Food processor (Hamilton Beach or other, at bingo)

The Happy Wife

Thu, Apr 18 2024, 5:39 am

seeker wrote:

So now my question is nutrichef vs Hamilton Beach.

I believe I have shared that I am TERRIBLE at shopping. Judge away. We all have different strengths and this is not mine. I think I'm fairly nice though.

I bought the Hamilton Beach because my sister in law has had it for 10 years (of pesach, so in essence 10 weeks) and it works.

I wanted to buy another for someone else, but the same one was out of stock. Instead they now have Nutrichef. It has a bigger capacity (12c vs 10) and more wattage (600 vs 500.) However, I don't have any familiarity with the brand. For example if their materials are junky then more power won't help. They both have a kugel blade, Nutrichef also has additional attachments that are not enough of a deciding factor for me.

They were the same price and I had committed (not quite promised but) to buy *A* food processor for someone else, so I bought it.

Now I have two unopened food processors in my trunk and I need to decide which one to keep. And I need to do it fast because Pesach is getting soon.

Hamilton Beach has great reviews from humans I know, Nutrichef has better reviews online. Nutrichef seems to be trying to knockoff Braun, while HB seems to know its station but its station is cheap.

Calling in my imamother emotional support personal shopping team because I'm too embarrassed to dither like this in real life. Help

I have the Hamilton beach with the scraper (70730) and this is my 9th year using it. I put frozen fruit straight in (with liquid added) to make sorbet and it handles it beautifully. It's cheap but very durable. And I don't know if you ended up getting the model with the scraper, but I love that feature. It's not at all flimsy.

↑ seeker ↓

Sun, Apr 21 2024, 11:12 pm

Sequel:

So I had firmly decided to go with the original find, the same one that I had borrowed last year, which was simple, fairly compact, very easy to clean, and had a kugel blade.

I started using it and it made a truly awful burning plastic smell. I don't see anything melting or burning but the smell is horrific. Definitely something wrong with it. At first I thought maybe it was a new plastic smell, not burning, so I kept using it but it soon became clear that it was not a healthy smell at all. I had things in progress and none of them were heavy duty so I did keep using it a little bit at a time just to wrap up what was in middle. I got a nice 9x13 potato kugel, a butternut squash soup, and a small applesauce, and a huge pan of sliced onions to caramelize in the oven. Way less than I'd hoped for but I had to keep cleaning the rest of the house and car too...

So anyway this one clearly needs to go back.

Meanwhile I have the Nutrichef one in my trunk that I was going to return to bingo because I had decided in favor of simple and easy to clean. I can make an emergency toiveling trip and have greater (er, grater?) confidence in my ability to finish off the horseradish tomorrow, but then I'm stuck owning the bulkier, harder to clean machine that I really didn't want.

On the other hand, the alternative seems to be not having a food processor in time for the rest of this particular erev Pesach, for which I had planned several menu items that would be really much happier with one, plus of course the horseradish. Unless I have a neighbor who can let me use theirs. Which is not out of the question, my neighborhood is friendly (sister in law is not an option this time, she lives farther).

So the new question is thus:
A. Use the nutrichef, bird in hand, after Pesach you'll figure out where to store it, how hard can the cleaning be anyway.

B. Ask someone else to do your horseradish tomorrow, order another Hamilton Beach online and hope it's not a lemon because lots of people are happy with it.

One thing I noticed is that while Nutrichef has a very high star rating on Amazon, a lot of the 5 star reviews are from people who just got it/used it for the first time, while many of the people who had it longer complained that gook gets stuck in places that are impossible to reach. I really don't care for that. But I do really want a food processor that doesn't burn when you use it.

Help!

↑ seeker ↓

Sun, Jul 28 2024, 12:47 am

Sorry I never replied - I think the neighbor's was a Bosch. It sure worked well.

And I had my sorbet, I decided to just go for it in the bad machine. Pulled the plug as soon as the burning smell started, did that twice, and was left with just a few little lumps. It was very appreciated.

After Pesach I returned it to bingo, where the customer service desk person was not happy, but then I called on the phone and spoke to a frum sounding guy who had more authority and was very accommodating.

Anyway yesterday I saw this advertised on one of the deals sites for $99. It was more than I had budgeted, and definitely overkill when I was looking for small, simple, and cheap, but I looked around online and concluded that the higher value is worth it and it can potentially become a year round appliance (I do have a non-pesach food processor that's not very good. The slicing/shredding doesn't work at all anymore, only the pulse blade. I don't use it for very much, though; I think Pesach is more worth the investment because of horseradish plus the l'kavod yomtov of easy, plentiful kugel, sorbet, etc.) And it has a 3 year warranty, I think. Hamilton Beach was useless when I called them, that's why I returned it to bingo.

After reaching that conclusion, the price in my cart doubled. I reached out to customer service where people on 3 levels said too bad. So I kicked myself for being indecisive, reminded myself that the bottom line is min hashamayim, turned off my phone and went to bench licht.

After shabbos I turned my phone back on and it was still open to this page - and the price had gone back down! I didn't think that was a possibility.

So I ordered it. And now that I've explained how my year round one is sad, I'm wondering if I should order another, or just go back to the idea of something small and cheap for Pesach if I want this one for the year.

Anyway the moral of the story so far is that if you are looking for the $99 Cuisinart sale and it shows $189, refresh the page every so often because it might change.

https://www.wayfair.com/kitche.....08005

↑ seeker

Tue, Oct 01 2024, 10:41 pm

Excellent price on one that was recommended by someone upthread. If I hadn't already splurged on the $100 one I would be jumping on this deal.
Limited-time deal: Hamilton Beach Food Processor & Vegetable Chopper for Slicing, Shredding, Mincing, and Puree, 10 Cups + Easy Clean Bowl Scraper, Black and Stainless Steel (70730) https://a.co/d/fzYScUV

I also noticed Amazing Savings has one that looks nice for $99. Seems like all the pieces stack inside which is a huge plus especially for pesach if you don't have much space to put it away for the year. It's 13 cups so it should be able to make you a nice kugel without having to switch bowls in middle.

bsy

Tue, Oct 01 2024, 11:14 pm

seeker wrote:

I have the cheap one with the bowl scraper and it's working wonderfully for kugel