Review on Ninja NF701 Professional Food Processor: 1200W Power, 4 Functions, 12-Cup Bowl, 2 Blades & Discs, Silver by Mark Fleming

The Ninja looks awesome. Gorgeous. So much better made than my old Black and Decker, and my old Cuisanart Minis. Unpacking it I thought "wow!"It runs quieter too, which is a great bonus after using things like the Salad Shooter which sounds like a chainsaw, and my old Black and Decker which would wake anybody sleeping in the house.But the main thing I do with my food processor is make pesto. Mainly cilantro pesto, which starts out by super fine chopping nuts - I use a variety depending on the day, but including almonds, pumpkin seeds, dried wasabe edamame beans, walnuts, and others. Then I put in some (usually frozen) parmesan, although sometimes I add blue corn or yellow corn chips instead.This processor left large chunks in the nuts at first, and the only way to get them smaller was to overprocess them, which gave them a granular, sandy texture. As in YUCK. Who wants sand in their food - certainly not me!I thought that despite doing this pesto for maybe 12 years using 3-4 different food processors and never having this issue - that this was certainly my error. The Ninja is just so gorgeous and powerful and even has this IQ system thing where it turns off after doing the work, having detected its job is done. Super wow on that, but doesn't matter much if it can't produce the right texture.I tried again, being really careful and eliminating the wasabe nuts which can be a bit grainy. Just almonds in fact. Same result. Really horrible pesto, and frankly even the tomato was not properly pureed. I could see small tomato bits everywhere, whereas with my other processors putting in 10-12 cherry tomatoes or 1/4 cup of Rotel usually just turns into a reddish tint to the mixture, which should be creamy by now.I was bewildered how this gorgeous machine could not make my pesto, a mainstay in my house as my autistic daughter loves it, and I add several types of fresh peppers (jalapeno, anaheim, and poblano), plus up to 2 bunches of clean cilantro, stems and all. She just loves it and it offers a lot of nutrition she won't otherwise get.Sadly I am boxing up this lovely Ninja and sending it back. I'm trying a Nutribullet 7 cup processor instead, as reading through many Hamilton Beach, Cuisanart, and Kitchen Aid reviews left me pretty uninspired about buying their food processors. The Ninja did set the bar a bit higher in terms of being so much better made.But if smooth, creamed purees are your deal, especially ones with nuts, this is probably not the machine for you.