I recently got a kitchenaid 7 cup food processor. It’s AWESOME. Especially compared to my old combo unit by Hamilton Beach. It’s quiet, it does a much better job of combining the food, and it will actually slice or shred foods, unlike my combo blender/processor unit.
The hamilton Beach unit would drown out the TV in the other room and scare the kids when I used it. The KA one can make stuff without really causing much of a disturbance.
I have already made some roasted red pepper humuus using it, and I famously tried making hash browns in another thread, but that didn’t work out so well (no fault of the processor, it was user error).
What are your favorite things to make in a food processor? Any tips?
You’ve already hit on hummus, which is worth the price of a food processor. Near as I can tell, the finesse points there are 1.) toasted whole cumin, ground, 2.) fresh lemon juice (from an actual lemon), and 3.) not skimping on the garlic. I’m generally considered some sort of god thanks to my hummus, and really, this is all I do to it.
Oh–I know some people say you can use peanut butter instead of tahini, but they’re crazy–peanut butter makes it taste too, well, peanut buttery. Buy some damn tahini.
On similar lines, I really love Bobby Flay’s white bean and roasted red pepper dip. Here’s the recipe. (Warning: music plays automatically.)
There’s pesto, of course.
For simple stuff, squeeze in some honey, spicy brown mustard, garlic, salt, pepper, and either half a red onion or a few shallots. Grind it up good and then drizzle olive oil in through the feed tube until it’s smooth. Serve over grilled salmon.
Some good ideas so far… here’s a few more:
Hot sauce: You can make a killer hot sauce by charring whole tomatillos and jalapenos on the grill or under the broiler. Process a few cloves of garlic and a handful of cilantro until very finely minced, then add the tomatillos, jalapenos (remove the stems first, though), juice of two limes and a drizzle of olive oil. Process on low until you’ve got a nice puree; add more lime juice and/or oil to thin it out, if needed.
Marinade: With a food processor and five minutes, you can make an awesome chipotle marinade for grilled pork. Recipe here.
Sauces: Pesto is a good one - classic basil-pinenut is good, but you can play around with it (my favourite is arugula-cashew-chili). You can also try making Argentinian-style chimichurri, which is delicious on grilled meats.
Tonight I found out just how easy it is to make streusel topping for the coffee cake tomorrow. It sure as hell beats using a pastry blender, my hands, or any other thing I have tried so far.
I have seen references to making cookies in there, but I have also read that creaming the ingedients is not really possible with a food processor, either…what say you guys?
Bunch of rocket, some garlic & parmezan, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper makes a great rocket pesto (the rocket can be added in stages, since it shrinks a lot). I freeze it into cubes (using the ice cube thingy). Makes a perfect pasta dessing, room temperature with noting, warmed with some sour cream, or just add some to your warm basic tomato sauce.
I don’t think you could do cookies well in one. I’d stick to a wooden spoon or stand mixer for that.
I love to use my food processor to mix the fat and flour in biscuits. My biscuits are always fabulous when I start them in the food processor. Pie crust is also supposed to be very good using one. shortbread cookies are pretty good when made in one as well. I like to do the base for lemon bars and other bar cookies in the FP rather than the stand mixer. I also find graham cracker crusts much easier with one.
I use mine to fast-track the prep on these spice blends: http://www.aroracreations.com/
They call for things like fresh ginger, garlic, onions, hot peppers, tomatoes. I will modify the directions so that most of the aromatics go in at once, then add them into the food processor in order of hard-to-chopness. For example, with the punjab chole, ginger, then peppers with the tops cut off (I react badly when the juices get on my skin), then the onion and tomato in chunks, pulsed gently to chop and not pulverize. I still have to chop half the onions, half the tomatoes, and all of the cilantro by hand, because it must go in later, but getting that ginger and the hot peppers out of the way with no fuss makes this a weekday dinner.
You can make pesto with coriander leaves and hazelnuts. It’s very good, especially if you bake the nuts to get the skins off first.
As others have already mentioned, I use mine for hummus, white bean dip, streusel topping, cracker/graham cracker crumbs. I also break it out to chop up leftover cooked chicken for chicken salad, ham for ham salad, etc.
And crazyjoe, thanks for the recommendation on the Kitchenaid. I have coveted one for some time, but couldn’t quite justify buying one because my 25-year old workhorse still functions beautifully. I guess it can function as a hand-me-down for someone else, and I can enjoy a pretty, new Kitchenaid in my near future.
Hey Monkey-friend,
If I were you I would watch for the sales at ShopKitchenaid.com in their refurb section. I got mine when ther was a 20% coupon for the order, and it only cost me $50 instead of $70.
Dealnews.com ad other coupon sites can tell you about coupons for the site. They recently had a 30% off sale, and that usually includes the refurb section as well.
Like the others, I use mine for hummus, pesto, biscuits, and pie crust.
I love making pasta dough in it - so much easier than that stupid authentic flour volcano on the countertop. Though you may need a pasta roller to actually complete the pasta - I don’t know how easy it would be to roll out sheets of pasta with a pin.
The thing I use mine for most, though, is smoothies. I realized it works waaaaay better on frozen fruit than my blender does. I put in 8 oz soy milk, 4 oz plain yogurt, 1 1/2 T sugar, and enough frozen strawberries to fill my liquid measure to about the 12 oz mark. Whir it for a minute or two, and you have a lovely smoothie with no annoying chunks in it.