Made a blueberry pie -- now for some questions

[supersonic_528]

This was my first attempt at making raw food (other than smoothies, breakfast oatmeal, soups and salads that I make everyday). I used a mixture of walnut and dates as the crust. The pie tasted pretty good (although I was the only person to taste it ;) ), but I have some questions.

1. The recipe book told about using a food processor for making the crust out of walnuts and dates. I don't have a FP, so I used my Vitamix 5200. But it turned out to be a pain. Took a lot of time and the walnuts still had a lot smaller chunks. In other words, not finely processed. I have no experience with a food processor. Would it have helped to process the walnuts better?
2. If yes, please suggest an inexpensive but reasonably good FP that can do things like this.
3. Can I use anything else for making the crust? I mean, anything other than nuts. Nuts are fine, but everytime I may not like to have too much of them.

[spicyfull]

Target has reasonable priced Food Processors. You can also use a Coffee Grinder. You can Grind in the Vita-Mix, just do it a little at a time. One GOOD way to do it is to Start the Machine and drop some Nuts through the opening at the Top.

Don't throw your Pie away....You can Always use it in a Smoothie.

[contessa20]

You can get a reasonably priced food processor at pretty much any department store. Pretty much any of them will do the job.

As for making crust, perhaps the nuts would grind better if you dehydrated them overnight first. Walnuts are pretty oily nuts so that may have caused part of your problem.

You can usually use seeds in place of nuts; try sunflower seeds next time or a combination of sunflower seeds and walnuts to cut down on the amount of nuts in the recipe.

[raweater]

A blender it not made for solid/dry foods like walnuts and dates, that's what food processors are for.

I would recommend getting a brand like Cuisinart that offers replacement parts because if you can find a $50 one it's not going to be that cheap once it's useless because a plastic part broke. With a more expensive known brand model each part is sold individually so the machine never becomes useless no matter what breaks. They also have a better warranty, mine has a 20 year warranty.