things that are completely mechanical. You can make a hell of a mess without worrying about getting the sticky juice out of the electric workings, plus there’s less to go wrong. Call me a Luddite…
After I read your last post, I went back to Sur La Table and asked about the Zyliss grater, which is the only mechanical grater that they had. And the salesperson told me that it would be REALLY hard to get that to grate carrots. And I noticed that one of the reviewers on Amazon said the same thing, even though he sounds like a big, strong guy. I’m wondering if your grater works a lot better because it’s all metal and/or much sharper. I can’t seem to find the brand you mentioned as readily. Just looking at Amazon, it looks like the rotary graters are not all the same. Here’s one where the reviewer mentions the brand you have as being clearly superior to the one being offered there.
Anyone else have experiences using a cheese grater with carrots? Which brand do you have?
**
Teacake**, thanks again. Your assurance has at least given me hope that there’s an answer out there if I can put the pieces together.
I just have a really cheap medium to fine grate paddle grater that I grate cheese and carrots and zucchini and potatoes and onions with. It’s not namebrand or anything and is probably from the 70’s. It’s a good medium grate. The carrots come out just about perfect, they are shredded and juicy, unlike many mechanical processors that cut so cleanly they are more akin to matchstick jullienne.
I believe a finer and juicier grate makes for a more tender muffin.
Take a carrot to Sur la Table with you and insist on trying it out! Looking online, it seems that Mouli are no longer in business, or were taken over and subsumed in a way that makes them impossible to find, or something. My grater is old: it belonged to an elderly relative, who gave it to me in an elderly fit of random generosity one day. I bless her name every time I use it!
Devilsknew, I completely agree. The trouble I find with grating vegetables in a processor is that they either come out, as you say, crisply julienned, or mushed to hell.
They have Mouli graterson eBay.
I love how they describe it as a “primitive cooking utensil”. The first cartoon on this page sprang to mind!
Christ, egullet.com is, I think waaaaaaay out of my league. Plus it seems that it doesn’t get much traffic (a real bonus of the SDMB) and it also seems Vancouver and San Francisco centric. Sigh. The search marches onward.
I’m always afraid of posting too many cooking threads here, as it bugs some people (as evidenced in a recent complaining thread).
I wouldn’t let that bother you. Where else are you meant to post them? I saw the thread, but didn’t post in it because it just seemed so silly. This is Cafe Society. Cafes have food. In fact if I hadn’t assumed that this forum was *mostly *about food, I may never have come in here. I may find it irritating that people are always posting about whatever stupid crap they watch on TV, which is not something one does in a cafe, but I wouldn’t dream of whining about it. I see the thread title, or mouse over, and don’t bother opening threads I’m not interested in. If only it was so simple for some of our cooking-impaired brethren…
Hmm. You are right, I just always check myself before starting a new thread (no doubt a good thing). The funny thing about TV is that I consume a fair amount (nowhere close to the average 4 hours/night, but maybe 90 minutes-2 hours) but I don’t like talking about it at all - not the plot, nothing. TV and movies aren’t conducive to talking, so the process is totally cut off from the conversation, whereas cooking is very much so involved with talking and discussing.
You’ve inspired me to start a “what’s for dinner” thread 
Be warned that the Chowhound mods are much, much more particular than the ones here. They rigidly keep things on topic, ban certain issues altogether (eg, we in the kosher sub-board are not allowed to discuss the pluses and minuses of any particular kosher certification), and will routinely split off side discussions to other forums that they think are more appropriate. That said, the people are quite knowledgeable.
