When I started dabbling with making things from scratch, the first thing I bought was a food processor. But, as I watched cooking shows, I kept seeing chefs using a blender. In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing a chef use a food processor.
Over time, i read a comparison between a food processor and a blender and I figured out why: the food processor has areas under the blades and out at the edges that seem to not get touched. So, if you’re trying to puree something, you will either have to scrape off these areas and try again, or just leave it out. And, getting the top on the food processor is an unnecessarily difficult proposition (at least on mine, it requires lining it up just so and rotating it at just the right moment to get it on correctly).
But, the blender creates a vortex that pulls everything into the blades. And, my blender is bigger than my food processor, so I can usually puree an entire pot of mushroom soup in a single shot; this would have been a 2-batch job with my food processor.
I do still use a food processor for making pesto because I always start first with the greens. I think a blender would work if I added the olive oil first, so there’s something for the blades to pull inward.
When I’m making small batch sauces, however, my favorite thing to use is the mini food processor that came with my immersion blender. Mine is similar to this one:
