Food Processor?

[ncage1974]

I hope there are some of you that have either used both of these food processors or at least looked at them at a local store. Im looking at the two following units:
Amazon.com: Cuisinart DFP-14BCN 14-Cup Food Processor, Brushed Stainless Steel: Home & Garden
Amazon.com: KitchenAid KFP750CR 700-Watt 12-Cup Food Processor, Chrome: Home & Garden

Both of these units are highly rated on amazon. One of the pluses with the cusinart is that it comes with a 14 cup bowl. I also prefer the look a little more.

The only two of those units i could locally was a 7 cup cuisinart that looked just like the one above but it was 7 cup. I loved the wide feed tube design in this thing. It seemed pretty hefty for a 7 cup unit. Anyways i had the previous designed kitchaid food processor (i think it was 11 cup) but i was being an idiot one day and held it by the shaft that turns the blade. Well it slipped. I droped it and it landed right on this shaft not only bending the shaft but also severly pitting my cermanic floor (which is fixed now). How much do i use this? Hmm i wouldn't say that often but when i need it i need it. I prefer pesto made in the food processor over the blender and in the summer i make a variety of pestos: basil, cilantro, green chile, pablano, and sun dried tomato.

Did i like my kitchenaid unit? Yes i did. It was very heavy duty. Only thing i didn't like was the feed tube and having to chop everything before i put it in. Thats why i love the cuisinart so much. Since i have havent' looked at the brand new design of the kitchenaid maybe they are just as good. I don't know.

Be aware im not interested in this cuisinart unit:
Amazon.com: Cuisinart DLC-2011BCN Prep 11 Plus Food Processor, Brushed Chrome: Home & Garden

which seems to have some of the same problems as their blenders (i had the problem with the blenders) thier parts crack easily. I guess no company is perfect. So if you had bad experience with some cuisnart stuff it doesn't mean all their stuff is junk.

Another thing i don't know with the KA unit is sometimes manufactorers go backwards in their design and there new model wont' be as good as their last model. Since i have never used/seen the KA unit its possible this could happen.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks,
ncage

 

[redkitty]

Sorry I cant offer you help but had to say I have no idea how I lived without a food processor for so many years of cooking! We live in the UK, so we bought a MagiMix about 6 months ago and I just love her!!!

KA makes good products, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to offer opinions! Happy chopping!!

 

[Tonedef131]

I have had that Cuisinart 14-cup one for about 4 or 5 months now and I am extremely happy with it. I can't help you with the kitchenaid one since I have never used it.

About the Cuisinart, you are right, the 14-cup capacity is really nice and it is a great looking unit. The motor is very powerful and has never bogged down on me even when making dough. It is also unbelievably quiet. I do have one complaint about it though, a pretty serious design flaw. The feed tube is nice and wide so you can get some potatoes or big pieces of cheese down in there, and then there is a very thin one inside the big one so you can add liquids while running. However, you cannot take out the bigger feed tube without the unit turning off. There is a saftey bar on the insert that has to be in place for the motor to turn on. This effectivly keeps you from continually adding ingredients and required you to chop them smaller so they fit. That is kind of hard to describe, but I would encourage you to go to a store and play with them before making your decision. They keep the Cuisinart 14-cup in stock at my local Bed Bath and Beyond, so you could check there. The feed tube problem wouldn't keep me from buying it again, because it is a great unit, but it is quite irritating.

 

[YT2095]

I have a Pentium 4 that allows me to get onto DC.

Does That count?

 

[jkath]

After having my cuisinart for at least 20 years I'd say go with the KA. I'm waiting for mine to stop working so I can get one. (it has problems, it has cracks, but it still works for what I need).
Because the cuisinarts crack, I would lean toward thinking they all may have that problem, whichever the model.... which is why I'd be leery to go with the one you may be considering. KitchenAid, I think makes an awesome product.

 

[Corey123]

I own the K'Aid Pearl Metallic food processor, and it works great, so I'd go with the K'Aid model.

 

[ncage1974]

I have had that Cuisinart 14-cup one for about 4 or 5 months now and I am extremely happy with it. I can't help you with the kitchenaid one since I have never used it.

About the Cuisinart, you are right, the 14-cup capacity is really nice and it is a great looking unit. The motor is very powerful and has never bogged down on me even when making dough. It is also unbelievably quiet. I do have one complaint about it though, a pretty serious design flaw. The feed tube is nice and wide so you can get some potatoes or big pieces of cheese down in there, and then there is a very thin one inside the big one so you can add liquids while running. However, you cannot take out the bigger feed tube without the unit turning off. There is a saftey bar on the insert that has to be in place for the motor to turn on. This effectivly keeps you from continually adding ingredients and required you to chop them smaller so they fit. That is kind of hard to describe, but I would encourage you to go to a store and play with them before making your decision. They keep the Cuisinart 14-cup in stock at my local Bed Bath and Beyond, so you could check there. The feed tube problem wouldn't keep me from buying it again, because it is a great unit, but it is quite irritating.

