A terrific food processor for mid-sized jobs

When I set out to buy my first food processor, I was looking for something smaller than the 11-cup monsters out there. This 7-cupper fit the bill, and I have been really pleased with it since I bought it a year ago.

First of all, the DLC-5 is a very sturdy food processor. Even the plastic parts have a nice, heavy-duty feel to them. You get the feeling that this appliance can handle all normal processing jobs, and it does.

The DLC-5 comes with the regular chopping blade, a slicing disk, and a shredding disk, and all do their jobs well. I have used the chopping blade to make a lot of my daughter's baby foods, and these food purees always come out very smooth in texture. The motor does fine with running continuously for several minutes with no heating up or burning smells as I've experienced before with some of my mixers. I have even used it to make thick batters for bread and cookies, and there is no bogging down at all.

I have used the slicing and shredding disks to slice vegetables and shred cheese. You can shred a whole block of cheese in 2 seconds. My only complaint is that the feeding tube for this is either too small or too large for certain applications. A normal-sized block of cheese doesn't quite fit down the tube without slicing off the corners because the tube has rounded corners whole the cheese is squared off. And if you want to slice or shred smaller quanities, you really can't since the tube is sized larger than, say, a couple of carrots. It would be nice of Cuisinart sold an accessory to reduce the diameter of the feeding tube down so you can feed individual carrots or cucumbers, etc.

Cleanup is very easy, especially since everything is dishwasher safe. I did manage to stain the bowl pretty good once when pureeing carrots, but an overnight soak with baking soda took care of it. I do want to caution people to be extra careful when handling the blades. Even if you think you're careful, be even more careful. I've always chosen the dishwasher rather than handwashing to prevent accidents, and I still managed to slice my finger when removing the blade from the dishwasher!

Overall, I have been very pleased with this appliance and would recommend it to anyone looking for a mid-sized food processor that can handle pretty much anything a home cook can throw at it.