Mixing Things Up

This week I had the unpleasant experience of poor culinary judgment. Placing hot soup in a Blendtec Blender, then covering the steam vent on top with a towel and hitting the pulse button will cause you to have nasty burns on your arms, not to mention a kitchen covered in soup. Suffice it to say now that the burns are healing and the kitchen will be right once more with a bit of paint, I am still impressed with just how great a piece of machinery the blender is.

I was out in the Provo, Utah area recently (as is clear by previous posts) and one afternoon of "lets go exploring," which in my book equals out to driving around until something looks interesting and makes me want to stop, led to an interesting discovery. While trying to get to some unknown body of water in the distance, my husband and I passed through a light industrial district.
We both spotted the building and the sign and the same time. There it was... headquarters to one of the coolest kitchen devices on the planet and we'd accidentally found it. Feeling either slightly brave or crazy from the higher altitude, we went inside. The friendliest woman at the front desk was more than gracious, taking us into the small factory store as it was while chatting with us the whole time. She asked if we'd seen the "Will it Blend?" series of videos. Of course we had, it's what sparked my original interest in the device, and anything that can turn over 50 matchbox cars into dust in mere seconds can surely be an asset in my kitchen. Who doesn't need to decimate something at some point, right? Anyway, she offered to show us the set where they film the videos. I think walking onto that set was the high point of my entire trip to Utah, making the time spent in delayed flights and uncomfortable airline seats worth it. It's actually in a corner of what appears to be a factory employee break room. The table to the side holds a variety of soon-to-be-dust items such as plastic toys and cans of Spam, while several rakes sit waiting their impending doom nearby too. Yes, I think that this really was the highlight of my entire trip.

The Blender Tests

I couldn't wait long to try out the new blender (Blendtec, just got it in, see previous post for details if you missed it.) I picked two very different recipes from the included cookbook to test it's abilities. I would classify both as successful.

After a quick spin with 4 cups of ice just to see if it really did make snow and some thoughts of making snowcream, I dumped the ice and went forward with the experiments. Given the warmer winter we've had, I can't say snowcream is out of the running long-term. First I made Peanut Butter Ice Cream. The only advance preparation required is to make ice cubes out of non-dairy creamer. Toss those, peanut butter, a bit more creamer, vanilla and some sugar into the blender and press the "ice cream" button. A few seconds later you have Peanut Butter Ice Cream, but in more of a soft-serve texture. I put it in the freezer to firm up, which after about 3 hours made it very good. The only flaw in this experiment wasn't the blender or the recipe, but my idea to use natural peanut butter, which simply doesn't have the sweetness you need from the sugar in regular peanut butter to make an excellent ice cream.

My next choice was Taco Soup. The interesting ingredient was 3 tablespoons of unpopped popcorn kernels. Yes, unpopped, teeth chipping kernels. You'd never know they were there when the soup was complete, and it added a touch of a corn taste to the soup. I used hot water, where the instructions indicate from several of their soups you can use cold water; just press the Soups button two or three times. It comes out nice and hot. It makes a great base for soup, and to accomplish more complex or blended flavors, you could simmer the blended base for as long as you like. Just the idea that I could put together a fresh soup in a matter of minutes is great; it would be good for last minute or surprise guests or to make a quick batch for lunch.

The only complaint I can think of about the machine is that it is quite loud. You won't be chatting while making your soup or ice cream. Since it only takes about a minute and a half for most recipes, the break in conversation might be just what you needed.

Will it Blend?

If you have a Blendtec Blender, it most likely will. Mine arrived today. So far I'm very impressed. For those who haven't heard of this gadget, check out the Blendtec website. Once you see the Total Blender and you get past the sticker shock, check out their videos to see why they are appropriately proud of their product. Tom Dickson lets his personality add to the demonstrations, making them even more entertaining. As tempting as it is, I've avoided the Matchbox cars and Rake tests so far. (That's not to say something not intended to be blended will avoid all confrontations. If you know my husband, you know I will have to guard it closely.)

Shipped with the blender is an exceptionally good cookbook. Usually the cookbooks that arrive with any small kitchen appliance are a few pages that are a mere tiny step above some photocopied pages stapled together. The one included with the Kitchen Aid stand mixers is decent, but this is better than some cookbooks I've picked up at bookstores. Full color, almost 250 pages, all recipes that heavily rely on the blender. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the book is that every recipe includes very thorough nutritional data. For example, their Carrot Cake recipe has 14.36 ug of Selenium per 1 slice serving. Yes, that over-the-top kind of complete data you can only get from a very unique company.

It has a one-line display on the front and a series of pre-programmed buttons designed for everything from smoothies to soups. It also has buttons to speed up, slow down and pulse.

And yes, four cups of ice will make snow in 30 seconds.