Food processors

[Kit Craft]

I have my grandmothers old GE two button. I don't use it often at all. Rather I use a stick blender with a processor attachment most of the time. Hamilton beach...lol. It was cheap and works well but boy does it get hot!

[mauichef]

Cuisinart FP-12DCN Elite Collection 2.0 12-Cup. Use it or our Vitamix blender almost daily.
Also love our Cuisinart CSB-79 Smart Stick.

[ken123]

Well first cut. Took apart an English Cucumber into paper thin slices (about 3 mm thick as seen in the picture showing the gap setting) approximately using the variable thickness slicer blade. After cutting it up, I stuffed the slices into a Claussen pickle jar (with juice) after the cutting. This could be fun!

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Ken

[ken123]

made for some nice pickle slices. A extra bit of wine vinegar added to the mix improved the flavor a bit.

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Ken

[ken123]

Tried out the dicing option of this pricessors. First peeling the beets, then dicing them into 12 mm cubes to make borscht.

Peeling uses a plastic disk for this. These were large beets but the processing unit removed the skin pretty quickly with minimal waste.

The dicing came out very nicely. Here is a picture of the end result. The beet cubes are boiling now.

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Ken

[MisoSatisfried]

Looks like it was worth the wait for the upgrades Ken!

[Jeff B]

I've never owned a food processor, just did things by hand and enjoyed it. This is making me really want to give one a go!

[ken123]

This was fun! After boiling the beets for a while, I added a touch of salt and sugar and sour cream (traditional and it made for a great lunch) It did remind me of my grandmother who was an exceptional old world Russian cook / housekeeper, who never had real sharp knives - pure old school Kosher 'chef'..

Interestingly I doubt I could make paper thin cucumber slices or squared off cubes of beets by hand, (not enough patience) so this may open up new areas for food prep. Of course, I STILL will rely on a good sharp knife.

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Ken

[Cutuu]

That be peeler function is quite interesting for potatoes. The breville seems to be the champ of food processors. I may have to be getting one, but come on Ken you know you can cut those thin cucumbers. You just wanted to play with your new toy.

[ken123]

Ah the dilemma - freehand or guided cutting...

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Ken

[ken123]

This unit came with an option of two additional graters - a finer 8mm grid and a coarser 16mm grid. These were provided at no additional charge but they were 'in development'. Well this was not provided for some time and I was getting suspicious that they wouldmake a satisfactory product let alone deliverit at all.

Well it came yesterday complete with a case, manual, and recipes, etc.

This came as a complete surprise, easily exceeding my expectations. Each grating came with a supplemental grating attachment and most surprisingly a cleaning cap that allows you to push through food through the gratings. Clearly exceeding my expectations!

Here's a few pics. Now I can do cubes for fine salsa coarse fruit salads etc.

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Ken

[Pirendeus]

I have a 12cup cuisinart. The performance is fine, but there's always a bit of food that gets trapped in the parts and is a pain to clean.

[lsboogy]

We have an aging Breville that won't consider dying. I bought it when I was solo dadding, and daughters put clay, silly putty, various other things in it. Probably 20 years old - I rarely use it but my better half does nearly every other day. Thing is still just a beast and one of the best investments in kitchen stuff ever (along with good knives). Sharpen the blades occasionally and it seems it will never do anything but work - kinda like my grey car with nearly 400K miles.

[jacko9]

OK Ken

Are you going to be writing about sharpening knives or food processor blades?

[delmar]

My wife researches and buys high quality stuff. Sometimes it is on the frugal end, other times not. Two items stick out - an Excaliber dehydrator and Breville food processor. I got eyes at the price of both. But then I used them and have absolutely no qualms. The motor on the breville wont quit and the action of the blades, lid and plunger feels more metal solid than plastic. And when you hit on, the torque of the motor by feel is downright impressive.

[ken123]

Consider this device for a wide range of tasks.

Ken

[jacko9]

My current food processor is my Konosuke Fujiyama 240mm Gyuto For making dough I use an old Tupperware bowl and a mixing folk! I have a Kitchen Aid and it just sits there unused for the past 14 years (if one of my kids would take it it would be gone).

[d_rap]

My current food processor is my Konosuke Fujiyama 240mm Gyuto

That's right.

[Chappychap]

My current food processor is my Konosuke Fujiyama 240mm Gyuto

That's right.

So true. I bought a Cuisinart 12 cup a couple years ago before I got into Japanese knives and generally built up kitchen confidence. It's a great machine and I can absolutely see how they fill a need for large bulk production when time is short. But for my lifestyle as it is currently, 85% of my needs are met by my Japanese knives now. The remaining 10% is met by my trusty mortar and pestle, and the remaining 5% by my Vitamix (mainly smoothies and occasional chilli sauces). I hope that whenever things change my Cuisinart still accepts me back! They seem quite sturdy. Same with a stand mixer and baking for me FWIW - prefer by hand now. Poor, beautiful KitchenAid is just gathering dust. Breaks my heart to see her like that... but I've moved on

[ronnie_suburban]

I really love my 14-cup cuisinart. It's an extremely useful tool in the right situation. If the job's too small -- and admittedly, most are -- it's not worth breaking it out. But a couple of times a month, it comes in really handy, especially for grating larger quantities of potatoes or cheese. I also like it for making nut flours, bread crumbs, and grinding pork rinds into a dust. It's also an excellent tool for emulsifying sauces, salad dressings and mayonnaise, and making purees. And with a lot of jobs, it's considerably less messy than alternative methods. That said, I almost never use it for straight-up cutting or chopping but if I had to do a dozen onions, I'd probably consider it. It lives in a cabinet, not on the counter, which indicates the frequency with which it gets used.

Same goes for my stand mixer. I love it for whisking eggs, egg whites and cream. It's also great when making cookies or cakes because those doughs and batters can be hard to homogenize by hand. And I don't think I could properly bind a 6-pound batch of sausage without it, either. That much meat is very hard to bring to that stage by hand. Terrines and pates are also good applications for it. And back when I was baking bread and making pizza on a regular basis, I found it invaluable. I always do some hand-kneading but that gets really tiresome when going from wire to wire. The stand mixer can be a great saver of energy and time. And it's one bowl -- and maybe a whisk or paddle into the dishwasher -- so clean-up is essentially analogous to doing the exact same job by hand.