Whirling Delicious

If you read my Facebook page, you know that I recently purchased a Vitamix blender. I picked up the Turbo because it is more suited to vegetarians and comes with a raw/vegan/vegetarian cookbook. I paid extra for the express shipping rather than waiting a couple of weeks for it to arrive. It came within a few days. I watched the DVD, read the book, and scanned the recipes in anticipation. Then, I went to clean it by running soap and water through it, and it did not work. Absolutely nothing happened. I contacted customer service, and they sent a Fedex label. When I returned the machine, they sent a new one. It works fine, but the process added a couple of days to my being able to use the machine. So, I requested a refund of the $40.00 that I spent on express shipping. They did refund the money – the full amount of the shipping (not just the express). Great customer service! We are off to a good start.

I have been playing around with it using the local food available. We now have spring greens and asparagus along with last year’s roots and apples. Over the past few weeks I have made the following Vitamix recipes: the carrot - ginger soup (with Fall 2011 carrots), the squash soup (with my last frozen roasted squash), and the mineralizing juice (fresh spinach and 2011 roots). I also made a couple of versions of the Basic Green Soup  from the Splendid Table website and a potato – leek soup. For the latter, I replace the leeks with the new green garlic that I purchased from the Fulton Street Farmers Market. This is a great time to cook with Michigan produce, because there are still items left from winter storage and new vegetables pop up every week.

I have also made the famous Millennium Restaurant (San Francisco) tofu dip (flavored with fresh spinach) and my PB&J breakfast smoothie with frozen Saskatoon berries. Most recently, I made the pancake batter from the Vitamix cookbook. I made it with Jennings Brothers spelt flour, Tallmadge Township flax seeds, Edensoy soy milk, and dried Saskatoon berries. I topped it with some strawberry – rhubarb compote that I had in the freezer.

If you are a serious juicer, this may not be the machine for you for two reasons. First, it is more like a blender than a juicer. So, to get the juice you need to strain the blended food through a cloth bag. Second, the juice does heat up a bit in only 45-60 seconds of processing, so you will have to figure out whether you are losing some nutrition due to the temperature. However, the juice recipe that I used from their cookbook tasted very good, and it is worth the extra straining work for my occasion juicing.

I am loving my new toy! If I could change my Facebook status to In a relationship with a Vitamix, I would.