What type of blender?

Okay....newbie jumping in on this.....what is the difference between a blender and a food processor?

I get blenders - we have one of those.
But
why 'food processor'? How is it made differently? What does a FP do
that a blender doesn't? I have been thinking about getting a FP lately,
but not sure.


(sorry if this has already been explained here - I got lost in all the brand names; might have skipped some if this talk)

A blender usually only has one blade and is to blend things together. A food processor comes with many blades. You can shred cheese, make thin sliced potatoes things like that. I make mayo in mine actually, thats a little hard to do in a blender it needs more power to blend mayo. A good food processor I could make peanut butter as well. I dont know what brand mine is, but it serves my purpose.
Ha-v-v

A food processor has a much wider, cylindrical base, and has multiple attachments. The attachment analogous to the blender would be the chopper blade, but a food processor can also slice and grate.

I rarely pull out the food processor for slicing or grating, but for large amounts of food to be processed (hence the name, I guess! ) the automation is great. I mostly use mine with the chopping blade for bread doughs, pesto, hummus, mayo, etc.

If I had to puree a soup, I would pick a blender first by preference. (A food processor can do it, too, but not quite as well.) My blender is ancient, so I only haul it out for soups.

The other thing about a blender is that it has a tall chamber and a lid with a hole at the top that can be pulled and covered with a cloth for safely blending hot liquids. Hot liquids
expand when being blended, so the height is a good thing. A food processor's bowl is wider but more shallow, and you need to be MUCH more cautious when working with hot liquids, as they splatter much more readily and can get out between the join between the bowl and lid and burn you. I speak from experience on that one.

A food processor can also chop meat into burger. That would not work with a blender. Given the high price of ground beef I am trying to grind my own these days, when I remember.

It all comes down to what you are trying to do, and that is different for everyone!

I have a Blendtec and absolutely Love it. This past week I finally figured out what to do with all my extra cucumbers. I Juiced them in the Blendtec and poured the juice into ice cube trays and froze them. So now i've been throwing a cube in my water or when I make smoothies I throw a couple cubes in. it seems to have worked really well.

MarcyG wrote:I have a Blendtec and absolutely Love it. This past week I finally figured out what to do with all my extra cucumbers. I Juiced them in the Blendtec and poured the juice into ice cube trays and froze them. So now i've been throwing a cube in my water or when I make smoothies I throw a couple cubes in. it seems to have worked really well.

I have a Blendtec also that I love...and I, too, use it for making smoothies as well as a hundred other things. I'll have to try using it for cucumbers that way...good idea!

I actually found out about square foot gardening (Mels book was recommended) on the site where I bought my blender (the green smoothie girl). The Blendtec is higher priced than most, but is very powerful and easily does everything I need/want it to...I use it every day.

A bonus is that the container is super easy to clean so I never put mine in the dish washer. Immediately after using it I just add some hot water and a drop or two of dawn and pulse a couple of times and then rinse and it's clean! Another nice thing is that the bottom of the container is wide so it's really easy to scoop out thicker foods (unlike all my other blenders over the years). Also, the blades are not sharp at all so I never have to worry about cutting myself. Can you tell I love my Blendtec?! I use it more than all my other kitchen appliances/gadgets put together!

Rhonda

Thanks for the Ninja recommendations! We have been struggling with only a Magic bullet and that died last week. So after reading about the Ninja, I watched some YouTubes and was very impressed with the three blades of the new Pro model.

We made Gazpacho tonight and it was wonderful. It seems very sturdy and I think it will be great. The base is wide, the unit attractive. It was $59 and then we had a 20% off coupon. Next... an icee! I want to make snow like on YouTube!