Mishaps in the Kitchen

About two months ago my food processor that my parents gave me for my birthday in October suffered it's demise. The actual motor was fine but human error did the bowl in. I was making something on the stove and turned on the wrong element. This happened on the day I made a whole bunch of stuff including the hazelnut spread and hummus. For some reason I had the processor on the stove and put it down on an element thinking it was off. When I lifted the bowl up the bottom stuck to the hot element and long, glue-gun like pieces of plastic stuck from the element to the bowl. I had melted off all the plastic catches on the bottom and there was no way it would fit back onto the base.

Since it was less than 6 months old I called the company to order a replacement bowl. This is where it got a little weird. They told me to call the local supplier in Winnipeg (just a few blocks away as luck would have it). So I called and explained and the man who answered said he would have to call me back. A couple of hours later I got a call from a somewhat bewildered sounding fellow. He said, in a kind of disbelieving tone, that because this particular food processor model was made only for Canada (it was purchased in a special set from Costco) they couldn't replace it. Weird. I told my mom was happened and she was not satisfied - being the purchaser of the processor - so she talked to Costco, then the processor company, and then they finally put her back in touch with the Winnipeg supplier too. They thought it was completely bizarre and have never been told they couldn't replace something because it was "only made for Canada" so they made a few more phone calls.

Anyway, long story short, the supplier was very helpful and because my mom is very neat and tidy with her receipts, I was able to bring in the whole food processor with receipt and they're going to send me a replacement. No one mentioned how much this is going to cost...I never expected anything for free, I just wanted to buy my new bowl and be on my way. The man at the supplier said that the company is replacing it and he'll call me when it's in - I'm hoping maybe everyone forgot it was my own damn fault and they'll only charge me for shipping or something like that.

But the point of the story is, that I haven't wanted to make certain recipes without my trusty food processor. I brought it in on Tuesday so I'm hoping the shiny new one will be in within the next two weeks.

My other recent kitchen mishap was on Thursday night. I had seen an interesting recipe by Alton Brown to make "pasta" with eggplant. I never know what to do with eggplant when we get it in the box. I think I have to face the fact that I just don't like eggplant, except mixed in with spaghetti sauce or something. I decided to try this out though, by modifying things. In the end the dish consisted of eggplant and zucchini "noodles", roasted cauliflower, red chard stock, green onion, carrot, spices, and goat yogurt. The taste was...not good. I didn't want to waste all those veggies though so when I went to bed on Thursday night I was thinking of creative ways to save it. SOUP! I had two leeks in the fridge and since I've never cooked leeks before a cream of leek and veggie soup sounded good.

So Friday morning I chopped up the two leeks, a potato, and grabbed the rest of the veggies from my "pasta" mistake and combined them with four cups of fresh chicken stock I'd made last week. My plan at this point was to make a roux but we were out of milk, so I put the pot of soup on a low simmer and ran out to take care of some grocery shopping - this was around 12. I didn't get back to the soup until around 4. In three batches I blended the soup in the blender to make it smoother. I finally made a roux with 5 tbsp of butter, 5 tbsp flour, and 3 cups of milk. Just before adding it to the soup I tasted the soup and prayed the roux would fix things. It needed a little more bite so I added old cheddar and Olde English Cheese. I threw in a bit more salt and pepper and let it sit for a few minutes and they came back to taste it. It was amazing, just the right mix of veggies, not too thick, not too much cheese. It all came together beautifully.

I don't have a recipe for this soup because it was a save but check out everything that ended up going into it veggie-wise (plus homemade butter, stock, and GF flour, milk, and spices):

• 1/2 eggplant
• 1 zucchini
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 head cauliflower
• 1 green onion
• 5 red chard stocks
• 2 leeks
• 1 potato
• 4 radishes
• 1/4 of a red pepper
• 1/4 of a yellow pepper
  

I would not have been happy if I had to throw all of that out. Instead we have a lot of soup. I threw some in a large container and put it in the fridge and took 3 single serving size tupperware containers and put it in the freezer. This is great for lunch at work on days when I don't have time to grab anything else. You just let it defrost through the morning and microwave it when you're ready to eat it.

The moral of this post is that even mishaps can turn into new food processors and delicious soups if you put in the effort. :D

Now that my training is complete I have lots of new post ideas and I'm hoping to make a much more regular appearance from now on. The gardening season is approaching!

Mittens keeps a lookout for bugs...perhaps so she can snack.