Saute half a chopped onion in a couple of tablespoons of butter for a couple of minutes. Add a spoonful flour and stir it around to cook the flour a bit. Stir in a pint of good quality chicken broth, but no need to try to eliminate flour lumps. The blender will do that! When it boils, add some fresh chopped broccoli. Add lots and it will make this soup thick without too much cream or flour. When it is just barely crisp-cooked, stick in your stick blender and whir it around until it’s a smooth lovely emerald green soup. Return it to the heat and add a couple of generous glugs of cream. Salt to taste, and add a bit of cayenne pepper and several gratings of nutmeg.
Use this basic recipe to make just about any vegie into a creamed soup. Mushroom, potato and cauliflower all spring to mind.
Good to know. Had to go look it up to make sure that what I’m thinking of as an immersion blender is actually one (wouldn’t be the first time I got confused), but it does appear that I’m thinking of the right thing.
Mine does it incredibly well so I just assumed they all do. I wasn’t sure it would work but my hand mixer went missing so I tried. 20 seconds later an entire quart of whipping cream done up as nicely as I could want.
Guess I got lucky (but I’ve done it a half dozen times now so I know it wasn’t a fluke with mine).
Oh I would call that a wand mixer. I think. I had one that died recently. I got it originally for making baby food but lately used it for smoothies and soups, not much else. But it got a lot of use for smoothies.
What everyone else said. I avoid that heavy, messy hard to clean blender at all costs. I wouldn’t even consider making a nice nutritious fruit shake in a blender, but the immersion makes it a quick snap. Voila, more fruit in my diet.
I’ve got a Magic Bullet, an immersion blender and a regular blender. (I know, massively redundant appliances)
I use the immersion blender all the time. I can’t think of the last time I used the regular blender.
Mine has a whisk attachment, plus a bowl and blade attachment for chopping nuts and cheese and such. Much easier than the Magic Bullet.
One ounce of raw cashews has 157 calories. I used about ten ounces in the last batch I made, so we’ll round off and call it an even 1600. I get four servings out of that, so each snack is 400 calories. High for a traditional diet, but not quite eleventy-thousand.
South Beach is also not a traditional diet: it’s low carb. I don’t know exactly why the magic works, but it does. I lost about forty pounds this way four years ago and am doing it again to drop an unusual weight gain from this winter.
I mostly use mine for mixing pancake/waffle batter and also the egg/milk wash for french toast. It’s great for the latter, no more nasty streaks of while on my french toast.
I think a Silver Bullet is, um, you know, a somewhat different appliance.
The bowl and chopper attachment that came with my immersion blender is great for chopping small amounts of veggies, and makes chopping onions really easy. I remember chopping onions by hand, and it was tedious. If I didn’t have the immersion blender, I’d use the Magic Bullet a lot more.
You can make use it to make homemade mayonnaise. Quick and easy and better than store bought. It’s simple enough with a regular blender but with an immersion blender it’s even easier.
Yeah, I forgot about the bowl and chopper attachment. I use it to make yogurt, mint and chile sauce for middle eastern wraps. I’ve also made chutneys in it, and homemade Caesar dressing. It’s great if you’re just making half a cup of something, and you don’t want to lift down the big heavy blender, as well as washing out the cumbersome blender jar.
I have my eye on an immersion blender, too. Specifically this one is on my wedding registry.
I plan to use it for things I wouldn’t bother getting the Cuisinart out for, like a quick zap to bean soups to chop up some of the beans but not all. Or for things that are bigger than my 4 cup Cuisinart can handle, like a huge batch of salsa. I really hope we get it as a wedding gift.
Magic Bullet. Not silver. Thank you. I dunno why I always want to say Silver.
