Did you know that a food processor is not the same as a blender? Spoiler alert: They are not the same. At all.

I’ve been in the market for blender for some time, and anyone who knows me knows my struggle with the current blender I have. It was a great blender for its intended purposes of occasional blending of ice and milk and chocolate for a makeshift milkshake, or the quarterly salsa side. However, since December I’ve been making smoothies on the daily. I’ve also been hating my blender more and more. The great blender debate is of course between a Vitamix and a Blendtec. The rudimentary poll that I conducted with my friends on Facebook said that I should go with the Vitamix. I’ve yet to invest in either blender, but I’m going to save up for most likely the Vitamix.

My current frustration stems from the fact that the “personal” size blender container is just TOO SMALL for the amount of greens (1 cup) and pineapple or mango or whatever I want to put in there, but always with the spinach, and the coconut water, and probiotics, and protein powder, and collagen peptides. It’s just too much, so I have to pre-blend in the much larger container that does a terrible job at blending (too chunky), then transfer it over to the personal sized container, and still I risk spilling it all over the sides of the container as I screw on the blade lid. Just typing it gives me a headache. Countless paper towels are involved, counter top spray, dogs liking smoothie off of the floor. I’m just so tired of it, but then I got this handy dandy food processor.

I used it to make the raspberry avocado pudding, which turned out absolutely delicious, so I thought, “How is making a smoothie in a food processor any different than making that pudding stuff I made?”…Oh, it was so different.

Let’s just say, I ended up having to resort to my typical pre-blended smoothie poured into the personal container, only this time it was a pre-messy, pre-pre-blended smoothie poured into said personal blender container.

Alas, this is not the end of my educational journey on appropriate foods to make in a food processor, but I do have one success: chimichurri sauce. (insert heart eye emoji).

The only thing I screwed up this time was that I used the fine chopping blade thinking, “Yes, I want this garlic and shallot minced, this seems appropriate”. It was not.

After witnessing my struggle, my husband ever so kindly suggested that I use the “mixing/chopping blade”, which in hindsight does make way more sense, if I had known that’s what the blade is called. Again, I refer to my post about learning how to use a food processor. I seriously need to stop skipping Step 1.

I got the recipe from eMeals (#emealsforlife), but I adapted it to meet AIP standards. The eMeals recipe was intended to be the side for a lamb dinner, but the store was out of lamb, and I wasn’t sad about it. I’m not really the biggest fan of lamb. I used some kind of steak that looked easy to cook. Again, I’m not trying to pretend I know anything about steak. I don’t even know what cut it was, but it turned out great.

There was some leftover chimichurri and I have been eating it with EVERYTHING. Chicken, veggies, EGGS, etc. I seriously never knew the versatility and full flavor that chimichurri could offer. Any time that I’ve had it before, it was always too oily. It was just more oil than anything else and always left me wanting more. Not this recipe. Today, I added it to my eggs for breakfast! I mixed one egg with 1/4 cup of egg whites, cooked it for a minute, then added in a 1/2 teaspoon of the chimichurri, and scrambled until cooked thoroughly. So yummy!

Try it out for yourself and tell me what you think!