For weeks now I have been wanting to cook up a batch of my delicious cheese-n-rice enchiladas (based on my grandmother's original recipe), but it's a 2-hour ordeal and makes one heck of a mess in the kitchen. Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of time. Tonight was no different, but I just didn't care. If I didn't do it tonight, it wouldn't happen anytime soon... certainly not before I leave for Europe. So screw it, everything else in my stressful life can just wait.
But then the terror starts to settle in.
According to my "100 Things," I am most afraid of deep water, heights, and freaky bugs. But there is one things that tops all of those: my Cuisinart food processor. Or, as I prefer to call it, THE WHIRLING BLADES OF CERTAIN DEATH!!. I am mortified at the very thought of having to use that thing.
But when a recipe calls for a two full pounds of grated cheese, you really don't have much choice. To grate it by hand would take weeks. So, with adequate precautions in place, I face my deepest fear...
And twenty seconds later, Cuisinart has decimated my brick of cheese into tidy shreds. After unplugging this foul mechanical demon, I'm off to make enchiladas. Two hours after that, a delicious fiesta of exotic delights ensues.
But that's not going to keep me from having nightmares tonight. -sob!-
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aww *comfort* 🙂
I don’t buy solid cheese anymore – too much trouble. I buy it pre-shredded for not much more cost 🙂
Heh! Cutest cartoon yet!
You know, Dave, you could (at considerable expense, granted) just BUY your cheese pre grated, thus saving your digits from certain removal. I’m afraid of my little Braun chopper, too, though I might be more afraid of the clean up than anything else. I only use it for heavy chopping, as I HATE cleaning it. Mmm…cheesy enchiladas, I might whip up my fave sour cream chicken enchiladas. Norwegian cost? only $54.95!
My Cuisinart actually isn’t that bad to clean, because I can just pop everything into the dishwasher… BUT, handling those impossibly-sharp blades with out cutting yourself is a bit of a challenge.
I usually do buy my cheese pre-shredded except for enchiladas; I need so much of it that it would be heinously expensive. To save money, I bite the bullet and use the WHIRLING BLADES OF DEATH!! Then sob uncontrollably over having to do so. 🙂
What scares me about such devices is having seen horror films where sharp electrical devices suddenly spring into life for no reason. I get a startlingly vivid and disturbing image in my mind every time I reach inside the processor to remove the blades for cleaning. [shudder]
Incidentally, don’t they always use the cheapest available re-processed re-constituted cheese for the pre-shredded varieties? Or is that just in the UK?
Yep, that’s exactly the mindset… a death-bringing device suddenly turning on for no good reason at all. I’m equally afraid of the garbage disposal, though the see-through container on a Cuisinart makes it a bit worse in the imagination.
Pre-shredded cheese is often name-brand stuff (like Kraft and by beloved Tillamook), so it’s just as good as the bricks here (though much more expensive). You can buy cheap brands that are of questionable origin and quality, but I’ve never taken the risk! 🙂
I can kinda relate to your “blades-O-death” psychosis. I feel the same way (to the extreme) about meat slicers. Aaaaiigh! Just the images it conjures up when I say it stress me out.
There is a scene in Children of the Corn where the owner of the diner’s face is forced down into the whirling meat slicer that will forever haunt me. They even had the nerve to put that picture in the paperback movie tie-in version of the book!
My parents owned a meat market when I was growing up and I just couldn’t stand to be anywhere around when I heard that horrid thing start up. All I could picture was someone holding a stick of bologna/ham/salami, etc. and slipping and….Aaaaiiiiggghhh! The horror! The horror!!!!