BVC Eats: I Love My Blender

One of the nicest things my husband ever bought me was a blender.  (I know, right? All those jokes about the husband who buys his wife a vacuum cleaner for her birthday.) But this is a really, really special blender, a Vitamix, which is bartender-grade, with some improbable number of horses under the hood.  He calls it “The Woodchipper.”

I use my blender to make smoothies for the meal before a roller skating speed practice.  Generally this means putting in an entire bunch of cilantro, half an avocado, about two inches’ worth of fresh ginger root, a pear, maybe a banana, four or five baby carrots, and (if I’m feeling saucy) a glob of full-fat Greek yogurt.

This makes a really smooth smoothie, very green.  I feel terribly healthy … and really full, unless my husband helps me consume the smoothie, which he generally does.  Hey, you’re supposed to pound carbs before a workout.

But the most popular thing I do with my blender involves frozen blueberries, frozen blackberries, frozen raspberries, coconut rum, and a knob of brown sugar.  This makes a daiquiri so thick you need a spoon to eat it, and so alcoholic you don’t feel dumb eating a daiquiri with a spoon.

Other versions involve lemon-lime rum, Greek yogurt (for creaminess), frozen strawberries, frozen bananas, or frozen kiwis.  Kiwis are tricky.  You freeze ‘em with the skin on, then nuke ‘em for maybe 30 seconds, then slip the skin off.  Bananas work similarly, if the skin is too frozen to peel off nicely.  Heavy cream is nice.  Sour cream is nice if you add extra brown sugar—very piquant.

I make these daiquiris for parties.  Anyone who can still talk afterward says they taste really good.