Food Processor
Why would anyone decide to purchase a food processor? Simply because it is a real time saver!
Food processors are great for doing jobs you would otherwise do by hand, much more quickly and with less exertion.
Some examples of the ways that I use a food processor are:
- Slicing fruits & vegetables such as cucumbers for salad or apples for dessert.
- Shredding cabbage, lettuce, carrots and other vegetables for tacos, sandwiches and pizza.
- Making nut butters and non-dairy cheeses from a variety of whole nuts.
- Puréeing various foods into smooth spreads or dips that are too thick for the blender (even though the blender is pretty awesome for this as well.)
- Creating nut based crusts, cookies & other desserts.
- Evenly chopping fruits, veggies and nuts into a chunkier texture such as when preparing salsas, veggie & bean burgers or micro salads.
- Making mock rices out of veggies like cauliflower, parsnip or jicama for sushi
I actually went a long while without owning a food processor because I initially didn’t think it would be necessary and I didn’t want to fill my kitchen with appliances that would collect dust and never be used. When I started taking note of the time that I could save by not having to chop, slice and shred everything by hand, I alluded to this fact often in the presence of my husband and I’ll give you one guess as to what my Christmas present was that year? 🙂
How grateful I am for that Christmas gift as it has found a good home in our kitchen.
When searching for the right food processor I had a few necessary requirements:
- It had to be strong & durable enough to get the job done.
- Not too big and bulky otherwise it would be such a pain to hall in and out that it would most likely never get used.
- Be a reasonable price with a good warranty.
- Easy to clean.
- Not have too many parts to store.
- Hold a decent amount of food (not too small).
After researching and because I was already happy with their juicers, I decided to go with the Omega Pro Food Processor by Omega.
This processor has a strong enough 1/3 HP motor with which to slice, shred and chop, is backed by a 5 year warranty and is reasonably priced. It has an 11-cup capacity as well as a 4-cup chopping bowl for smaller jobs. It slices and shreds in two thicknesses, has a feeding chute that can be large & oblong for the bigger stuff, or small & round for things like carrots so they don’t fall over and shred unevenly, as well as a slow drip hole for emulsifying, It also includes a dough-kneading blade that I haven’t ever used. It’s also just the right size so moving it around the kitchen is not a burden.
As much as I love Omega’s juicers, I am not totally partial to this particular unit and I will be honest that I have not tried other machines, however it works well for my purposes with only a few complaints. The first complaint, which comes about because of my obsession with cleanliness in the kitchen to avoid cross contamination, is that the S blade is a little tricky to clean because there is a hair width space b/w the metal blade and the plastic shaft. (I manage to do the trick with a good ol’ tooth brush). The second is that it almost stalled once when trying to remix a container of store bought peanut butter that had separated. Otherwise, I haven’t had any problems.
On a more positive note, the extra parts come in a storage container so you don’t have stray components lying around.
You will want to pick the processor that best suits you and I’m sure there are many out there that are just as good if not better, but if you are interested in this particular one, it can be purchased at the following locations:
Upaya Naturals -online raw food store (a great resource) with free shipping in Canada for orders over $100.00
Raw Nutrition -online store with free shipping in Canada for orders over $100.00.
In the USA you can purchase it from Amazon.
