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.