Vita-Mix 5000

Have you heard of this blender? The Vita-Mix.  We were at the BX the other day and started watching the demonstration.  I'm warning you, if you don't want to be tempted to spend a lot of money, DON'T STOP TO WATCH.   You know how when you see those sample tables, most people aren't serious about buying the product, just looking for some free food...Ok, go ahead and deny it but that's us anyways.=)  We saw the samples and thought, "a free snack to hold us over til lunch.=)"  We've got 3 kids and didn't want to feel bad since we didn't plan to purchase one so we shared ours with the kids, but stuck around seeing what other free food we could get.  We noticed that when they finished making the next item, they'd dump out whatever leftover samples they had on their tray, so I decided we might as well let the kids get their own.  Andrew and Izzy became pros at the grabbing before the rest of the crowd could get some.

The samples: they made a fruit smoothie adding cabbage and squash for nutritional value.  Tasted sooo good.  Then they made a tortilla soup.  Whole carrot, celery, and whatever other items they added, blended it for about 5 mins.  The friction heats it up to make instant soup from WHOLE FOODS.  Dinner ready in minutes  Fascinating.  Forget the chopping and mincing; everything gets dropped in whole or big chunks.  It was so fast and yummy.  Then they made ice cream.  The gal added cabbage and squash to show that you can get veggies into our diets but have it still taste good.  Amazing.  From soups to ice cream.  I'm not just paying attention to free food anymore; by now I'm interested in the product.  Then they made peanut butter.  Dumped a jar of honey roasted peanuts and a minute later out came the creamiest, yummiest peanut butter I've ever had.  I was just about sold.  The kids and I kept getting crackers and coating it in this peanut butter, asking questions and then sampling yet again.=)  It was sooooo goood!!!  No extra preservatives or monounsaturated fat like store bought PB (isn't that what it is ... the bad stuff?)  Then she mentions the extra container that has a different blade grinds wheat berries into wheat flour ... WHAT???  We were all, "Really?" and she pulls out the dry blending container, dumps in a bag of rice and badda bing, badda boom--rice flour!  I've had a wheat grinder that we bought at Scott for $200.  It's still sitting in my garage waiting to be used.  This blender does the same thing, doesn't sound as loud and does all this extra stuff for $400.  Plus after I make my wheat flour, I add my ingredients and it does the kneading.  It's also a breadmaker?  You're kidding.  The machine kneads it into a ball and that ball gets dumped into a bread pan and makes a normal looking loaf of bread.  Just let it rise and then stick in the oven.  It also came with a recipe book w/ tons of good looking recipes.

We were hooked (me more than Glen but it's definitely grown on him since we got home.)  We were able to bring it home for a 30 day trial and return if not interested.  That first night, Glen made a potato dill soup.  It was green ... not so pretty, a little salty, but still tasted good.  We also made a trip to the Commissary and felt like we bought out the produce department (bad time of year eh.=)  Looking online for how to store the pineapple we cut open, I discovered you can freeze just about ANYTHING.  Cut the pineapple into slices (not worrying about coring it cuz the core has bromine in it ... according to the demonstrators it's healthy for you, too tough to chew and that's why we usually take out the core.  The Vita-mix blends it into whatever you're making no problem.)  We've frozen cantalope slices, mango and pineapple.  We bought strawberries last summer and they're still frozen and looks like we will use them up.  The demo ladies didn't take the leaves off or anything.  We did last summer but ... hmmm.  Grapes, I wonder if oranges or apples?  Maybe not but those won't ripen too fast and go bad easily.  We also made our own peanut butter but found out the peanuts were a little old so it didn't turn out as good as the demo.  We'll also pick up the honey roasted kind or add lots of honey for sweetening.  We've had our own Jamba Juices adding veggies and ... we've just been having fun.  There's also a gal in our PE homeschool group that says she's had hers for 7 years now and still uses it just about everyday.  That's always good to hear.  We LOVE it.  We went back the next day to take notes, write down recipes and ask more questions.  She also said that you can check out their website to find out if anyone's doing a demo in your area so you can go and get more samples =) or ask more questions, etc.  So if you're ever looking for a free really good snack, check out where they're doing a demo and if you don't want to purchase, leave that checkbook and/or credit card at home cuz boy does this product sell itself.=)