With practice, I've been able to get decent results chopping onion and peppers in a food processor - its a question of not putting in too much and 'pulsing' the blade. Even then there are always a few larger pieces that need to be chopped again. They also work well with mushing up garlic - but you have to be doing enough - like 10-20 cloves. When I'm making a batch of 12 quarts of tomato/onion/pepper/garlic sauce, and cutting up a dozen onions and 18 or so peppers, the food processor saves an awful lot of time. I have enough nerve damage in my hands that it would be impossible to chop that much up w/o a food processor.

Okay, well here is what I ended up doing. I put the first peach in the food processor and pulsed a couple of times. The chunk size seemed okay, so I did the rest of the peaches for that batch in the food processor. I would describe it as somthing between grated to a fine dice with a few decent sized chunks. Any, after the first batch I saw Dave's suggestion about the chopper, so I used that for my second batch, and like that much better. Thanks for the suggestion! Tomorrow afternoon, I'll make a couple batches of Spiced Peach Jam and that should finish off the case of peaches. DH was nice enough to pick up some more 1/2 pint jars, sugar, and more pectin for me, so I should be good to go. After the peaches, I think I'm done with jams/jellies until the local apple crop starts coming in. Hopefully, the cucumbers will start producing enough to make some pickles soon. I'd love to make a batch of Annie's Salsa, but who knows if the tomatoes will ever get ripe! Sure feels good to be canning again! Bonnie

I do not own any Calphalon cookware, but I thought their infused pans were non-stick. Accourding to their page (see link), it states: "Infused with an advanced release polymer, the Calphalon One cooking surface not only sears food perfectly - it also lets you control when foods release from the bottom of the pan." So it lets the user control when foods release from the bottom of the pan. Hmmm... how does the user do that? By using butter or fat? I think Calphalon is telling folks that the infused line IS non-stick (or at least has the benefits of non-stick). -G Here is a link that might be useful: InFused

san, as you know, Elery bought me a big Kitchen Aid food processor for my birthday a couple of months ago. Have I been convinced that it's worth the counter space? Not entirely. I did use it to chop the onions and peppers for those 36 pints of salsa I canned, but no matter how I try, they are still a little too fine or a bit too big, it just doesn't do it the way I want them. It's passable, acceptable, but not exactly how I want it and so I'll go back to chopping it all by hand. I don't use it for bread because I have a bread machine that I love and use several times a week. Studies have been done showing that neither stand mixers nor food processors knead bread as well as the bread machines which were designed to do just that. Of course, you and I both know that you aren't baking a bunch of bread, LOL. I made pie crust but it got too hot and I had to put it in the freezer to chill before I could use it. Not much time savings there, although I suppose with a LOT more practice I might make it passable. So, bread making, pastry and vegetable chopping? Not ideal for any of those, at least not for me. What does it do? It makes spectacular and short work of a batch of hummus, which I love. It's better for Jessica's lime chipotle marinade/glaze, the cilantro tends to gum up the stick blender and the regular blender doesn't make enough. It made short work of the dough for the Cheddar Thumbprints with Habanero Jelly, because that dough needs to be frozen anyway, no matter how it's blended. Finally, I've used it to shred cabbage for slaw and it works great, much faster than a hand grater. It makes a smooth liver pate. Oh, and I ground up a bunch of dried hot chili peppers into bits, small enough to put into a shaker. It was so easy with the food processor. So, bottom line, I think you need to decide what you really use it for and whether another appliance would do the same job. Then decide. I like mine and I appreciate the fact that Elery thought enough to get me one but I still wouldn't buy one myself if it broke. Annie