i have a blender...but it's only got two or three settings. sometimes i see recipes that actually say to use a food processor and i wonder how many of those i could get away with making in the blender...probably not much. i mean for instance, i've been wanting to make pesto and it seems like a food processor wouldn't really be necessary. i don't want to break my blender though!
i do cook quite a bit and i like to experiment but i'm not in a position to be buying every big ticket kitchen item there is. ladies who have food processors, how much do you use them? is it worth it? and what size do you recommend? i'm thinking about like a 7 cup one. i'm assuming this adorable miniprep one is probably too small for most tasks?
I haven't really come across the need to have a food processor but the one I have is the tiny 1.5 cup black and decker one and that tends to do the trick on most things. I would think a blender could work but I'm not sure how much you might lose from the shape of a blender (you know with scraping it out and stuff). I would give it a try and if it doesn't work out then get a food processor. Plus ice is pretty hard so I would assume a blender could handle some hard foods...
i have a food processor (it's big... around 11 cups i want to say) and i use it pretty often for the amount of cooking i do. i had the small mini-prep one years ago and i broke it the second time i used it. it was too small, anyway.
i use mine mostly for making bread, pizza and pie dough (so much easier than kneading by hand) and it's great for nuts — you mentioned that you wanted to make pesto, which has walnuts in it (right?) so it would be perfect for that. i don't know if i'd risk putting walnuts in my blender.
Like hotcocoa, i have a huge food processor. I use it several times a week but i cook a lot. This weekend i made hummus, cannoli filling, and ground nut flour. I tried to get away with just a blender but it was an extreme pain in the ass to scrape out ingredients. I guess it just depends on how much you cook.
I only have a blender, and I often use it for recipes that call for a food processor. It works, but it is a pain in the ass. It takes a lot longer than a food processor and isn't as easy to clean.