refreshing kale smoothie
DH and I went to the store today and bought a Ninja Intelli-Sense Kitchen System because 1) our original NutriBullet is getting finnicky, and 2) I have often found myself wanting a larger processor than the little chopper bowl that came with my trusty Cuisinart immersion blender. When using the Cuisinart chopper bowl, I would sometimes have to split food into separate batches, but we have owned a food processor in the past and didn't use it often enough to keep.
We recently discovered that Ninja blenders have the full-sized blender pitcher, single-serving cups, and a food processor bowl that all use the same base. I am a big fan of multitaskers and was excited to find that most of the Ninja kitchen systems, as they are named, are highly rated. They have a couple different bases for these kitchen sets, which can vary in wattage and included accessories. I looked at a basic base model, Auto-IQ, and Intelli-Sense. All the ones I looked at had either 1200 or 1500 watts, a 72-ounce pitcher (the least interesting accessory to me), a 5- or 8-cup processor bowl, and some combination of single-serving cups. Some also included a spiralizer, but I have a mason jar attachment that spiralizes vegetables, so that wasn't a selling point for us. Especially since it would take up extra space.
After all this research, we decided that the best thing to do would be to see them in person since I wasn't sure if the 5-cup bowl would be too small; I didn't want to buy a new machine with the 5-cup bowl only to discover that it was not much of an improvement over our current immersion bowl. Our visit to Bed, Bath & Beyond revealed that the 5-cup bowl was too small and that the 8-cup bowl was not as big as I imagined, so storage wouldn't be a problem. But I was still undecided on which particular model to buy. On a whim, we stopped at Costco on the way home from the in laws' place and found the more expensive model (which I hadn't seriously considered because of the price) for cheaper than online stores. The set only came with one single-serving cup, but extras are inexpensive online, so we bought it and are retiring the NutriBullet.
The drink pictured here was made in the Ninja, which is pretty fancy: The base knows which receptacle is being used and displays only the settings for that attachment. Using the single-serving cup displays a SMOOTHIE setting, so I used that. It proceeded to pulse then blend of its own volition for much longer than I would have if I'd been at the controls. The result was a tasty and well-blended smoothie. It is a loud machine, so for breakfast smoothies, I will probably make them the night before so I don't wake the neighbors at 6am.
I'd also like to point out that the smoothie is in my new favorite 1.5 pint Ball jars, which turned out to be the perfect size for the single-serving cup that came with our Ninja. I intially bought a case of 9 jars to use for kefir, but I've since discovered that they are a great size for storage and drinking. I'll probably end up buying another case.
...I have inadvertently begun collecting mason jars. But that's a story for another time.