I tried grinding just a little bit last week. More should make the blender work better. It was also cooked. Maybe raw will be smoother. They have a new version of cat food now called mousse (vs pate). Very smooth. It's what they sent me home with at the vet hospital. She likes I like it.
OK. The Cosori was a dud; sounded like a jet plane flying around the kitchen so now it's "winging" its way back to the Amazon warehouse. Guess I'll just use my Breville oven to finish up some herbs. I watched an America's Test Kitchen video about drying herbs in the microwave which sounds good. Unfortunately there were many comments on that video about herbs catching on fire. Yikes.
That must have been a really loud dehydrator, @Beth Gallagher ! Ours makes noise, but I have it in the storage room with the door closed; so we never even hear it running if I am drying something. I carry the trays into the kitchen, load them up and then back into the storage room and on the dehydrator. My aerogardens are in there, too, because they put out so much light, and I really do not have room in the kitchen anyway.
We have found that drying in the microwave may be quick, but it drives off some of the essential oils as well, especially the more volatile ones. Delicate herbs, like basil, we don't even put on the dehydrator for this reason. Using an oven on the lowest setting works okay, but for many other than the tough ones, such as rosemary, thyme, and oregano, we just tie them together, hang them up and forget about them.
I finished the sage and dried some dill in the microwave. After growing them in the Aerogardens I had to figure out what to do with it all. It worked pretty well as far as I can tell. We have such humidity here that hanging herbs to dry can literally take months so I seldom do that.
This could have gone in the Rant thread. I dragged out my Cuisinart food processor to grate zucchini earlier. I seldom use the food processor because it takes 20 minutes to clean it after using it for 34 seconds, but I REALLY hate grating food by hand. It just seems to take forever and I usually grate part of a knuckle into the batch. To get to the point... I totally blanked on how to assemble the dang thing. I was just standing there staring at assorted stainless cutting disks and plastic pieces feeling like a dolt. I got the worthless "user guide" which gave such helpful instructions as "assemble the disk into the machine." Oh gee... really? And how does that work, exactly? My husband wandered in and assembled it for me. I need to look at some Youtube videos on Cuisinart assembly or something. I see another trip to Goodwill in my future. The zucchini was excellent.
Beth, I use my spiralizer to spiralize zucchini. Then I just rinse it and let it dry. The spiralizer, not the zucchini. It's a lot less trouble than getting my food processor out. I sauté the zucchini with onion in butter and put pesto sauce on it. It's really good.
I don't have a spiralizer any longer, Shirley... it already made the trip to Goodwill!! I cook zucchini in a similar way... saute some chopped onions in olive oil and butter, toss in the shredded zucchini and stir-fry for a couple of minutes, salt and lots of black pepper. SO good. I love the summer squashes cooked with onion (and butter!!)
So you're OK with not washing the components in soapy water? I angst over not washing a colander if I've rinsed off carrots in it. Perhaps I overburden myself.
It keeps me out of trouble. But if I use a utensil to break the skin of a veggie or a fruit, it's gonna see soap.
I totally forgot that I have one of these rotary graters. Duh. It's a lot easier to clean than the Cuisinart.
I think I have one of those, too, but it's hand-held. I forgot that I have it. I use a lot of Italian cheeses, and grind the entire block and put it in the freezer. It's not a fun task with a box grater. I'll have to dig through my kitchen drawers and pull it to the top.