Vitamix blenders
 

Anyone have one? I have questions before I commit.

My mum had one like that when I was a kid. It was awesome.

I have a dual tool thing now that has a blender and food processor mounted on the one base. I use both all the time.

No kitchen should be without either.

That's my advice. ;)

Yeah, I've been considering getting one too.

My big question is about pureeing/grinding meat with it. Right now I'm doing it with my immersion blender, which gets the job done eventually, but it takes a very long time, and there's this tendency for the chicken fat to get wrapped around the shaft underneath the blade, and I have to keep stopping to scrape it off. Just wanted to figure out if this would still be a problem with the Vitamix.

I don't know about that. I haven't ever pureed meat with mine.

Have you tried asking the manufacturer?

A good food processor should puree meat well. Maybe that would be a better option?

I have one.

HEY!!

I could mount my Unicorn tool on that!!! Hell yeah!

Sorry, got a little cross threaded there (NYUK NYUK NYUK).

This thing is the blender of the gods. They have a website, something like willitblend.youhavegottobekiddingme.nofreakingway or some damn thing like that. I love mine. I bought it used from the pawnshop and I still paid *coughfourhundreddollarscough* a lot of money for it. Will it do what you have in mind? I don't know, but I would be very happy to conduct any experiment you have in mind with it. I'd send you the blender and you could test it yourself, but it is really a handful. Well, maybe we'll get to that... we'll see.

What would you like me to test for you? The more specific you are the better.

[cross thread]startwithabike[cross thread]

Now that's a fun idea for a thread!

The main thing I want to puree on a regular basis is about 4 chicken thighs at a time (filets, not with bones, sorry :)) plus about 2 peeled and cored pears.

My big concern is whether the thin stringy fat of the chicken will get wrapped around the base of the blades, unable to be spun free and decimated. Everything that can spin around gets turned into chicken goo, I'm sure, but will there be thin cords of fat underneath that are hard to wash out?

What's black and white and red all over?

OMFG $450^ for a blender! I consider myself very lucky I don't need to blend lots of stuff. I would need a demonstration that blended the price tag to make it easier to swallow.

I will do this right away. Wrt chicken thighs, cooked or raw?

LOL!!!!

FFS no-one let Chuck Testa get a hold of one of these.

Also skinless or not?

Raw, and skinless, but not trimmed of any fat. Also, I microwave the pears a bit so they're soft, and include just enough of the released liquid to make it flow. Thanks, V!

(And if you're wondering what to do with this chicken goo after you've made it, try pancakes. :))

It's $378 on Amazon, which isn't much better, I admit. But it comes with a 5 year replacement warranty, no questions asked as long as the only thing you try to blend with it is food. And right now I'm destroying a non-commercial grade immersion blender at least every 6 months, and the chicken is being a lot harder on it than my previous usage. Paying $30 every 3 months is still more than paying $378 every 5 years.

We paid $600 for a Vitamix, including the dry module.

This is the best investment of $600 that we have ever made.

Right out of the package, it is apparent you are handling an industrial-grade piece of machinery. It is heavy. Solid. Feels as indestructible as an army tank. The motor could probably power a small motorcycle.

I will ask Pooka to post here, outlining the various things she does with this miracle device. The key point with which she convinced me that we should purchase this thing was that a $600 up-front investment pays off with a lifetime of healthier, more "whole" foods--as you can make your own flours (with the aforementioned dry module), juices, etc.

As we eat something as innocuous as spaghetti with meat sauce, she'll tell me the list of vegetables that have been puréed into the sauce--and mind you, these are the entire vegetable(s), obliterated into molecule-sized bits.

I will ask her about what you're trying to do with chicken. I can tell you right now, you're not going to hurt the blender.

We use this to puree and make shakes.

WRT Will It Blend ...

I have that Chuck Norris doll here somewhere, with the amazing karate-chop action. Unless of course, it kicked it's way out of the box I keep it in to go off in search of evil-doers.

I had some comment or another about the glow stick one too, but it's wandered away out of my brain ... unless it was that thing about that Letter to Penthouse Forums or Ask Xaviera from the early 1980s.

I got my vitamix last Christmas and I love it. I use it every single day. I have both the wet and dry attachments. I sneak every veggie I can into just about everything and can even make my own flours. I love it so much!

This is done.

1 -- The pancakes were astonishing. How did you do that?

2 -- There is no stringy anything left in the blender. At all.

Pictures on the way.

Clod, did you try semi-freezing the chicken? I do that with cooked livers and gizzards for dirty rice. But then again, that's to stop them from becoming goo.

