For skilled cooks and those cooking averse, a Vitamix or blender is a life-saver to open up our healthy eating options, unless recipe comprehension is your worst enemy!
As the apocalypse rolls along, everyone has been getting around to long postponed projects, taking up new hobbies, and cooking up a storm!
Thanks to social media, these epic successes are trotted out for all to see.
Many of us though aren’t artsy/craftsy or Gordon Ramsey.
That’s where a glue gun and Vitamix can save the day (but I don’t own the former, so we’ll focus on the latter life-saver)!
A Lifelong Commitment
The price of a Vitamix is outlandish and will cut into your children’s college fund, you say?
It is a legit problem.
Thankfully, Vitamix offers refurbished models at a discount with a multi-year, full warranty.
The company also provides reassurance that you will own this high-performance machine for life (hopefully you’re not commitment phobic) or until you gift it to your unborn children once you upgrade down the road.
A Vitamix also comes with an easy to use cookbook to whip up drinks, soups, sauces, and desserts in minutes. So helpful for those of us who have a total aversion to cooking!
The best part: toss a little soap and hot water in that bad boy and 60 seconds later it has cleaned itself!
The Raw Food Rage
Diets high in raw fruits and vegetables have been trendy for a while now . . . since the dawn of humankind really. And a blender makes all this fiber, antioxidants, and nutrients easier to swallow.
So, you’re just not feeling a salad? Or you’re out of salad dressing?
Well, now you can pour that salad down the wee hatch (a la smoothie)!
Have some apathetic strawberries, abandoned blueberries, a straggling cucumber, listless spinach, and a random carrot about to expire?
Never waste food again because any combination of fruits, roughage, and liquids will do!
Blender Lessons Learned
Some noteworthy lessons have been learned through trial and error in cooking with a blender . . . but mostly error at this point.
#1: A juicer it is not.
A Vitamix does not make a reliable juicer if you’re considering joining the celery juice craze.
What you end up with is stubborn celery chunks that successfully avoid your blender blades like the plague, creating an eventual tasteless celery sauce.
Note: A small forest of celery stalks is needed to make celery juice/sauce every single day.
#2: Always read the recipe three times or more . . .
before soaking a whole bag of almonds overnight to make almond milk.
FYI – that translates into a crazy amount of almond milk for a single person!
Moreover, the option exists to strain the almond pulp out, but how many people own a cheesecloth? Exactly.
Lastly, when the instructions say “shake well before using,” know that they aren’t joking.
Actually, vigorously shaking your fresh milk helps little to not at all because after blending almonds and water, the result is a foamy almond sludge (possibly spreadable).
Consider sticking with the low-cost store brand even if your friend tells you how easy almond milk is to make (take this lesson to heart).
That friend may have failed to mention how difficult it is to pour onto your Wheaties! Plus, the cost of home-made versus store-bought is the same.
Just know that by adding water, you can make milk out of nearly anything!
Chick pea milk? Why not!
Beef jerky milk? What an exceptional source of protein!
#3: Resist the urge to throw all the ingredients in at once.
This is really Lesson #2: always know the plan of attack (aka recipe steps) before executing said plan of attack.
#4: Even though the User Manual instructs you to add all liquid ingredients first, recipe instructions are still important to read.
A second encore from Lesson #2.
Resist that overwhelming urge to throw all the liquids in at once because cream of asparagus soup requires heavy cream that is whipped . . . for a long time all by its lonesome!
Throwing in the chicken broth too early is going to create a hot mess that only a drama queen could appreciate.
#5: Adhere to the recipe quantities even if they seem underwhelming.
Sure, it looks like the container isn’t very full when you add in the required chicken broth.
And sure, you want to use it all up now to make cream of asparagus soup left-overs.
Yet, turns out that the little guy is over-filled and will protest heartily, rocking unsteadily on its base. He can only perform so many miracles after all!
So, let the Vitamix recipe gurus take the wheel because they know better!
A Godsend for Non-Cookers
All in all, for those of us who just aren’t into cooking, a Vitamix or a blender is a game-changer!
A super versatile appliance with a crazy amount of horsepower under the hood that will open up your world!
The biggest hurdle for us culinary-deficient folks (as you noticed by now) is thoroughly reading and understanding the recipes.
But with the apocalypse going strong, there’s plenty of time to acquire rudimentary recipe reading skills and then whip into shape a mix master!
At least one can always hope! 🙂
~Jennifer
Pulsing Thoughts 