For many years, Katie and I have been using a tiny little food processor for our kitchen chopping needs. It's a great food processor, don't get me wrong... just really small. If we were ever prepping a large amount of food, we'd need to use the thing in phases and that just got to be a pain in the butt because you'd rarely have consistency.

A couple weeks ago, we finally took the plunge and bought ourselves a much larger food processor in the form of the Cuisinart Pro Classic 7-Cup Food Processor (model DLC-10S).

Geez, these things are not cheap. But once you've taken the plunge, there's no going back.

We used it for the first time last week to make large batches of guacamole and salsa. We like to make a lot of each and have it around for a while and even share with some friends. So if the Cuisinart can withstand all the chopping that would be necessary for Kapgar-scale batches, its place in our kitchen would be cemented.

Here are some photos of the affair. Bear in mind that I forgot to photograph the guacamole and only have shots of the salsa...

Starting with the onions.

Next come the tomatoes. Note the nicely chopped onion bed below
and Katie's blurred hand on the right.

A blur of red through the feed tube.

Adding more tomatoes through the feed tube while the rest is still blending.

After everything is done chopping and mixing.

Good stuff and perfectly made (the way that we like it).

This thing worked wonders with our Tex-Mex night. How do you say "hallelujah" in Spanish?

Here are some photos of the Cuisinart and all the stuff that came with it.

 
The blade is something you don't wanna mess around with and you don't want near kids. Click through on the photo to see how wicked the teeth are on that blade.

 
Other stuff includes (clockwise from top left in the first photo): dough kneading blade, detachable disc stem, stainless steel chopping/mixing blade, spatula, stainless steel shredding disc (cheese grater), and stainless steel slicing disc (4mm). In the right photo, we have what's called a flat chopping/baking cover.

 
The disc stem kinda confused me at first until the LEGO builder in me
put two and two together and got this.

Or I could've just watched the nifty DVD that was also included. Stupid me.

This is a beautiful food processor and I'm so glad we got it. Especially considering we have Thanksgiving coming up and we're hosting this year.

It was also nice that we got it on sale. It was $50 off the list price at CSNstores.com.

My only complaint with the product is that it's not easy to store all the stuff that comes with it. Having some sort of case or pouch to store the extra blades and wheels and lids would be nice. At the very least blade edge covers to protect people as they feel around through their kitchen drawers trying to find them would protect from bloody finger tips.

As for CSNstores.com, I gotta admit I was a bit hesitant to purchase anything there. Why? Well, we've been burned by enough online stores in the past to wind up being very choosy about where we order online. 99% of our online orders are through Amazon or iTunes. Once you've found a place you like and trust, you rarely go elsewhere.

But we tried it anyway.

CSNstores.com is pretty much an online shopping mall. It's got a little bit of everything all broken up into individual stores to make browsing easier. If I could think up a product, I came pretty close to always finding it there.

The only problem was that even if I could find it listed on the site, it didn't always mean it was in stock. I was initially searching for a chef's knife that I had seen in a bricks-and-mortar store and they had it for a good price. However, it was on a 12- to 15-week backorder. So were most other knives I thought could work as a serviceable replacement. Heck, many other brands of food processor were also on backorder. I almost think that CSN would benefit from an advanced search option that would eliminate backorder and out-of-stock items in addition to the options for model, price, ship time, and user ratings. Just to make it easier to find what you want that is available for immediate shipping.

Speaking of shipping, this is where my mind was blown. I ordered the Cuisinart on a Sunday and had it in my grubby little hands that Wednesday. An hour after I got it, I received the shipping confirmation e-mail. No, not the delivery confirmation, the shipping confirmation. This can be perceived as both good and bad. It's good because the shipping was faster than anticipated. It's bad because their e-mail confirmation system needs to be tweaked a bit. For me to have received it on Wednesday, the shipping had to occur on Monday. Yet I didn't receive the confirmation until after I received the product. I'm willing to forgive this right now simply because I got the Cuisinart so quickly.

All in all, my reviews...

• The Cuisinart Pro Classic 7-Cup Food Processor - 4.5/5.0 stars. I maintain that some sort of case or pouch for all the extra bits and pieces would be nice.
• CSNstores.com - 3.5/5.0 stars. They have a great and varied selection of products, but a large number of search results came back as out of stock or backordered. And they need to improve their e-mail confirmation system. But I would certainly use the site again, especially if they come back with a better price than Amazon or my local bricks-and-mortar store.

'nuff said.

For the record, and to keep the FCC happy, this is a solicited and paid review.