I've had a Cuisinart for about 30 years, and in all that time the only thing I've ever used it for consistently is to make the filling for Buckeyes. Which I make at most once or twice a year, if I make them at all.
There are several reasons for that, not the least of which is that the feed tube is far too small to be convenient. I know why they did it that way - to keep stupid people from sticking their hands in there and slicing off their fingers. Not being a stupid person I find this highly annoying and very limiting. By the time I've cut something up to fit in the feed tube, I might as well finish the job with the knife and save the hassle of cleaning the machine. I've seen the "new, larger, improved" feed tubes and they're too small too.
However, a couple of years ago I broke down and bought a
Borner V-Slicer - the older model, not the newer model. I find the older model preferable for several reasons.
At first I didn't think I would use it that much, but after a few times, I find I use it almost every time I cook now. I can slice onions thinly and evenly in less time than it takes to peel them, or potatoes for home fries or scalloped potatoes. It juliennes cucumbers (for various Asian dishes such as Korean banchans). It also makes matchsticks quickly and easily for ginger, potatoes, and carrots. It makes shoestring style slices as quickly and easily. Running an onion through the shoestring size slicer is quicker than chopping.
I also got the extra blades for it (you can find them at
Simply Good Stuff) and an extra holder for the blades. These are a smaller size julienne and a larger size that will make Texas fries. I've also got some of the separate cutters such as the
Julienne cutter which makes perfect strands for hash browns - much easier than a grater.
I've cut cabbage for slaw on it as well. In short, anything I ever imagined doing in a food processor, the Borner does quicker, better, more easily, and is much much easier to clean, as well as taking up far less space to store and weighing a lot less.
I love this thing and in the first couple of months that I had it - before I'd got used to it even - I used it more often than I've used the food processor in the 30 years that I've had it. The only thing I can conceive of doing with the FP now are a few mixing tasks that my stand mixer doesn't handle well, such as the very heavy "dough" for Buckeyes.
I especially like the safety pusher that comes with it. My hands are small and I have lost a lot of strength and dexterity, but it is easy for me to use and makes using the V-slicer 100% safe to use. It is in my opinion the best safety holder made for any mandoline I've ever seen.
For other tasks that require chopping small amounts or grinding things to a paste I got a tiny little wet grinder - the
Chef Pro Wet and Dry Food Grinder. It makes short work of any small amount I need chopped or ground, and in fact has about 2 or 3 times the capacity of the coffee grinder I used to use to grind spices. It doesn't do a good job on very lightweight pieces such as thyme (they fly up in the vortex created by the very powerful blades) but anything else it pulverizes or chops, depending on how long you leave the chopper on. It should not be run more than 30 seconds at a time - it is much too small to have a built-in fan to cool the motor - but I've rarely had anything take more than two or three pulses at most before I have a fine paste. There is frankly no reason to run it longer.
Since I use the V-slicer for nearly all my chopping tasks, I can't say how evenly it might chop say an onion, but there are videos on youtube if you want to see what it does in that way.
I would recommend the V-slicer and the Chef Pro wet/dry grinder for most chopping/slicing tasks. Or, you could look into the Salad Shooter Pro - which I use for grating cheeses mostly, occasionally for slicing things like the smaller thinner carrots that are too small to be convenient for the Borner to handle.
