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| Cucumber and Yogurt salad-- from fotolia.com |
So today was "food processor" day in my house.
Not only do I plan my menus around what I find at the produce market, but also what appliances I plan to use. I would like my first principal, who thought I lacked organization, to take note of this, please.
I plan food processor day for a day I want to make a food processor heavy salad--like coleslaw or tabbouli or hummous.
An old friend taught me to buy peeled garlic in bulk and mince it the food processor. The peeled garlic has no preservatives and once minced it releases its own oils. It will keep forever, she claimed. Turned out, she was right. I do the garlic first, when the bowl is clean to reduce any chance of moisture or contamination.
I store the minced garlic in the fridge in glass jars. I haven't had it go bad yet, and I don't have to smell like garlic everyday.
I shred the cabbage, herbs and onions, and veggies for any meals coming up in the next few days. I always process hummous last. That way I only have to wash the bowl once.
And I always finish with a yummy cucumber salad/ raita/ whatever you want to call it. Its common on the Indian subcontinent as well as in the Middle East, though the Indians use garlic and the Arabs use onions. I'm not a huge cucumber fan, though I always wish I was. The crisp crunch, the summery smell, the cool thrist quenching freshness... but every time I'm tempted to take a bite-um, no. Except this salad. I actually enjoy cucumbers in this salad. So I make it every food processor day. It keeps pretty well in the fridge because of the salt and yogurt.
To make the salad, I mince onions and cucumbers--the exact amount depends on how many cucumbers I need to use up. Its a flexible salad because you can always add more yogurt. Then I mince some mint. I salt them to see how much water they are going to release and then mix with greek yogurt. Its nice with falafal, to cool your palate after spicy food, or served in romaine lettuce leaves.
Oh, and in case you didn't get the title, you obviously didn't grow up with two little brothers in the 80's. Yes, I know it dates me, but I couldn't resist. I recently had the pleasure of introducing my kids to the original cartoon series and they've taken to playing "Ninja Turtles" around the house. Then, we discovered the video game, which quickly became a favorite. So, I hear this line a lot lately.
