Hi everyone,
I am the sad owner of a crappy blender. I've decided to spend some money and find a machine that will do these two things:

1) truly crush ice, so that I make a decent frappaccino out of frozen coffee & milk cubes

2) grind my own almonds, hazlenuts into a coarse flour

If you do either of the above, what do you use? I've never owned a food processor & was surprised by how expensive they are. Are they a good investment for someone who LCs?

Thanks for any advice.

I've owned more than my share of crappy blenders. 7 years ago I broke down and bought a Vita-Mix. Excellent item. Has a wet container for crushing ice, making smoothies, etc and also a dry container that will grind nuts, seeds, and grains.
Very expensive - but you won't have to buy another.
Mine developed a problem with the blades a few days ago. I called them up and they are sending me the part. Free. Not even shipping. And I bought this seven years ago!

I had been wanting a food processor desperately almost since I started LCing 10 months ago, and finally got one for a wedding present when I got married last month. I've used it at least three or four times a week since then, and I absolutely love it. I make hazelnut/almond meal for cheesecake crusts, shred zucchini for hash browns, chop onions/garlic/herbs, puree mushrooms into pate, grate cheese, shred cabbage, and about a hundred other things. So yes, for me, I'd say it's been a great investment, bearing in mind that I cook both lunch and dinner pretty much every day and like to experiment with recipes. If you don't cook much, you won't get as much out of it. I do keep mine on the counter, where I can just throw something in it when I think it might be useful instead of having to lug it out of the cabinet. I wouldn't use it nearly as much if I stored it most of the time, so you may want to factor in your kitchen counter space as well.

As for how machines handle foods, I have not found my (relatively cheap) blender to be good for dealing with dry stuff like almonds, and of course it can't shred/slice/dice. However, I don't think food processors are very good at dealing with ice, though I haven't personally tried it. I have tried grinding nut flour in a mini-prep in the past, and it did an OK job although it took a while. Mini-preps are quite inexpensive, and you might consider getting one of those along with something more suited to crushing ice.

I love my food processor and use it to slice, dice, chop, shred, mix and blend everything. I often use it instead of a blender or beaters. The only thing it won't do is whip cream and egg whites.

I use mine to make daquiris. Get as good a quality as you can afford. I have a Cuisinart. Mine lasted 12 years and is still going strong.

Thanks you guys. I'm so excited about getting food processor now! I loved all the ideas about what you can do with it. Wow, that Vitamix sounds incredible, but I'm not sure if I can convince dh to spend that kind of money on a kitchen appliance , especially since he will not come on board with LC'ing. He hates vegetables and nuts.

For any other frappacion addicts, there's a hillarious review of the Braun Powerblend MX 2050 Blender at Epinions.com. This blender apparently does the trick & it's only about $50. I found this before I saw the responses here, so now I'm thinking I might have to get both

Sorry to get in late on this, but I agree about the VitaMix being the absolute best blender. I covet this blender, but it's expensive, so it will have to wait. I have a KitchenAid (a gift), and though the sides do not have a good enough slope so that everything gets run through the blade, it makes quite good crushed ice... pardon me while I fondly remember the days when I drank margaritas regularly.

As for the food processor, I don't know how I ever got through life without this tool. For some meals, I will use this thing 4-5 times. My favorite part: it grates cheese. FAST. I /despise/ grating cheese by hand. But of course, I love melty cheese and so does the rest of my familiy. I love that I can toss in tomatillos, cilantro, a poblano, half an onion, a couple cloves of garlic and squeeze a lime's worth of juice over all, pulse a few times and I have my favorite green salsa. Or pulse up cubes of chuck steak for very fresh ground beef burgers. And pretty much all of Rick Bayless' mole recipes would be impossible, to me, without my lovely food processor.

If you are wondering, the food processor is also a KitchenAid, and was also a gift. For any future purchases, I will be using Cook's Illustrated as my research reference, as their equipment recommendations have never gone wrong by me. One thing about the KitchenAid, though... the little piece that holds the disks was lost during our last move. I contacted the company and they sent a replacement part for free. That's what I call customer service.

Hope this helps,

Erin Ptacek