Blender Bliss
Happiness is a blender that is powerful enough to make a perfect smoothie (with large frozen strawberries involved) and is also easy to clean. If you are a smoothie, milkshake, or frozen mixed drink fan, I’m sure you will agree. The first blender we had lasted only a few months and in the YEARS since then, we’ve managed with hand mixers and, if the "big guns" were necessary, the Cuisinart food processor. This year we decided to put a decent blender on our Christmas list. After reading some reviews, we settled on the KitchenAid 5-speed blender with polycarbonate jar. We requested the color "caviar" (black with metallic speckles) because it sounded cool and there was a great sale price attached to it. The blender arrived last week (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and Cameron opened it immediately. Within 20 minutes he was making a smoothie.
Right away we noticed how easy it is to attach the jar to the motor. No lining up special parts or twisting things into place. Just set it down and go. The booklet (which I insisted on consulting) instructed to use the "liquefy" setting for smoothies. There’s a gradual start feature built in so that the blades can get hold of the food or ice before whirring into full speed. Frozen blueberries and strawberries plus yogurt went into that first smoothie. We used very little liquid and it still turned out great.
Then another very, very important question came up – how do we clean it? Once again I consulted the booklet and it said to fill the jar half full with warm water, add a drop of dish detergent, and blend for 15 seconds on "stir". We did exactly that, rinsed it all – done! You can put it in the dishwasher, but there really isn’t a need to do so.
Happy blending!
