VitaMix 5200 Review and More!

All I can say right now is WOW. How did I ever live 23 years without a VitaMix???!!

I guess the same way I lived that long with only an electric handheld mixer from 1982. I am all for doing things in the kitchen the old fashioned way but DANG, modern conveniences sure are nice. This evening I concocted my first recipe in my brand new VitaMix 5200. I loosely based it on the Red Lentil Soup with Moroccan Spices found in the cookbook that came with the mixer (more on that later), however instead of going with the Moroccan theme, I omitted some ingredients and used my adored garam masala to give this creamy soup an Indian kick.

Here is my recipe du jour—

Creamy Red Lentil Soup

Serves 3-4

2 cups veggie broth

3 tbsp reduced fat sour cream

1/2 onion, chopped fine

3 garlic cloves

1 cup red lentils cooked in 2 cups water

2 tsp garam masala

dash cayenne

sea salt to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350. In a pie dish, cover the garlic cloves with olive oil and roast for about 20 minutes or until the cloves are golden and fragrant. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before picking the cloves out of the oil. You can reserve this now garlic infused olive oil for another use.

2. Saute the onions in a little olive oil on medium/low heat or until translucent. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. In your VitaMix, combine all ingredients and mix on high (II)/speed 10 for about 3-4 minutes or until boiling and the mixture is very smooth. Carefully remove (the mixture will be HOT) and serve!

I also had a whole wheat wrap with about two tbsp roasted garlic hummus—

I was absolutely dumbfounded at just how SIMPLE this powerful machine is! I’m a simple girl and like simple, easy to use gadgets (still workin’ on figuring everything on my Blackberry out!) and using the VitaMix couldn’t be simpler. I did thoroughly read the directions and the little manual prior to use though and that helped. As with anything, I definitely recommend reading the directions first!!

My soup came out so incredibly creamy I was amazed that I made it and it didn’t come from some fancy restaurant. There were absolutely zero lumps of any sort in the soup and I was equally amazed at how the blender could actually cook the soup and make it boil! How cool! No longer do you have to make things in a blender then transfer to a saucepan to warm. The VitaMix does it all for you in less than 5 minutes!

I read that the mixing container could not go in the dishwasher and, I’ll admit, I groaned a little bit. Who wants to spend time hand washing anything?! Not this girl. But then I read on and saw that all you do to clean the VitaMix is add about a cup of warm water with a little dish soap into the mixer, press on and let it whirl around in there for a minute or so. Toss out the soapy water, rinse with warm water and voila! Clean! The entire cleaning process took about a minute and a half. Love it.

As for the cookbook that accompanied the mixer….I again can only say WOW. I was blown away again! I mean, I would pay money for this cookbook! Sometimes blenders and other kitchen gadgets come with cookbooks that are just downright awful and contain retro recipes from the 90s that no one ever would want to make again. Not this! This cookbook is a 250 page health food bible with healthy recipes (including all nutritional information) on everything from drinks and sauces to fondues and baked goods. The binder comes with handy dandy little dividers so you can easily look up a recipe in any category.

For dessert, I tried out the blender yet again to make the Banana Ice Cream recipe from the cookbook. This recipe is just bananas, milk (or Silk in my case), sweetener and ice. I used 2 tbsp of pure maple syrup as my sweetener and blended it all up for about 1 minute. The end result was just okay and that was really my own fault because my bananas weren’t ripe enough and I used too much ice. If you used brown spotty bananas instead of greenish ones (duh jenna) your ice cream would be much sweeter than mine. In any case, it was a nice little dessert when topped with a cookie

This afternoon I went grocery shopping!

And snacked on a cheese and a handful of soy crispies—

Now I’m all set to fold laundry then read and call it a night. Have a good one, yall!