Need Food Processor Advice

[Yarrow]

I was gifted a brand new food processor recently for my birthday, which I am delighted about. Thinking it may simplify things for me since I am disabled with MS. I have never had a food processor before so was hoping those of you here that have experience with one can fill me in on all of the wonderful things I can do with it? Obviously, it will be great for slicing and dicing which will be most helpful for me. It is a Kitchen Aid and I am slightly intimidated by all of the different blades that came with it....but am looking forward to using it often, hopefully.

[Tradd]

Hummus!

[iris lily]

I wish I could be enthusiastic about it, but I seldom use ours.

It's good for cutting potatoes into shreds for potato pancakes. DH makes slivered carrots for his carrot cake baking. Hope that you get some good use out of yours.

I make bean dips using the blender, I just prefer it to a food processor because it seems easier to clean.

[Jilly]

Whole orange cake.

[herbgeek]

All manner of bread and pizza dough.

[CathyA]

Did it come with a manual? If not, you can find one online.

I make large batches of hummus with mine alot. I also make a vegan chocolate pie and it's great for mixing all that stuff together. I use it like a blender, since it seems to work alot better than my Vitamix.
Have fun!

[lhamo]

Ours gets used mainly for hummus and pizza dough, too -- nice to see we have company!

Hummus is insanely easy/cheap, even if you use canned beans. And it is fun to experiment with different spices as seasonings. I like ours with LOTS of garlic, some cumin, and some paprika, with a bit of cayenne for kick.

[Yarrow]

Thanks everyone. I successfully made some really good salsa today from some frozen tomatoes and peppers I had leftover from the summer. It is surprisingly very good and the food processor made it all much easier to just add everything in and mix it up to a nice texture.

[onlinemoniker]

I use it like a blender, since it seems to work alot better than my Vitamix.

You have a Vitamix? Wow! I'm not jealous, but I sure would like to have one.

I have a cheap Black and Decker FP that I've used for more than 10 years.

I make salsa in it and also pulverize the veggies that I put in the dog food before throwing them in the vat.

I also make cole slaw and hash browns. But mostly I make salsa.

By far, the best FB I ever had was this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Smart-Ch...item3a8cbe81d6 I bought it from the TV infomercial. It is a manual FP. I loved it for making salsa because it doesn't liquefy your veggies, just finely chops them. There are several on Ebay that aren't used and apparently a manual FP is not difficult to find. Pampered Chef has one. I might buy another. It was great.

[Gardenarian]

We have a Cuisinart and use it all the time. For ours, we use the steel blade for pretty much everything - the plastic blade that is recommended for dough and cakes doesn't work as well as the steel. There is also a grating attachment that is pretty handy.

I do chop tomatoes by hand for things like salsa or tabouleh - they get too ground up in the food processor. But tomatoes are easy to chop. The FP is wonderful for just throwing in a bunch of celery, carrots, onions, etc. for soup.