Review: Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor

This contest is now CLOSED. Congratulations to Denise!

I leave tomorrow morning for BlogHer Food in San Francisco. And since I’m going to be off having fun for a few days, I thought I’d leave something fun for you to do while I’m away. And it’s been a while since we’ve had a giveaway. Now sounds like a perfect time! Are you ready for a chance to win a Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor?

I’ve been testing this food processor for about a month now. I’ve made several recipes with the Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor so I could use all of it’s different functions and blades. Hello, lovely. Where have you been all my life? I don’t know what possessed me to think that I didn’t need a full sized food processor before. I’ve gone for almost 8 years with just the Cuisinart Mini Chopper and when that wore out the Cuisinart Elite Mini Chopper. I guess I didn’t want to sacrifice the space, and it is a spendy purchase, but wow I love this machine!

Recipes I’ve made with the Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup:

• Zucchini Cherry Muffins with Pecan Streusel Topping (chopping, and mixing muffins)
• Restaurant Style Salsa and again when I wrote about Canning Restaurant Style Salsa (chopping and puree)
• Rustic Rosemary Garlic Bread (using the dough blade)
• Open Face Roasted Vegetable Sandwiches (slicing the vegetables)
• Manicotti Primavera (fine chopping, and grating)

It seems that this food processor can do almost anything. It slices, dices, grates, chops, purees, and can make dough. Really, it’s a 2-in-1. You get a small 4 cup bowl (the size of the Mini Chopper) and a larger, full sized (12 cup) bowl. It comes with 3 blades: 1 for the small bowl, 1 for the large bowl, and a dough blade that fits the large bowl. Then there’s the grating mechanism. It has 2 sides to it: fine shred and regular. The slicing disc has several settings  for different thicknesses all in one disc. That’s a great space saver because you don’t need different discs for different sized slices or grating. I really like that the bowl has a pour spout, too.

Madeline and Logan absolutely thought the slicing and grating were the coolest things ever. They helped me with the Manicotti Primavera and had a blast, and helped me out a lot too. It would have taken so much longer to hand grate all of those vegetables. Instead it took 2 minutes, tops. For all of the vegetables. And the block of mozzarella – it was decimated.

The same goes for the slicing when I made the Open Face Roasted Vegetable Sandwiches. Madeline actually started eating a bunch of the sliced squash because she liked how thinly it was sliced. She’s never wanted to eat zucchini before. WIN! You can find more features here.

I hate to sound overly positive, for feature that you thing that this has to be too good to be true, but I can’t think of much that I didn’t like about the Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor.

If I had to get picky, my concerns would be:

• Price – it’s an investment, but not outrageous
• Space – you can’t make it smaller or it’s not a full sized food processor and Cuisinart does do a good job making the attachments multi-taskers .
• The blade doesn’t lock as well as it does in the Elite Mini Chopper. It’s nice when you can tilt the bowl to the side to scrape everything out without the blade falling out with the food.
• Storage for the blades and discs. If you have kids, count on purchasing one of these Disc Storage Containers to keep little hands from getting hurt. There are a lot of sharp parts, and not really a good way to store them without the container, besides in a locked cabinet (which is where I have them now).

Giveaway (1 winner): Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor

The Rules:

• What’s your favorite feature of the Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor and what recipe would you make first? (by 11:59 PST October 13th)
• 1 random winner will be announced by October 20th. I will notify you via email and you will have 72 hours to respond before I choose a new winner.
• Contest open to US Residents only.

Extra Entries: Additional entries can be earned by doing any of the following, giving you a total of 5 entries. Leave a separate comment for each of your entries.

• ReTweet the following message: Win a Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor from @mycuisinart and @goodlifeeats http://bit.ly/cJ3wDQ #giveaway #review
• Become a fan of goodLife {eats} on Facebook.
• Become a fan of Cuisinart on Facebook.
• Vote for me (Katie Goodman) as one of Babble’s Favorite Mom Food Bloggers

Disclosure: The fine people at Cuisinart provided me with a Cuisinart Elite 12 Cup Food Processor for the purposes of review. I was not compensated for this review outside of the product sample. Opinions are my own.