Cuisinart MM-2M Mini Mate Chopper and Grinder

For me, this is a kitchen essential, for two reasons. It is really terrific at grinding up spices (absolutely critical if you cook a lot of Asian recipes) and it makes great salad dressing (absolutely critical if you make a lot of salad). On the spice grinding front, this is quick, easy and effective: grinding spices in a blender is sort of like sweeping up a few crumbs with a high-powered vacuum cleaner, way more effort than you need. As to salad dressing, I find that I lose about half the dressing if I make it in a blender, because it's so hard to get out of the (big) blender container. This works beautifully if you want a dressing that involves something that needs grinding up (garlic, shallots, capers, herbs, anchovies -- whatever) and a bit of blending. Some does get stuck in the container, but much less than with a larger food processor.I have had one for several years, and have only recently begun to have a few issues with it. It takes some effort to clean, and I have not always been careful enough, so it has got stained. Also, the controls sometimes stick, so it's necessary to unplug it to turn it off. But I haven't found another product that was nearly as good, so I bought a new one. This one I will use for spice grinding. The old one I will use for salad dressing. On my machine, I have to hold the top down hard to keep the dressing from spilling. It is well worth the trouble, however.

I tried two other small food processors, the KitchenAid Chef's Chopper and the Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus for making two to four servings of pesto, cilantro sauce etc, but pureeing these small amounts of ingredients in the approximately 3 cup work bowls was difficult because the blade throws the ingredients on the sides. Scraping the ingredients down several times helps but the finished product was still not smooth enough.The MM-2M works much better for making these small amounts of sauces. You still have to scrape the ingredients down once or twice but the puree is much smoother. The blades turn much faster than the other two processors and there are also two speeds. You can reverse the blade holder to choose a blunt or sharp leading edge. The blunt edge works well for pureeing.The unfortunate drawback to this processor is that the motor housing forms the top of the work bowl. As a result, quite a bit of the finished product ends up coating the end of the motor housing. If you are not extremely careful when cleaning the motor housing you will get water and perhaps food into it. If you're just chopping relatively dry ingredients like coffee or dry spices, this would not be so much of a problem.

Over many years we have accustomed ourselves to using many different high quality Cuisinart products, key among them being Food Processors. When faced with replacing an old Gourmet Mincer originally made by Varco Inc., naturally we purchased a Cuisinart product, Mini-Mate Plus Chopper/Grinder.Unfortunately, we were not able to examine this product before ordering and obtained our unit from Amazon. Examination upon arrival revealed the unwieldy and dysfunctional nature of the Mini-Mate: It is awkward to use with most of its weight, the motor, on top, and having to press down on the base to engage the safety cut-off while pressing a button to activate the motor. Rinsing the unit by adding a little water to the bowl quickly showed that the unit was not well sealed (or sealed at all). Adding materials to the bowl was difficult without trapping some particles in the blade holder stem. Chopping one to two tablespoons fresh thyme and rosemary with this unit was very inefficient as only the lower of the two very small blades contacted the herbs (unlike other Cuisinart designs, e.g., Little Pro). Repeatedly stopping and scraping down the sides was a slow but inadequate solution during which the blade unit was sometimes displaced. Increasing the volume to 3-4 tablespoons by adding mustard and olive oil not only did not result in pureeing the herbs but also poorly emulsified the oil and mustard. Cleaning this machine after use requires that the part containing the motor is at least rinsed, potentially exposing the motor to water. With much use and cleaning, it also seems likely that the too thin and too long plastic stem upon which the blade assembly mounts in the bowl will snap off.In all, this is a very poorly designed and fabricated machine and, while inexpensive($25), it is not worth owning at any price and, as a Cuisinart Product, it misrepresents the quality and practicality of Cuisinart Food Processors. This is all the more surprising and troubling since a mini food processor is not a new concept and this effort does not come close to miniaturizing a Cuisinart Food Processor on any level nor approach the twenty plus year-old design of the Gourmet Mincer. If for whatever reasons this is the best Cuisinart can do for a small food processor, it would be better for Cuisinart (and its customers) not to offer one. As things stand, it makes one wonder whether Cuisinart's time has passed and whether your other products will follow suit.

This was to replace an old mincer i had for 40 years that I had gotten in Europe. It finally broke so I was very happy to see a similar product on Amazon. I use it mainly to mince garlic, herbs,Lemon and orange peels. I use it almost every day. Sits out in my counter.

Great little processor. It has two speeds which is handy, and a double sided blade - one side sharp for dicing and the other side blunter for pureeing. The slower speed is more than powerful enough for most foods. It works best by giving a few short pulses rather than letting it run for too long, otherwise only the food at the bottom near the blade gets chopped.. and eventually mushed. I wanted something this size to make small amounts of ingredients for recipes. It's tremendous for garlic, nuts, herbs, onion, pepper. A few short pulses and it's done. I also tried mixing the topping for carrot cake the other day and it worked a treat.Clean up is straight forward. Two seconds to wipe off the top part which holds the motor (don't rinse in water), and rinse off the bowl and blade.It's very compact so takes up little room.It comes with a little spatula which is the ideal size for scooping out food from the mixing bowl.Don't expect to use it for all your processing needs but for certain tasks it's well worth it.

Replaced a similar unit that was a staple in our food preparation procedure. Works great and will hopefully last as long as the other.

Very handy for everyday use.Easy to use and easy to clean.Good quality.

Love this gadget, bought it for a friend and she loves it, so handy for mincing ginger, garlic, scallions etc.

The chopper arrived in 3 days and is exactly what I wanted!

Fabulous! Does everything that I want it to do! 5/5!