Ode to the KitchenAid Food Processor

This post is made possible by my beautiful KitchenAid food processor that my mother gave me for Chrismukkah last year. It is so amazing and lovely that I took a picture of it.


This picture does not do it justice (you know, the camera adds ten pounds). Without this appliance, I would never be able to serve mushrooms to Zack, my picky (he's not that picky, he's just weird about textures) boyfriend. He has this thing where he won't eat mushrooms (unless we're at Babbo or Chez Panisse) unless they are ground up small so that he can't sense the texture of the mushrooms. I don't know why. He's a weirdo. Anyways, I made this dish for him.

Warning! This dish isn't very pretty. It's not like my beautiful amazing crumble that I made earlier this week. It tastes good though. So there.

Mushroom polenta
1 cup instant polenta/cornmeal
3 cups chicken broth (I wanted beef broth, but I didn't have any - water or veggie broth is also fine)
salt
pepper
1 onion
1 package mushrooms (I used the white button kind, but you can use whatever you want)
cheese (optional)

1. Bring 3 cups of chicken broth to a boil. Stir in your polenta and whisk so that there are no lumps. Nobody likes lumpy polenta. It's not like lumpy mashed potatoes (Zack likes them better with lumps. I told you, he's weird). Simmer, add some salt and pepper, and whisk until it looks like this:


2. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Now, here's where the food processor comes into play. Take an onion, peel it, chop it in half and throw it in the food processor. Pulse it once or twice. Don't just turn it on, because your onions will turn to mush.


Amazing! No chopping. I am way too lazy to chop things. Throw them in the pan and let them soften.

3. Take your mushrooms. I bought the presliced cleaned kind because I am lazy. Throw them in the food processor.


Blitz them until they turn to mush. Mush is okay here. It's actually what you're going for.


4. Toss them in the pan with the onions. Cook them until the mushrooms taste good to you. I think mine were on the heat for maybe 7 minutes or so.


5. Mix it into the polenta. The grains of the polenta and the mushrooms bits are kind of the same consistency and I think that's neat.


See what I mean? It's not very pretty. But it tasted good with flank steak (I love flank steak) and Zack liked it, so everyone is happy in my house tonight. Thank you KitchenAid, for making such wonderful appliances. Please send me a stand mixer so that I can bake stuff and make fresh pasta and ice cream, oh KitchenAid gods/generous relatives. Amen.