Thank you for clueing me in how this works. I had to call myself an idiot today again. I said well but my town doesn't have a bed bath and beyond. Well low and behold we do have one and i didn't know it. We have had it for 2 years . Anyways i went there today to investigage how it worked. I really like the way the unit looked first of all. Then i started messing around with the feed tube system and i absoulty hated it. While i was messing around with it i dripped that little inside tube that locks inside of the feed tube and it hit the ground and guess what? It chipped/cracked the plastic pretty badly. I was like..hmm this thing is built good (sarcastically). Unfortunatly they didn't have any KA units on display so again i didn't get to demo any of those but oh well. I did like the heft of the unit and the bowl size but i just can't get over how cuisinart almost tricks customers into thinking they have this nice wide feed tube that they will make use of but that ends up almost not being usuable. So i went home and done some searching around. Thats when i learned KA actually makes two units one with a standard feed tube and one with a wide. Well i was about to pick up a wide feed tube unit before i found an AWESOME deal on a standard feed tube one. I will probably post this deal in another thread because i just think this is to good of a deal to pass up if anyone is looking for a food processor.

So here goes: Look here to the KA standard 12 cup unit for 149.99. There is one catch..you must choose black otherwise it will be $50.00 more.
Amazon.com: KitchenAid KFP750OB 700-Watt 12-Cup Food Processor, Onyx Black: Home & Garden
Then you get a $20.00 rebate from KA which brings it down to $130.

Then if you apply for an amazon CC and use it to buy this processor you get a KA 12 cup processor for $100 with free shipping. I could not pass this up. I really didn't want a black food processor (i rather have red or stainless to go with the rest of my kitchen) but for a $100 im willing to sacrifice. By the way the wide feed tube unit was $70 more. Id like to have a wide feed tube and maybe if they charged me $25 more i would do it but $70...NO WAY.

Ncage

 

[ncage1974]

Well peoples i had a change of heart. I was at walmart. Well they had this GE food processor that actually looked nice. It was stainless steel and had an wide food shute and it was dirt cheap, $38. I thought to myself do i really need a heavy duty KA food processor? Do the things i use it for necasitate the high cost. One of the things that stands out that you would need a heavy duty unit is if you mix pizza dough. To tell you the truth i have a kitchenaid mixer and i don't even mix pizza dough with that anymore. I always mix pizza dough by hand. I have only mixed pizza dough once in my old KA unit. For 99.9% of what i do it would probably be just fine and the motor would not bog down. I thought i would give it a try and if i didn't like it i would just bring it back to walmart since they have such a great return policy.

Well first thing i got it home and the dang thing didn't have a manual. Im usually good at figuring this stuff out without one anyways. I did later find out GE had them on their home page. The unit does look very nice. I have not used it for anything yet but i have played with it. THe motor is louder and the unit is lighter than a KA of course but what do you expect. I love thw wide feed tube though. This will definitly come in some use. I would had to pay a lot more for a wide feed tube on the KA. Unfortunatly like the cuisinart you must lock the unit in before you use the wide feed tube which means it won't be continous but im not going to complain for $38. I still love that it has the feature at all. The motor is supposed to be 500W but it will still never comapre to a KA unit the question is do you really need the advantages that the KA provides? I think i do not. Most of my food processing deals with shredding cheese, making pesto, chopping salsa, grating parmesian reggiano, and ect. I think this unit will work just fine for those task. Here is a picture of it:

Well i still think the deal that i posted for the KA units an awesome deal if thats what you want but i think it was a good decision for me to save money.

Ncage

 

[Aria]

I have a cuisinart food processor. Don't know size or model...have had it for
many years. I have all the blades. As you know I mix bread in it. It has been an excellent product working fine for all my food processor jobs.

 

[eatsOats]

Did anyone read the comment about the liquid limitations of the KAID? I think they said because of the height of the center shaft you could only fit 2 inches of liquid. Any verification of this?

 

[ncage1974]

Did anyone read the comment about the liquid limitations of the KAID? I think they said because of the height of the center shaft you could only fit 2 inches of liquid. Any verification of this?

I dought it. It was in the manual for my last kitchenaid food processor. I never paid attention to it. Just as long as you don't come close to the center post then you will be fine.

