Ninja!!!!

"So -- first Yoshi?  Now Ninja???  What's next?  Ginsu?"

Yep -- this will be a more positive commentary than the Yoshi review, I promise!

Dave and I got a nice generous Bed, Bath and Beyond gift card from Dave's brother for Christmas.  Earlier this week we took a trip to Pensacola to run some errands -- which included a fail attempt at dinner at Bonefish Grill, boo!  After eating at Moe's Southwest Grill instead, we saw that we were just a couple doors down from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  So we stopped in and picked up a couple of much-needed kitchen accessories.  A burr coffee grinder and a new blender.

The blender is what I'll be discussing today.  My 15-year-old Oster basic-of-basic blenders was ready to kick the bucket: the motor starts to stink if it runs for too long, and the gasket sealing the bottom had some cracks and therefore leaks.

After pondering favorites such as the Magic Bullet (too small for mass quantities of margaritas or daquiris), we opted for the Ninja Master Prep Professional.  It looked like a, well, different blender concept.  Instead of the motor and blade pivoting underneath your food, it's on top.

So here's what we brought home:

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

This includes a single motor unit, plus three Lexan-type plastic pitchers in different sizes. Each of these pitchers includes its own blade apparatus:

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

So each pitcher has a special lid, with a small hole in the top, this is to fit the motor apparatus on top:

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

And here's the entire setup:

From 2010 12 30 Ninja Blender

Not your normal blender, that's for sure. It claims to "crush ice into snow" and "blend frozen fruit into creamy smoothies".  I checked out some reviews on Amazon.com, which were mostly very positive, with the occasional 1-2 star review (average review of 4 stars).  I noticed the same complaints from those negative reviews: the plastic fittings for the motor to turn the blades had shredded or rounded off.  Hopefully I can exercise some extra care in that area and make sure the motor is seated properly before turning it on.

The very next morning I broke out one of my frozen smoothie fruit kits and whipped up a smoothie.  It worked like a champ!  It blended up very quickly and without large chunks.  I think they have something there with the design of the bowl/pitcher...with little blades every 2-3" in the container, there's nowhere for the large chunks of food to hide.  I'm not quite sold on there being only one speed ("On") but apparently you have to show some finesse with how to pulse versus steadily run the motor to have things working right.

I've yet to use it as a food processor or to crush ice, assume that if those experiences suck enough, you'll hear from me about it.