BraunFP3211SI 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.

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.

This is a great, easy-to-use food processor. I was able to make empanada dough in mere seconds and am excited to use it for other purposes as well.Only 2 stars because the process of obtaining it was a huge hassle. Be sure to check seller reviews on Amazon. I wish I did. The first one I received was very obviously used (see photos). Not only was it filthy, but it was very obviously not packaged in the box as a new item (loose blades, manual ripped apart and stapled back together, etc.). If I read the seller reviews, I would have seen that they frequently sell used items as "new". I ended up returning it to Amazon and buying it directly from Braun. Highly recommend this food processor, just be sure to quality-check the seller before buying.

Badly damaged box, and processor did not work.