Has anyone here "ground" your own meat in a food processor? I have some chicken breasts I can thaw out and was thinking of picking up some chicken thighs for more moistness but I don't have a grinder. But I do have a small-ish food processor.
Also, it talks about microwaving the ground meat and I was wondering whether I could safely skip that step and just dump it into the crock pot after grinding it. I mean it's not like it won't be cooked. I'm supposing they nuked it sheerly for removing extra liquid and for that, I could start the meat and spoon/drain off liquid before adding other items.
What say you, cousins?
(Oh and I also have some barley I need to use since even though I'm going to gradually go low carb, I'm not wasting food. I will, however, only use half or less of barley than the amount of rice called for in the recipe)
EDIT: Ah ha! In the comments it mentions the recipe was adaped from one from Cook's Illustrated and the microwaving was to keep the chicken from becoming mealy. Since I trust Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen, I'll be employing said nuking device as called for.