Vita-Mix 5200

My mom surprised me with this fancy piece of kitchen equipment the other day. A Vita-Mix!!!! It is basically a really powerful blender that produces heat from the friction from the blades, so that if you leave it on for a couple of minutes, you get steaming hot soup! You don't even have to cut whatever it is you want to blend into small pieces. If you wanted to, you could put a whole apple in and within 30 seconds it would be liquefied. Pretty amazing! My mom was really excited, so she immediately went to the grocery store and bought a ton of vegetables so we can make soups.


Who could imagine such a simple blade could hold so much power? haha.


Ain't it pretty? that long black thing on the side there is the Tamper, where you can stick inside the lid to stir up anything that might get stuck inside the blender.. now that I would ever foresee that happening..

The first soup we tried to make was an asparagus soup. Now, this was the test run and basically it was probably the worst tasting thing I've ever had in a long time. But at least now I know what to do next time...


This was the asparagus soup. Basically, what I did was put 2 cups chicken broth, an entire bundle of asparagus, and some cauliflower to fill the whole blender to the top. Yes, the veggies were raw when I added them into the blender -- I was really interested in seeing how hot the final product would be. Lo and behold, after about 3 minutes of blending this concoction, I got really impatient so we stopped it and poured it into bowls. There was still a very raw taste and it was extremely bitter. I could only bear to have about 5 spoonfuls.

Next time I attempt to make soup, I will either leave the blender on for a longer period of time or, since I am pretty impatient, I will heat up the liquid first and maybe even blanching the vegetables first to speed up the cooking process even faster.

After getting frustrated from making nasty green soup, I tried to make a juice. After doing some research on the Vita-Mix I found that most people use their to make juices. Juices are great for packing in all types of nutrients to consume quickly as well as sometimes masking the not-so-popular flavors that might be really healthy for you. The good thing about the Vita Mix, compared to a juicer, is that it does not discard all the pulp from your fruits and vegetables. That's where a lot of nutrients are! This blender is able to make the pulp fragments small enough that its easy to drink.


Ingredients for Carrot Apple Beet juice.. I added pomegranate juice to overcome the beet flavor, although I am starting to like it more now. I also forgot to add ginger! Doh!


The result.. what a nice RED color! This tasted pretty good - I definitely could still taste the beets and think next time on top of adding some ginger, I'll add either orange juice or lemon juice to brighten it up.

Now.. what am I supposed to do with our old blender?


-J