Braun FP3211SI Easy Prep 8c Food Processor,Silver

I used to have a food processor, the one we all became acquainted with first. When it finally broke, I decided to upgrade to a giant monster of a machine that can cook your food and even mill wheat.The problem with this giant “beast” is that, it’s a “beast.” It’s useless for chopping a small amount of anything; and small amounts are what I need on a daily basis, when I’m feeding only 2-3 people. But do I want a $500+ food processor again? For chopping parsley and making dip? No!This Braun is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Exactly. It’s smaller than your average food processor, but it’s still plenty big; it has all the power I need, and it’s unbelievably affordable. It also has a dough “blade,” and two cutting disks for slicing and shredding. My machine that’s a beast, does not have any blades. I can’t begin to explain how I’ve been making do when making cole slaw.Using this Braun EasyPrep was a little odd at first. The bowl and lid both close, and lock, in the opposite direction of my last food processor. Also, this Braun has a center stem that’s not permanent. It goes on the motor first, then the bowl goes on top of it, then the blade goes in the bowl. It’s different than most processors I’ve used in the past, but it only took about 30 seconds to get used to it.Finally, EasyPrep has the best designed spatula I’ve ever used. One side has a short scraping edge, one side has a long scraping edge; the spatula is stiff, yet very flexible; and here’s the design innovation: the spatula has one corner cut at a small diagonal. Now, that’s either epic, or… I got a defective spatula. Either way, it works great.

It clearly came used and dirty.This is how I found it when I opened it!

The media could not be loaded. I’ve never had a food processor, but I’ve always vaguely felt that the day I did own one…on THAT day I would become a real adult.Today is that day, and it’s about time too, I’m over 40. I don’t own an herb grinder yet but this took care of it even though it only worked out to be 3 tbsp of chopped fresh rosemary. It was definitely easier than using scissors.I *think* the removable parts are dishwasher safe. Every written part of the manual says to refer to the illustration for cleaning instructions, but the illustration has icons…which I *think* mean hand-wash or machine wash. I’m not entirely sure, though.The buttons are pretty straightforward: pulse, low speed, high speed, and stop. You’ll have to push a little harder on the speed buttons to lock them in place; at first I thought you have to keep your finger on the button the whole time but I just hadn’t pushed down hard enough.I don’t know about the small counter space claims. This seems fairly large to me, but maybe it’s small for a food processor. It’s got suction cup feet, which is pretty neat AND annoying. It’s also not as loud as our blender, which is nice.

I bought it to make smoothies and some shredded vegetables for coleslaw, etc. Using frozen bananas and other fruits for the smoothie base is more than this unit can do well. The chopped veggies is OK.

Badly damaged box, and processor did not work.

I was a bit worried after figuring that most positive reviews were submitted by Vine customers who received the food processor for free. Even more so after reading some very bad reviews about the seller.My experience is very positive on both counts. The parcel arrived factory sealed without any scratch or any other damage. Shipping was fairly fast and the price was great.This food processor is replacing another one by a very famous brand name costing more than twice the price I paid. The other one had an adjustable shredding disc. The idea is great if it works. I was trying to make a cabbage salad and the fist strokes were fine but gradually slices were getting thicker and thicker. In our situation that is one of the most frequent uses and I simply couldn't keep the machine.I just finished a batch of cabbage salad using the fine (2mm) shredding disc and I am very happy about the result. This is fairly demanding test and I have no doubt that the other tasks will be equally satisfying . No doubt that there are much better, sturdier food processors but they all cost much more. If you have a large family, you may look for some slightly larger machine.

The norm for me with food processors is that I use them to chop ingredients for dinners or salsas (like onions, garlic, chipotle peppers, onions, etc.) but I also use them for a lot of items I bake (blending graham crackers, chopping up cookies, etc.). You can even use this for smoothies, milkshakes, and different kinds of sauces and salsas. What I don't usually do is make dough with a food processor. I usually let my Kitchenaid do the doughs. But I wanted to see what this could do so I actually tried making dough. But being the genius that I am, I decided to try Naan dough in it first, which is notoriously thick. Long story short, I don't recommend it. However, I do think that if you're making maybe cookie dough or maybe even just regular dough for rolls it might work. This would even work well for cake batters. I haven't used the slicing feature yet, and I've never actually attempted to use them with any food processor before so I'm a little intimidated by it - but I am hoping to try out that function soon. In any case this does actually have a decent amount of power to it and the controls are very simple and easy to use. And while it may not work well for some doughs or other items, there's seriously a crap-ton that this CAN do without a problem.