Where Have You Been All My Life?

Here she is, in all her spiffy fire-engine-red glory: my new Vitamix, a present from my mom and sister! People rave about how a Vitamix changes your life (provided you enjoy spending much of your waking time in the kitchen), and I'm here to tell you it's TRUE. There's something sort of magical about throwing whole kale, ice cubes, and a few other things into a blender, flipping a switch, and ending up with a perfectly smooth and refreshing beverage that also happens to be packed with nutrients. Once you start making smoothies at home, grocery products like Bolthouse Farms smoothies taste unpleasantly sweet (and they often have weird additives besides the sugar). The Vitamix is easy to clean, too—you just fill it up partway with water and let it run for a bit longer.But wait! There's more!

1. Non-dairy cheeses. I'm having so much fun with Artisan Vegan Cheese. Post forthcoming.

2. Raw desserts. I'd been looking forward to making Kathy Patalsky's Boston Cream Pie recipe for ages! (Oh all right, two years.) There's also a frozen-dessert setting on the Vitamix: fresh fruit + ice = almost-instant sorbet. Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

3. Nut butters and milks. They say there's absolutely no comparison, that you can never go back to store-bought almond milk once you've made your own. I want to try Kathy's method, which is here.

(There is more, oh so much more!)

I'm also excited at the prospect of no-waste juicing. While I'm not necessarily using the Vitamix to process the pulp to make other foods, I can say that I'm probably not going to be doing green juicing anymore now that I can do a smoothie. I'll just use my juicer for combos like carrot-apple-ginger—and, inspired by the Vitamix offering no more fiber waste, I'm going to use the pulp to make carrot crackers, fruit crumble, and whatever else I can think of. 

Here's a quick recipe (if we can even call it that) for banana chai sorbet (I used a spice mix we found at a grocery store in Uganda):

five ripe bananas (chopped and frozen)

1/8 tsp. masala spice (or just cinnamon, cardamom, whatever you like)

1 tbsp. maple syrup

dash of salt

Add all ingredients and process on the frozen dessert setting. (Next time I'll use 1/4 tsp. of spice and a bit less maple syrup.) Yields about three cups. Oh, and Happy Veganversary to me! Four happiest years of my life so far. (ICYMI, here's last year's Veganversary post.) 

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