Tuesday Cooking Tips: 10 Reasons to use a food processor

10 reason to use a food processor

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I love my food processor, it sits on the work surface constantly and I use it wherever I can to save time and energy. Here are 10 reason why I use a processor.

  1. Making pastry

    I prefer it to a traditional food mixer as you can watch what is happening and not overwork the pastry. As soon as it comes together to make a dough you can stop it. So much quicker and cleaner than by hand, also if you make pastry by hand the heat from your hands will warm the butter slightly, whereas the processor keeps it as cool as possible. I used the food processor in my Desperate Dan Cow pie recipe.

  2. Chopping Veg

    If you have a recipe which requires lots of chopping then you can use the normal blade.  Some Ragu recipes require that the veg almost forms a part of the sauce so this works well. If it is lots of slicing then put in the thicker slicing blade, chops and slices in seconds. We have a rule in our house that the cook, generally, doesn’t wash up but the food processor is really quick to clean. I used the food processor to help me chop the veg in my Pork Ragu Recipe

  3. Pancakes and Yorkshire pud mixes

    Great for larger quantities of pancake mix or yorkshire pudding mix, blitzes in seconds compared with standing there for 10 minutes beating by hand. If you want more exercise then you can beat it by hand if you want.

  4. Liquidising

    Good for liquidising soups and sauces if you don’t have a hand held blender.  There are a number of soups on our site including this very delicious Tuscan Bean Soup for something a bit different.

  5. Mince

    If your recipe requires mince and you don’t want to chance what goes in the mince at the supermarket, then pop your meat in and there you are, fresh mince and you are sure what it is.  I especially like it for chicken, as I don’t trust what goes into the supermarket chicken mince. You need to pulse the machine when doing chicken or you will just get a pulp.

  6. Pates

    Home made pates are delicious, smoked mackerel plus some lemon and creme fraiche is yummy on some toast. Whiz up the ingredients in the food processor and you are done, just had a thought, I must do a pate recipe.

  7. Breadcrumbs

    Pop in your leftover crusts and bits of bread and make breadcrumbs, keep them in the freezer until you need them. Mixing breadcrumbs with some finely grated cheese and sprinkling over a bake is sooo crunchy and tasty. You could do this if you try the Pastitsio recipe on site

  8. Salads
    

    Makes great salads, carrot and apple, coleslaw and other salads which require finely chopped veg.

  9. Hiding veg

    My grandchildren, and one of my boys have their picky moments, but I can add all sorts of finely chopped veg to Spag Bol and they hardly notice.

  10. Smoothies
    

    Again picky kids will drink a smoothie, whereas give them the fruit and they might refuse!

If you can add to this list put it in the comments below, we would love to hear them. If you are interested in the processor we use by the way we use Magimix food processors, they are great and take up less space on your work top than most we have used.

Joy

 

 

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