I had written to a company that sells commercial peanut butter makers to those health food stores that set them near their bulk nuts & grains so people can make super-fresh peanut-butter, almond butter, and honey-roasted peanut butter on-site. I told them I had already burned out two blenders trying to make cashew butter and asked if they had smaller models than their $415 storefront unit because I didn’t need anything for quite that volume. Someone responded saying the storefront model was their cheapest and smallest. She also noted that a blender isn’t made to handle the strain of turning nuts into nut-butter, but for home use I might look into a food processor.
So I bought a cheap Black-and-Decker at The Broadway and I’ve never regretted it. The blender could handle making a few ounces of peanut butter; the food processor turns two pounds of almonds into a quart of almond butter (add 8 ounces of coarsely chopped almonds to make it chunky style). I just made cashew butter and almond butter for years.
Then my wife wanted to make a huge soup for a pot-luck dinner and said she hated chopping onions. I suggested she use the food processor and set it up for her. She turned three whole onions into a quart of chopped onions in less than 30 seconds and from then on she was hooked. She loves her soups and has turned all kinds of vegetables - carrots, onions, potatoes, peas, lentils, garbanzo beans, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, whatever – into slices or diced bits or paste to throw into her nutritious lunches-for-the-week. She creates sauces, soups, and stews with that thing and makes stuff up that I could never dream of.
I’ve never done much with the grater wheel. I did try to use it to make little carrot haystacks for tempura once, but the shreds were too short. Long shreds like that require a mandolin or box grater running lengthwise along the vegetable, and the chimney for my food processor won’t allow that approach.
I still rarely use it for anything other than nut butters. Oh, I did throw in some sausage* and vegetables and pack the ground-up mess into won ton skins for baking. My wife loved 'em with marinara sauce and with red spicy salsa, but I prefer my won tons deep-fried and couldn’t appreciate my own creation.
Regardless of what it’s used for, clean-up is pretty simple: Let it soak for a few minutes in hot soapy water, then run a jar brush around the outside and inside perimeters (and all over the chopper(s). Sanitize in the dishwasher.
–G!
*Grinding down a sausage seemed kind of like a backwards process.
Hmmm…I need to start a separate thread…