I'm all set to buy a food processor - for chopping onions, peppers, and nuts; puree-ing tomoatoes, squash, lentils; shredding cheese and cabbage. But I'm rethinking things because certain curry recipes call for a blender.
How essential is a blender? Do you think I should stick with a food processor? Which do you prefer? What do you like making in your food processor? Your blender?
How essential is a blender? Do you think I should stick with a food processor? Which do you prefer? What do you like making in your food processor? Your blender?
We never had a food processor until this last fall. I now see the usefulness of both the processor and the blender. You can do some of the same things in both, but neither does the job of the other well enough.
ReplyDeleteWe use our blender for making lots and lots of smoothies. We also use it for occassionally whipping cream, and making pureed items like cream of broccoli soup, etc. Some use it to make their pancake / waffle batter. We prefer a bowl for that.
Just using it for smoothies is enough to kill the average blender. We have gone through one or two blenders per year. The common feature that seems to go is the plastic / rubber gear or teeth device on the underside of the blender's container and the upper portion of the blender base. Often these are made of plastic or rubber. It is realy difficult to find them made of metal. We finally settled on a Cuisinart - simply because it had metal fittings and large motor capacity. It has lasted the longest of any of our blenders. The one before that was a good one, but it lost it's teeth too. Covered under a long warranty, we thought we'd be fine. However, when push came to shove we learned that the warranty meant you could take it to their closest repair shop. Guess what?! None in Alaska of course and Fred's wouldn't take it back. So I called the company and they actually sent us a new one in the mail and didn't require that we sent the old one back. By this time - hubby had already purchased the Cuisinart so we gave the other one away as a wedding gift. I guess that was some time ago - almost two years. Yippee for Cuisinart!
As for the food processor....
... never grew up with one, only had an old dull 70's model from a garage sale that really didn't work. But got a run of the mill one from Walmart last fall and was pleasently surprised!
I can make biscuit dough, speed through slicing, shredding potatoes (though I prefer the slices to be thinner so still do those by hand on the mandolin side of the box shredder), make zippy fast salsa, dice veggies, shred cheese, cucumbers, carrots, onions, did I mention making hashbrowns goes from a ten minute activity to like 20 seconds?!
So my vote is unfortunately for both products. This family loves it's smoothies (only fruit, ice and a bit of fruit juice) and homemade popcorn (the Popcorn Whirlie maker on the stovetop) with every weekend movie.
So here is the suggested shopping list...
1 metal based blender
1 food processor
1 Whirly Pop (http://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___Cookware___Specialty_Cookware___Stainless_Steel_Popcorn_Popper___1110775?Args=)
1 Set of Tupperware cups with straw hole tops to safely contain smoothies
1 set of cast iron skillets
1 set of pot holders for cast iron skillets
Eeek that sort of felt like a wedding gift registry. Is it to late for me to sign up for a wedding gift registry if I never did before?
your Alaska Sister in Law