Miracle Appliance

The Vitamix 5200 Is The One Kitchen Gadget You Really Need to Own

There is rarely a kitchen gadget that I use again and again, year after year. But I would not want to be without my Vitamix 5200. The Vitamix is the same machine that makes the ice cream drinks at Starbucks. But rather than burden your beauty with such things, you can use the tool at home to make incredibly healthy and delicious ice creams and sorbets to suit any whim, by throwing in frozen berries, cantaloupe or peach slices, yogurt, soymilk, decaf coffee (or Teeccino) ice cubes, unsweetened cocoa or, to be decadent, organic half and half ice cubes (great blended with the fruit or coffee cubes) and your favorite sweetener (although you won't need it with ripe fruit). Whiz it up, and in seconds you have extremely smooth, scoop-able ice cream. I swear that the decaf and Teeccino (vanilla nut is fantastic) with organic whole milk ice cubes is like Haagen Daaz coffee ice cream. For sweeteners, I use just a little of NuNaturals' NuStevia (it's debittered and it's the best tasting stevia I have found) or NuNaturals' Vanilla Stevia (via droplet) or their Sweet-X Xylitol. All three sweeteners are perfect low-impact sweetening choices for these amazing recipes. You can put anything rock hard frozen in there, which you can't do with a blender.

The other thing the Vitamix 5200 does is grind any grain or seed, so you can make hummus with sesame seeds and chickpeas (I like to add cayenne, lemon and garlic), whereas a blender will not grind the seeds smooth. You can make buckwheat pancakes right from the container after adding nothing but buckwheat, buttermilk and a little oil and salt (top them with warm pureed berries and yogurt or low-carb syrup. It also grinds soybeans into soy flour, which is a great tool for baking lower-carb stuff. It also grinds flaxseed, makes soup without a stove, makes "whole" juice (recipes included) and the smoothest smoothies possible. It's an expensive machine, but you can put it through anything. See Resources.