I was so excited. 
My box from King Arthur had come in the mail with my new mini-Cuisinart. Finally, no more messy cutting. I could just drop my veggies into there, and it would do its thing.
And it came right in time, because I had picked up a half a cabbage head from my CSA. I had no idea what I was going to need to do with it, or what I was going to make with it, but I knew I was going to use the Cuisinart.
First, I had to find a recipe. The one that Camp Joy (my CSA) had on its blog was for tofu cabbage salad and zucchini chocolate chip cookies, neither of which I wanted to make. I went through all my cookbooks, and found one for Solyanka in the New Moosewood Cookbook. True, I had no idea what this was going to taste like, and I didn’t have all the ingredients, but that has never stopped me before.
I grabbed what I did have out of the fridge. A bunch of small potatoes, also from the CSA (the recipe called for 4 medium. I had about six or seven potatoes of all shapes and sizes. Hey, I’m sure this is going to be a sort of peasant dish, and I’m sure they couldn’t always find all the stuff they needed either. I cut them up, put them on to boil, then set to work cutting up the onion. I was now ready for the Cuisinart.
I pulled it out of it’s box, read through the warnings, read through what I was supposed to do and not do, such as “don’t touch the blade”. Right, I won’t touch the blade.
I dropped my onions in, turned it on, and pressed the button. Nothing. Unplugged it, tried a different outlet. Nothing. Tried every outlet in the kitchen, and one that was running the fan in my office, that I knew was working. Still nothing.
Rats, I would have to cut everything up by hand after all
Shredded cabbage
Rats, I reached in to pull out the onions, and of course I TOUCHED THE BLADE. So, now, I had potatoes boiling, and cabbage to cut, and I was sucking on my finger, racing to the bathroom to bandage it up, and go back to work.
I shredded the cabbage as quickly as I could, and poured it into the pan with the onions, and cursed my fate.
More on the actual making of the Solyanka tomorrow.
