A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to  be “picked at random” in a drawing at The Kitchn … the prize?  One of twelve VeggiChops, a hand-powered food processor from Chef’N.  I wasn’t really sure from the pictures how this thing worked, but once you have it in your hands, it becomes pretty apparent.  Also, it’s apparent that I need to clean the grout between our kitchen tiles.  Yikes.

The green ring at the top of the lid flips out and you pull it like you’re starting a lawnmower to rotate the blades within.  The device itself is relatively small; you’re probably not going to use this to make salsa for a huge dinner party.

Out of the box, there’s not many parts: the bowl, the lid with lawnmower pull, the rotating blades (with plastic guard — safety first!), and finally a small ring you can place below the blades for use in chopping herbs — the ring has an arm that keeps the herbs high enough off the bottom of the bowl so they reach the blades.

So how’d it work?  I needed to make some pico de gallo for fajitas a few days ago, so I thought I’d put the VeggiChop to the test.  One thing I always thought was odd with these devices is that you have to cut the vegetables to a certain size to fit them in the bowl in the first place, so why not just keep using the knife you already have out?  Well, one benefit I found is that I didn’t end up with a bunch of tomato guts to clean up off the cutting board.  Since I only had to quarter the tomatoes, not much pulp escaped.  I placed the tomatoes, along with onion, cilantro, and 1/2 a jalapeño, and gave a pull.  Hey, that was easy — it’s chopping!  By the fifth or sixth pull, everything was at the size and consistency I wanted.  Just added a little salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lime juice and I was good to go.  It was the perfect amount for the two of us.

So, it works as advertised.  One drawback to doing everything at once is that all the pieces end up the same size: I usually mince my jalapeños in when I make pico de gallo, and here they were pretty good size chunks.  I could see using this to quickly chop a bunch of vegetables for soups or stews; the lawnmower pull makes pretty quick work of things.

This would be great for someone who doesn’t have a lot of room in the kitchen — or hey, lower your carbon footprint by using this guy instead of an electric food processor! 

Lisa says:

Are we going to do our quotes on this post?

Chris says:

I wasn’t planning on it, why?

Lisa says:

Because I really like that pico!

Chris says:

Okay, then, we’ll do the quotes.

Lisa says:

[...]

Chris says:

And… go!

Lisa says:

Well, I kinda just said everything I wanted to.

Chris says:

Oh. Well then. Um… “Thanks for the free stuff, thekitchn!”

TasteSpotting has returned…

Wonder if we’ll ever get the whole story?

TasteSpotting was without a doubt my favorite food site — I can’t tell you how many recipe ideas and food blogs I discovered though the wonderful photos posted.  I certainly received quite a few visitors myself via TasteSpotting.

I’m obviously not alone in my mourning… hopefully details will surface soon.

Any replacements out there?

Update: Here are some sites attempting to be TasteSpotting replacements:
Food Gawker
Recipes2Share
Food Porn Daily

Farida at Farida’s Azerbaijani Cookbook tagged us last month for Top 10 Photos, wherein we post our favorites from the blog. Somehow we totally missed this in the transition to Wordpress, so here we go — better late than never!

Brussels Sprouts and Golden Beets — this picture won me over not only for the gorgeous colors, but also for the fact that as a life-long Brussels sprouts HATER, I couldn’t believe how crunchy and flavorful the dish was. It made me a convert.

Continuing the beet theme, this Roasted Beet Salad with Orange and Cumin actually converted Lisa into a red-beet lover, even though she still thinks they “kinda taste like dirt”. I’m amazed I was able to plate these without getting beet juice *everywhere*.

Not only was this Tofu with Greens and Noodles delicious, but I was able to use the “twist-and-place” method to get the noodles to look less sloppy.

I love the veggies just popping out of this Garden Style Lasagna. The only thing I don’t like about this picture is the little half-noodle on the top.

Every time I look at this picture I get thirsty. What makes this one stand out for me is the fact that for once, since we concocted the Sangria during the day, I was able to use natural light. I love the shadow in the background, and that I was able to angle the orange slice to pick up the light shining through it.

Lisa had just bought this serving dish the night before we made this Burmese Chicken Curry, and to me the color of the sauce and the dish itself complemented each other nicely. And hooray for cilantro.

I’m including this Quinoa with Butternut Squash and Carrot Stew because I love the colors, and because I actually took the photo the next day, using leftovers. I was really disappointed with the way the photos came out the night that I cooked the dish, so not only was I able to take my time the next day, but, like the Sangria, I got to take advantage of natural light.

Why this one? Because I made bread, dammit, and not only did it look like a real loaf, it tasted great!

When Lisa made this Lahmajoun it definitely earned her points with the Armenian side of the family. And provided us with delicious leftovers to pull out of the freezer for weeks.

Finally, I have to include this one, my first post that appeared on TasteSpotting. The dish itself wasn’t totally spectacular, but I while cutting the rolled chicken breasts the resemblance to sushi maki inspired me to plate the dish as sushi, with orzo standing in for the rice.

Whew! One thing I noticed when trying to scrounge up 10 photos that I liked is that I can totally tell the difference in photos that I took in 3 seconds versus the ones that I took a few minutes to think about plating and composition a bit before actually snapping away. Unfortunately, I don’t always have that luxury, as it’s usually pretty late in the evening when we finally sit down to eat, and hunger takes precedence!

Thanks for the tag, Farida!

As you can see, WHF has a new look — hopefully for the better. 

I was able to migrate all of the existing posts and photos from Blogger over to WP, and I’m juuuuust about done with customizing templates/themes/etc., but no guarantees that you won’t encounter a few more changes.  For those of you out there who are also thinking of migrating from Blogger to WordPress, I’ll write up the process that I went through.

Let me know if you encounter major issues and I’ll try to address them as soon as I can.

In the mean time, eat up!