Ncage

 

[StirBlue]

ncage1974: I was looking at this GE Food Processer last night. There is not too much information on the outside of the box. Does this unit chop? When I make a stew, my vegetables are cut into 2" pieces. I am want a unit that will help me chop potatoes and carrots and sometimes celery.

 

[ncage1974]

ncage1974: I was looking at this GE Food Processer last night. There is not too much information on the outside of the box. Does this unit chop? When I make a stew, my vegetables are cut into 2" pieces. I am want a unit that will help me chop potatoes and carrots and sometimes celery.

Sure does. If you look on the outside of the box you will see it had a grating/slicing along with a multipurpose stainless steel blade. You can chop with the blad by just putting whatever you need to chop into the work bowl and then pulsing until its the size you want.

I forgot to mention another downfall of not going with KA/Cuisinart is you can't get all those cool attachments that you can get with the more expensive units like a french fry cutting blade..ect. That didn't bother me but it might bother some people. One of those blades are more than the GE unit cost .

Ncage

 

[StirBlue]

Am I looking for the right product. The cutting blade is in the bottom. In my other food processor the blade was on top and cut as you fed the food in.
I don't know what brand it was. I have won a lot of unusual kitchen products in cooking contest and that was one of them. (It broke when someone fed an action figure into it...LOL) (I have a Singer brand microwave)
On the front of this GE it has off, on, pulse. Is anything moving when it is on or do you have to push pulse?

 

[ncage1974]

Am I looking for the right product. The cutting blade is in the bottom. In my other food processor the blade was on top and cut as you fed the food in.
I don't know what brand it was. I have won a lot of unusual kitchen products in cooking contest and that was one of them. (It broke when someone fed an action figure into it...LOL) (I have a Singer brand microwave)
On the front of this GE it has off, on, pulse. Is anything moving when it is on or do you have to push pulse?

The blade in the botton is the multipurpose blade i was talking about. I think your thinking about the shredding/slicing blade which is another blade it comes with. That goes up top. I think you might be confused what pulse/on means. Pulse is when you want to push the button and for the blade to move and when you remove your finger from the button the blad stops. On just keeps the blade going until you hit the off button.

 

[ncage1974]

the ge is going back

Well unfortunatly im not going to be saving money and it looks like the GE unit is going back to wally world. I ordered the KA unit on Saturday from Amazon. I thought that this was safe and i chose the budget shipping option so i thought if i changed my mind i had until Sunday night to do it. Well i went to go cancel it and guess what? I got this:
We are preparing these items for shipment and this portion of your order cannot be canceled or changed.

So i can either send the new processor back to amazon (which i won't) because of a big hasstle it would be or i could sell it on ebay...again a big hastle. It looks like i will be keeping it and returning the GE Processor. Oh well i guess its fate.

I also ordered a chinease style cast iron wok (thinner than the lodge type of wok) that was cheap and of course im still able to cancel that .

Ncage

 

[Candocook]

I have an 11C KA with the extra small bowl for small jobs. I wouldn't trade this for anything and have never found the feed tube to be that hard to accomodate.
As for the 2 inches and liquids, I think it (at least mine) is at least a little more than that. FPs really aren't for pureeing liquids in the first place. Use a blender or stick blender for liquids. Or do it in stages and combine.
I think the GE looks interesting. A cooking magazine did a review of various FPs (about a year ago now) and the KA came out on top, but a $40 model was listed as the best alternative for economy. I think it was a B&D.

 

[robgrave]

I haven't the room (or the need) for a full-sized unit, and I'm a bit skeptical about the durability of the mini-models, so I've decided on the KitchenAid 7 cup w/mini bowl. It can be had for about $120 - 130, which is no bargain, but for all I've read, the unit is a pretty darned good one. I'm always willing to pay a few bucks more for quality and reliability.

I just hope I don't become one of those folks who play with it for a few days, and then get to the point where they can't remember the last time they used it. I'll start by making a tuna salad, I think, and take it from there.

 

[wysiwyg]

According to Consumers Report, Kitchen Aid food processor models KFP740, KFP760 and KFPM770 were rated #1, 2 and 3 (not sure in what order).

 

[robgrave]

I don't know whether CR has tested the smaller, 7 Cup unit, but I doubt their conclusion would be any different than for the larger units. I'm very pleased with mine so far. Very quiet, easy to manage, easy to clean.

The only drawback for the 7 Cup is a lack of accessories, particularly for greater options in slicing and shredding (one disc does all.) But I knew about that when I bought it, and I have no regrets. The appliance is everything I hoped it would be, and more. Great purchase.