Thursday, May 29, 2014

My Favourite BlendTec Recipes

In the past month or so, I have learned more reasons to love the BlendTec blender I received for Christmas. I've been appreciating the silky smoothies, and my kids (and I) were delighted to discover a vegan chocolate frosty recipe that can double as fudgesicles, and which is the only way that I can get G to eat avocado.

I was also recently saddened to discover I was at the bottom of my favourite Green & Black's hot chocolate mix until I realized that in the list of ingredients they tell you the percentages of dark chocolate and cocoa powder, and there is only one other ingredient: raw cane sugar. Using my powers of deduction, I worked out a recipe, and ground up 4 oz Trader Joe's 72% dark chocolate, 7/8 cups Dutch process cocoa powder and 1 1/2 cups of raw coconut sugar in my trusty blender, et voila! I had made my very own rich and delicious hot chocolate mix! I'll never spend $10 on a jar of Green & Black's again, unless of course I am tragically separated from my BlendTec.

Then there was the 10-day cleanse that I managed to squeeze in between Easter and a trip to the Okanagan Food & Wine Writers' workshop in Kelowna (more on that later, but for now, I will say, a) I don't recommend coming off a cleanse by attending a Food & Wine Writers' workshop, and b) I've found my people!). My BlendTec made it much easier to cope with the prospect of eating only liquids for three of the 10 days. My liquids included butternut squash soup (with the onion 'sautéed' in water instead of oil) and avocado soup, some of which I froze, and brought along post-cleanse to a dinner party, topped a roasted corn pico de gallo made with some of my frozen salsa from last tomato season, with roasted corn, lime juice, fresh cilantro and finely chopped cucumber added. This is much more than a health food.

But probably my most favourite discovery was homemade vegetable broth powder. Sorry OXO, sorry Knorr, I am forever lost to you (well, I was already lost to them, but I do appreciate the convenience of a soup stock powder now that I've discovered a homemade version). Late at night when I was feeling sorry for myself for not being able to eat 'real' food, and also feeling extra cold because this particular spring cleanse took place during one of the coldest springs in living memory, I relished drinking a cup of this salty, steaming, nourishing soup. But that's not all…I have also discovered it works amazingly well as a seasoning salt. I have many more experiments to conduct with it, but so far I have added it to breading for fish, as well as a topping for popcorn (along with duck fat. Yes. You read that right).

This stuff is amazing! So delicious, so easy to make, and so many potential uses. You may not need a BlendTec in order to make some of these recipes, but if you're looking for a new blender, you may want to consider it. And no, they're not paying me for my endorsement.