The Beast

For 70 years on this planet, neither Jim nor I have ever owned a food processor. And he is a cook of some renown. We've always just chopped things and diced things and used a whisk to smooth things and never needed anything more fancy. 

Then, in a fit of pandemic boredom, he ordered a KitchenAid food processor. The thing is a beast. A beast. It's huge, barely fits under the cabinets and it took up residence on our kitchen counter in June. We had no idea how to operate it. It had a whole separate huge bucket of accessories -- blades and sharp stuff and adapters. We were overmatched.

Jim would not touch The Beast. Garlic needs chopping? Get the knife. Onions need dicing? Cut them up on an odor free cutting board. It sat there for 6 weeks. Finally, this week, I took it out, opened the bucket of strange add-on blades, slicers and dicers and fiddled with it.

My first foray into food processing was a quiche. We had had beer bratwurst -- excellent on the grill, but too much for us to eat in one sitting, so the leftover grilled sausage went into The Beast and got pulverized. Oddly satisfying. 

Red peppers went in next and got minced. Eggs, cheese, cream, fresh basil from the garden, and this is what I created -- this is the most awesome thing I have made in a very long time:

People, this was so good. I cannot describe how delicious this quiche was. 

The recipe was from Betty Crocker, a cookbook I got as a young bride in 1971, and here it is 49 years later (have I even been alive that long?) and it's still rocking classic recipes. Quiche Lorraine, page 218.

I used the recipe for proportions of eggs and cheese and cream and cooking times, but did my own thing with the leftover beer brats and basil and peppers and a bit of southwest spice for kick.

While I was whirring things in The Beast and draping pie crust over a pie plate for quiche, a summer squall came through and dropped 1/4 inch of hard rain on all my parched gardens. 

Does it get better than this? It does not.