Food Processors -- what do you use it for?

[Seven Ate Nine]

I have the Ninja set, which may or may not be a true food processor.  I don't pull it out super often, but it works very well for smoothies and banana "ice cream."  I've also used it for bread dough, though honestly I prefer my KitchenAid for that.  I love that the entire thing (minus the power pod) is dishwasher safe, so no extra dishes for me.

[Lynnv]

I use mine a fair amount.  Probably at least once or twice a month.

Grating carrots (carrot cake, yum).
Hummus.  Which I would make more often if DH didn't hate it.
Pesto.
Pizza sauce-which I could just as easily make with a blender, but my FP lives on counter, so it is what I use.  DH hates chunky tomato sauces.
Pizza dough.
Pie crust.
Grating onions (to get onion juice) for my BBQ sauce.
Chopping nuts.
Grating cheese (hard and soft).

I also use my grater attachment for my mixer for grating stuff-just depends on which seems easier for the task at hand.

[jayhawk]

Hummus, guacamole, salsa (hmmm, starting to see a trend here), chopped veggies if I need a lot.

[jedikaiti]

We have a smallish one, and I use it loads for hummus, and for grating zucchini for zucchini bread and the like - anything that involves much grating, in fact. DF uses it for pesto and such quite often.

[CakeBeret]

I use mine to shred (potatoes, cheese, zucchini, apples, etc), slice large quantities of potatoes/cucumber/etc, make pastry, puree things, and so on. I don't use mine terribly often, once every 4-6 weeks, but when I do, it's a huge help.

[AstiTheWestie]

My large one I use to make pesto from all the basil we grow. I do have a smaller one that I use quite frequently to do things like chop garlic. IMHO both have a very good purpose.

[Katana_Geldar]

Making pastry. We have a great Russell Hobbs one we got after taking back our old one. I used that to make pastry too until I discovered food and water could be trapped inside it.

It also went too fast. This one us great, but we can't find the spindle.

[WillyNilly]

I love my food processor, I find being in a CSA (tons of veggies) its really handy. I have both a large and a mini, I love them both.

I use them to:
shred carrots, zucchini, potato, cabbage (for cabbage I use the slicer blade not the shredder blade)
make hummus and bean dip
chop nuts and/or raisins
make salsa
occasionally to blend the dry ingredients for baking
make pesto

And probably lots more I'm forgetting.

[buvezdevin]

Jpcher, since you mentioned that your blender is not working, you might look at blenders that have mini food processor attachments.  I have an Oster blender which I have had for years.  It was a gift and while I do not use the blender with much frequency, we have used the mini food processor attachment *a lot*.

I have a Cuisinart full sized food processor, which I am happy to have for some recipes, but I honestly do not use it often.  Great to have one when I want it, but not one of my go-to-all-the-time items.

As others and OP have noted, a full size food processor is a counter hog, and a bit of effort to clean, but pretty much any mini food processor is much less effort to get, use and clean.

[TootsNYC]

I really don't use mine for much. In terms of cutting veggies into specific sizes, it's actually just as easy, and less messy, to do with a knife. Even when it's a lot of stuff. Because you have to cut it into pieces to get it ready to go through the feeding tube.

And I find that chopping with the bowl (as opposed to slicing w/ the blades and feeder tube) is actually overpowered for most anything. It's also hard to get into any sort of uniform size. And the bowl is just too big for most of what I do.

I do use it for some pie crust things.
And it's good for shredding, bcs shredding is annoying to do manually.

I've thought about getting a salad shooter for the task of dicing large amounts of celery when I'm making a mega-batch of sloppy joes. (Hamburger Goo, if you want to google the recipe, though I tweak it a bit.)

If I made pesto, I'd use it for that, but I don't.

I had a smallish one that I loved--it would spin the grated carrots off to the side into the bowl, which was good. I think I decided it had gotten too old and got rid of it. I wish I hadn't.

I also use my stick blender for pizza sauce, bcs I don't make THAT much sauce at a time, and it's just less work even if it does take longer.

And I use the mini chopper (prob. 1-cup capacity) for a lot of stuff, actually.

[sparksals]

Any recommendations?

I'm looking at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mini%20food%20processor&sprefix=mini+fo%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Amini%20food%20processor

and thinking about this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-DLC-1BCH-Mini-Prep-Processor-Chrome/dp/B000H4C5F2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1367079948&sr=8-5&keywords=mini+food+processor

Cuisinart all the way.   They are the pioneer of food processors like Kitchen Aide is to mixers. 

I got my first Cuisinart for my first wedding in 1994. Best gift out of everyhing.   It is still kicking.  I actually upgraded to a new model this year when it was on a ridiculous low price.  I sold my old one to a friend for $25 .

My mom had the same cuisinart for 25 years and had to replace it because she broke the lid and it couldn't be replaced.  They do have great replacement parts now for legacy models.

I use mine a few times per week.  Chopping onions, especially when making TG or Xmas dinner, shredding cheeses, slicing cukes, potatoes for uniform scalloped potatoes.   I don't do any liquids in mine or dough but that is bci am not a baker.

I had a smaller prep one and sold it.  I like my bigger model. I could never live without it. 

 
 

[mbbored]

I have a full sized (7 cup I think) for just me and my list looks like a lot of other people's. Keep in mind I have a tiny kitchen, so I don't have space for a blender, etc. I find the dough blade works better than my mixer for a lot of things.

Hummus
Pesto (and other herb pastes)
Almond butter
Almond flour
Chopped nuts
Pizza crust
Pie crust (best way ever!)
Bread dough
Salsa
Grated cheese
Grated veggies (great for slaw, hashed potatoes or stuffing Chinese dumplings)
Tapenade
Mayonnaise (amazing!)
Smoothies
Pureed soups & sauces

I'm sure there's more, but it's late and my kitchen is very sticky. (For the record, I did not use the Cuisinart to help me make today's batch of marmalade, though I did use my mandolin.)

[Mel the Redcap]

French onion soup (I have to slice two kilos of onions for that - it's wayyyyy easier, faster, and less painful with the food processor!)
Pasta dough (works beautifully)
I also used to use it for blending pumpkin soup smooth, but I have a stick blender now that works just as well and is more convenient.

[Waterlight]

I have the Ninja set, which may or may not be a true food processor.  I don't pull it out super often, but it works very well for smoothies and banana "ice cream."

I use my Ninja for banana ice cream and smoothies too!  In fact I use it almost every day.  Just in the past week or so I've made all kinds of things with it:  green smoothies, chocolate banana ice cream (frozen bananas + cocoa powder), Green Goddess cottage cheese dip, and a great recipe for chickpea salad.

[Maggie]

The one thing I haven't seen on here is soap.  I use my food processor to grate the bar of soap when I make homemade laundry detergent.  It makes the job so much easier!  I also use it to chop eggs for anything I need chopped eggs for.  I hate to chop things so I have a Ninja (which I absolutely love) and just a black and decker food processor which I use for anything the Ninja chops to fine.