Blog / VitaMix

Pat came by when I was making a smoothie for the kids (afternoon snack and my lunch) She's really good with the camera and took some nice pictures. I'm putting lovely kale into the pitcher along with some bananas and frozen blueberries. our eco-friendly packaging! 8-) So green it's almost black! YUM! Love this kind of green smoothie. Here's the recipe: 3 very ripe bananas 10 oz frozen blueberries 1 1/2 cups fresh kale 2 Tbsp chia seeds 1 handful whole cashews 2 rounded tsp Spirulina 2 rounded tsp VitaMineral Green fresh water drizzle of agave (optional) Blend in the VitaMix until smooth. This very large recipe makes almost a full pitcher in the VitaMix and serves 4. My kids, husband and I had this in the afternoon. It was delicious!

Greetings! I'm back in the kick of keeping up with my blog. Keep your fingers crossed that I make a point to do this each day! If I keep it short and sweet, this will probably be the key to getting this done. Today I wanted to send props out to the GREAT GREAT companies and people that are carrying our nut milk bags. As you may have understood from yesterday's post, we've been selling our nylon 9 x 12 bags and 12 x 12 bags to Matt Monarch and his Raw Food World for a year or year and a half now which is totally RAWSOME! We've got our bags out there to a lot of places and I'll mention them each separately so's I can give them their due. They are all great people and great companies. Today I'm talking about VitaMix. Matt just sent me an email saying he finally found the link to our bags from the Vitamix website. YIPPEE! So I thought I'd post it for yas: https://secure.vitamix.com/acb/stores/4/Accessories-C3.aspx - Makes sense the bags would be under the Accessories page! Here's the direct link so's you don't have to scroll down and aggravate the carpal tunnel in your wrist! :-) https://secure.vitamix.com/acb/stores/4/NEW-Vita-Mix-Nut-Milk-Bag-P894C3.aspx VitaMix is my absolute favorite appliance. I use it every day. I sell the basic model because that's what I use and love. I know people love the old ones they have and the even more fab new models. I haven't met a person yet who has disliked their VitaMix. So we were totally pleased as punch to work with them! If you've never used the VitaMix, you are totally missing out, man! Ask anyone who has finally decided to get one and they will tell you they don't know why they've waited so long. You can grind up nuts and seeds - even small seeds like flax - into fine flours, you make the CREAMIEST of dressings and smoothies. The VitaMix masticates greens so it's the only way to blend up greens. You can use the VitaMix along with our nut milk bags to make your own juices. You can use the VitaMix to make ice creams AND soups. If you keep the thing running for 4 minutes, you'll boil whatever you have there in the pitcher so for raw food dudes, you run it for a minute to heat things up. Let's see, what else does the VitaMix do - well, it won't change the oil in your car but it's my main tool that I use for everything I make in the raw world and it's a quick way to make me my healthy meals. OH yes, I make fruit leathers with it, dressings, puddings, smoothies, crackers, shakes, ice creams, flours, pastes, pates, condiments, sauces, soups. I've even made skin care products with it - blends up the CREAMIEST moisturizers! VitaMix is the muscle car of blenders. Very powerful. LOVE IT. SO YAY! Thanks Matt, for finding us on VitaMix! And YAY to VitaMix for their killer blender. Happy Day everyone! Take care, Linda p.s. look at the new and improved V-Shape bag - it's looks like our fair state so we are calling it the Vermonter! http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=7 SOME ADDITIONS: Added 8/14/09 http://community.vitamix.com/_nut-milk/blog/510942/22442.html - isn't that cool? They included a little recipe in there for you!

I got an email asking me my opinion for blenders and food processors. This comes up quite a lot so I thought I'd just post it here and I'll put on the blog as well... Why not, right? ++++++++++++++++++ The question was: Also, I'm looking to get a new blender and food processor. Can you please recommend a brand, and tell me what you like about it? I'm asking around so that I can make an informed decision... ++++++++++++++++++ My response: The only blender to get is the VitaMix in my opinion. It's an expensive appliance but well worth saving your pennies for. I sell the 4500, the basic model. (http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=14) I haven't yet seen a need to go up in price to their higher models. I've been using my VitaMix 4500 since 2001 and I use it every day - two-three times per day. The VitaMix does everything from making soups, nut milks, juices, masticating greens, blending creamy dressings/sauces/puddings, to making ice cream and grinding seeds into flour/meal. There's also a K-Tec/Blend-Tec and I've only heard 1 good recommendation on that blender in the many years I've been doing this. Most of the other things I've heard about the K-Tec makes me not want to ever get/use the thing. Waring is supposedly another good blender but I have no idea if it masticates greens like the VitaMix does - I'm not at all sure if it's in the same league as the VitaMix. Whatever blender you get, you'll probably be wanting to get one that has a high-powered motor to do the above-mentioned tasks. VitaMix also has a great plunging tool that comes with each blender to help push down ingredients when blending things that don't have a lot of water in them... With regards to the food processor, you just want one that works. I use Hamilton Beach because it's cheap and for me it works better and has lasted longer than others I've tried. I've tried kitchenaide, black and decker, cuisanart, hamilton beach and a few others that don't readily come to mind. The recommendations I've gotten over the years about food processors is that it really doesn't matter too much because the motors will burn on all of these whether you spend $150 on them or $50 on them. I'm afraid to say that this is the truth. I haven't seen any major difference in the food processors and I'm not about to buy a super high-end model for what I do. We've also been known to go to salvation armies/goodwills to get replacement parts for food processors that are no longer made which have broken. Replacement parts are always easy to get from the above-mentioned manufacturers, too. If you go with the Hamilton Beach, get the "big mouth" model since it doesn't have the dual function of shredding out the side that the smaller models do. This is a design flaw in the lower-end food processors, in my opinion, and I hate that feature. I have a small food processor that is a 1-2 cup jobbie that my husband got at goodwill. We've had that one for over 11 years now and like I wrote, we got replacement parts at other goodwills - that one is an OSKAR and it's good but it's not made anymore. I use that small processor for puddings and mixtures that don't have a lot of ingredients. Otherwise, I use the 14-cup big mouth food processor from Hamilton Beach. This last food processor that I got is about 2 years old and still working great. If you find anything in your own research, please let me know as I'm always interested in getting that information and using the best that's out there for the job at hand. Thanks and take good care, Linda