I didn't do anything, it's a basic intro recipe from the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. I needed it because Minifob hates all meat with a passion and we were told we had to force protein into him one way or another because he absolutely must start gaining weight. The pancakes have no meat texture, so he was willing to accept them drizzled liberally with honey. He eats 4 a day now and has gained 3 pounds, but I am spending all fricking morning making them, and that has to stop.

When I think the internet, nay the whole world has turned to shit...
Then.
Then..
Then...

I read one of Clod's posts and realise there are still awesome people out there.

And many of them are here.
The Cellar is a haven of sense and reason and caring. Many Dwellars touch me (Matron!) with their intelligence and class. Often.

And Clodfobble is my bridge over troubled waters. Again.

Ok, here we go.

Pear, cored.
Attachment 37359

Pears, cored, PEELED, and microwaved for about a minute. There was no moisture extracted here, the plate was barely wet.
Attachment 37360

Four boneless, skinless chicken thigh filets.
Attachment 37362

Same thighs, cut into chunks with kitchen shears. This is standard practice, it only added a minute to the process (and one messy hand). Attachment 37363

You put your thigh chunks in,
Attachment 37364

You put your pear chunks in,
Attachment 37365

You push the button then,
Attachment 37366

And you whirl them all about!
Attachment 37367

Spinning ahead here a little bit. There are videos of the actual blending, I may or may not include them, they're boring. In the last image of the previous post, you can see chunks of chicken still. That means it was not completely blended. One thing I've noticed with this blender is that it can sometimes take the bottom bit of food and puree it fast and effectively. Then what happens is it cavitates, making a little bubble of air at the bottom shielded by goo in this case preventing the rest of the food from ever reaching the hypersonic blades. The picture above actually shows the result after using a wooden spoon to mix up the goo from the first thirty seconds of blending with the unblended ingredients. Then came the videos, etc. In other recipes, ice turning to water makes this particular step unnecessary.

Now, this first picture is after I'd finished blending the mixture and poured it out into a bowl. No scraping, only pouring and shaking and rattling. I was specifically looking for unblasted chunks of anything, like, say, stringy fat. I didn't expect any here, and I didn't see any here. But it does look a little messy.
Attachment 37368

Now the same blender container, but rinsed only with warm water. I checked the drain screen in my sink, nothing was rinsed out that got caught by the screen. Looks pretty clean in there.
Attachment 37369

It is pretty clean in there. I shot through the side of the container, at the place where I expect you find those stringy chicken threads. Nothing. It's not *clean* yet, it did just eat a couple pounds of raw chicken, but there's nothing there that will require my finger or a tool to draw out. No stringy chicken fat.
Attachment 37370

Your pancakes. Well, my pancakes. I tried cooking them without oil, that didn't work. And I murdered the first few trying to turn them prematurely. The second batch in the skillet turned out much more "pancake-y". And dwellars, I tell you, they taste like regular pancakes with maple syrup on them. They're moist and sweet.
Attachment 37371

I bought enough pears and chicken to repeat this experiment. If I do it again (seriously, that's a lot of chicken pancakes), I'd be willing to try the recipe without peeling the pears. There's no way in the world the blender will notice. I might try not cutting up the chicken, also in an attempt to streamline the process. As for cooking them, I don't know. They seem to take a long time to cook. Can they be made ahead of time and reheated? I do that with my regular pancakes.

Awesome recipe, thanks!

What is the blender container Not Safe For?

Great pictures. I'm sure it tastes good but it looks oogy!

Awesome! The Betty Crocker Test Kitchen has nothing on BigV, I tell you what. Thanks so much for all the details, V!

What a good question! I didn't know, but I did find this: NSF, National Sanitation Foundation. It looks like the Underwriters Laboratory of foodservice equipment.

You're most welcome, I am happy to help.

I have this model, but from a couple years back. It is twenty times the blender I'll ever need. It would get more use if my kitchen were bigger. I have a tiny kitchen and there's no place on my counter for it. I have to deploy my kitchen table/ironing board to use it. What functional/speed/power differences there are between the one I have and the one you highlighted is unknown. Probably nothing for the specific problem you were having with those amateur gadgets. This is not a gadget. This is a piece of commercial grade foodservice equipment. I hope you get one, if you do, you'll like it. I sure like mine. :)

Chicken pancakes...

How about I just put in several extra eggs? Isn't an egg just the same as a boneless chicken?

Look at foot, being all gourmet and modifying recipes! Actually, yes, the original version calls for eggs instead of pears. The pear version was created for people who are allergic to eggs.

I have questions too. Have you committed?

Oh yes, got one shortly after the chicken demonstration. Ironically, I don't use it for the meat after all, but I hadn't realized just how much time it was going to save me with the veggies I puree, so it was still worth it. I use it at least 1-3 times a day.