Elyse, do you have a Costco membership? I saw a nice Cuisinart food processor there the other day, seemed very heavy duty.

Magimix 4200. I adore mine. So much easier to operate than my Cuisinarts, smoother action of work bowl assembly.

Here is a link that might be useful: Magimix

OH... yea we do have a Costco membership. Will have to check it out.

OH that Magimix... now that's what I'm talking about! It looks so much more sturdy then the Cuisinart I had. Probably because it's 4x more expensive. Maybe they sell them on ebay...

I had a Kitchen Aid I really liked for several years, but when it died, I couldn't justify the extra $100 over the price of the equally sized Cuisinart at Costco. The Cuisinart does a good job for us.

rhome and erika... do you know what Costco charges? I'm checking them out on ebay as well. I rechecked and I didn't have a Cuisinart... I had a Hamilton Beach. The Cuisinarts I see online look much more sturdy.

Another Costco Cuisinart owner here. Love it. Price is around $150.

Best thing is, if anything happens you can just return it. Not to mention the extras you only get at Costco.

I thought I remembered $149, so if pbrisjar thinks that it must be right! And yes, it came with a great pizza cutter, a pizza pan, several blades...Nice.

OH cool... I love freebies. Then Costco it will be. Thanks goodness it died during the last hours of my cooking. Actually, I think I used the attachments on my Kitchenaid plus the regular mixing whisk more then processor today. My back hurts and I'm exhausted!

I also have the Costco special. It was an impulse buy. If you're getting one, see if they have the one with the extra bowl. They usually cost about the price of a new machine, and mine came with two. Having two bowls is fantastic!!

Is the Magimix the one by Robot Coupe? If so, it would be worth the money if one uses a processor a lot (I'm more likely to use a knife for all but a really big amount).

I have the Cuisinart from Costco - it did come with an extra bowl and five blades.

Don't just look at price -- consider capacity also. I had a 7-cup Cuisinart food processor that was fine for chopping veggies, but was too small for my favorite scone recipe, as well as some bread and pizza dough recipes. I could make them, but had to do it in two batches, which was inconvenient.

Last Christmas, I received an 11-cup Cuisinart and life is much better -- I can knock out pizza dough or bread dough ridiculously quickly (I still like to knead a little by hand, but I find the mixing part tedious and so it's nice to have the FP do that).

Cooks Illustrated recommends both the KitchenAid and the Cuisinart food processors. It rates the KitchenAids slightly higher in "Food Chopping" and "Soup Pureeing" - I don't think you could go wrong with either one so if you can get a deal at Costco, go for it. scootermom is right on about getting an 11 cup model. My Cuisinart is 19 years old and still works great. If it goes I'll consider getting a Magimix, but the extra expense is probably not worth it for many folks.

Another vote for Magimix.

To make you feel a little better about a brand that you may never have heard of, Robot Coupe (in France) was the manufacturer of all Cuisinarts that were built until 1977 when they ened their contract with Robot Coupe and started having them made in Japan.

Robot Coupe at the time made (and still makes restaurant grade/size food processors. RC made a home food processor for a while in the late 70's and then got slammed by a lawsuit by Cuisinart and so went to only restaurant grade in the US.

I've got my old 70's RC processor that is the greatest. When my bowl broke a while ago, I tried both a Viking and a Cuisinart.... wound up ebaying both of them and finally locating a bowl on ebay for my old machine. Last year a couple of US companies started carrying Magimix which is the "new" home version label for Robot Coupe. If and when my old faithful dies, I'll be getting a Magimix.

In my search for a new bowl, I found it funny that when a machine like mine (30 years old) would come up for sale on ebay, it would fetch more than a brand new comparable Cuisinart.... that says something for the quality.

Grace

The one we've been talking about from Costco is the 11 cup. I saw that review Chef Kev mentioned and just decided whatever the KA did better probably wasn't $100 better. I have to say that I don't notice any difference in performance between the Cuisinart and my old KA. Maybe I'm just not that 'food processor savvy.' ;-D

OTOH, my mother preferred her old 14-cup Cuisinart to the new 11-cup one that replaced it. The Costco is the 11-cup. I think that's where the one she was given came from. They still make the 14 cup.

Plllog, has a valid point. I'm a big quisinart fan. My 1st 'grown-up' kitchen had the hand me down old school fp (from 70's). It was great, real workhorse! but got the new and improved 11-cup. Wish I had gotten that costco deal. At WS I think it was 235. On special, no extras! I've had it approx. 6-7yr. I don't use it a lot, when I do its to make an extra large something or another. I'm too impatient and adhd to make several batches. In fact I use it less than I did the original. I find it a *pita* to clean. And just not quite enough. Tried to trade my brother back for the old one- no dice, he likes it too! I even tried to throw in my mini-prep. Nope.

For the price it would be hard not to go with the costco deal. IMO, Knowing what I do now about my cooking style, I would by the 14-cup or check into MagiMix.

HTH,

gbsim and kitchendetective, thanks for the Magimix info, will definitely look into it.

-September

Note: The 4200 has a wide feed tube. The 5000-series does not, but it has a more varied array of attachments and a larger work bowl. That is accurate as far as what was marketed in the U.S. last Christmas. If you are in Europe or Australia, other options are available.

Last year I did a ton of research on food processors - I had decided to buy one after only having a mini attachment for my blender. I never used it that much - an occassional batch of pesto or hummus - but I see a lot of recipes that call for it, my mom was saying it's the way to go for pie crust, etc., so I decided I must have a FP.

I read a ton of reviews on Amazon and other sites (ePinions), etc. - it seems that the Cuisinart company was sold a few years back and the new products from them have slid very badly in design and quality (this is from reviewers who had older Cuisinarts). Some models of the KA got good reviews, but there was always that "but". I remember liking one, and almost buying it, but then reading that you couldn't fill it with liquid because the way it was designed it would leak out. There always seemed to be some design flaw revealed. Then, there is the size question - how big is big enough, but not too big? None of the manufacturers have common sizes. Arg!

I don't know about you, but I figured if I was going to spend $100-150 for this appliance, it better be near perfect.

I ended up buying a Black and Decker PowerPro II for like $40 at Target. It's great! I love it, it's done everything I want it to do, it cleans up easily, I think it's an 10 cup capacity. And, the best part is that - if it does die in a few years, I won't care - it will have given me every penny I paid for it.

Here is a link that might be useful: B&D Power Pro II

lovlilynne - You got a great deal. I buy inexpensive microwaves for the same reasons. If the Black & Decker does everything you want, you are way ahead of the game. For a heavy user however, it might be worth noting that Cook's illustrated did not recommend it saying "even simple tasks proved too much for the Black & Decker, and forget about more difficult tasks such as making bread dough or pureeing soup."

Just wondering...anyone else here prefer using a knife, mandoline, food mill?

My top uses for my Cuisinart are grinding nuts and flaking cabbage for cole slaw.

I like to use my FP but use it less now that my friend gave me all these attachments for my KA mixer. However, I love to use it to make chicken salad, I used alot of vegetables in cooking and it cuts them up so quickly, I want to try some recipes in baking too. OH... chopping up nuts, fresh bread crumbs...

I'm going to Costco this week and will check it out. Hopefully, I like it enough that I won't want to spend much bigger $$ on a beautiful unit like the Magimix. I see the 14 c ones on ebay but they're $80-100 more then the Costco one. One of these will be the winner!

Hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day. Mine was grand!

I had to choose a food processor for our new kitchen, as our old house had one of those built-in Nutone units where all its attachments were second rate. We have a Cuisinart at our lakehouse, & while I like its performance, it is a bit complicated to assemble & clean. So, I went with the Cooks Illustrated recommendation & bought the 12 cup KitchenAid from Amazon. After 1 1/2 years, I still really like it & prefer it to our Cuisinart. It came with a mini-bowl, perfect for chopping small quantities that would get lost in the regular bowl.

plllog - I'll definitely use a knife for small jobs just because I have good knife skills and it's actually faster if you calculate in not having not having to clean the FP. Sometimes I like a mandoline for speed and perfect accuracy of cuts (like thin potatoes for a gratin or onions for french onion soup). I like a food mill for homemade tomato or applesauce where I want a very even but more rustic texture which lets everybody know right away it didn't come out of a can or jar - also, a food mill can remove apple/tomato peels & seeds which can be a time saver. But besides chopping nuts, I still like the FP for larger veg cutting jobs where I don't need an exact cut, love it for making pestos and it does a good job on lighter doughs. While I'll use a wand/immersion blender for a rough soup puree, I like the FP for a smooth puree of soup or berry coulis (before I run it through a strainer). The FP grater attachment is swell for rapidly grating larger amounts of cheese, potatoes, carrots... The FP is still a "must have" for a well equipped kitchen imo.

Plllog, I actually end up using a knife most often for chopping and mincing. I use the FP for shredding veggies. I also use the FP for giant jobs, like when I made salsa in large batches, and the quick and easy approach is more important than even sizing. I should probably use it more frequently, but it seems, so often, just as fast to grab a knife and chop, than get it all out and have to clean it up.

I used to like my stick blender for doing blended soups...Until it hit a bone and didn't work right again... So now I use my beloved Blend Tec blender, because it won't get too full and leak down the center like the FP. -But it does make it too smooth sometimes.

I usually use my Cuisinart small chopper/food processor for nuts.

I don't own a mandoline.

I have never made bread, pizza, or pie crust dough in the FP. Not sure it could do the size of batches I make, but I just never found a reason to use it, doing my pie crust by hand and the yeast doughs in a stand mixer.