I often wish there was some sort of poll we could take to figure out if a fringe kitchen item is worth buying. The blender is a fine example of the kind of appliance where this sort of questionnaire would be helpful. Such a poll might ask things like: Do you make your own almond butter? Are you a smoothie person? Does it bother you that many of the drinks you might make in a blender cost about as much to make at home as they do at Jamba Juice? Do you mind a few lumps in your drink? Most importantly, what are your feelings about oat milk?
You might not be surprised to hear which appliance ended up on my countertop for review recently.
Curious to know what owning a big, powerful blender is like, I got to try out a very nice one, the 1,800-watt Breville Super Q. While my testing would certainly require me to make a few of those more mandatory staples, I decided to try to integrate it more fully into my kitchen routine and have it convince me of its utility.
My first blender activity was my favorite: using it as a spice mill. I needed put together a batch of spice rub for a big dinner, the kind of thing that would have taken several rounds in my tiny but capable Krups spice grinder. Instead, I just tossed everything in the Breville willy nilly, some spices whole, some already powdered, bay leaves, and peppercorn. I was very lazy about it. Then I buzzed it around for a few seconds and—bing!—it was done. I could nitpick, but peppercorns were pulverized and cumin was crushed. It was fast and highly satisfying.
Emboldened, I tried Breville's own recipe for barbecue sauce, in which a large, quartered onion goes in the blender jar with whole garlic cloves and several other ingredients and—zzzzzuup!—it became liquid in mere seconds. Is it weird to be giddy about liquefying onions? I only report what I felt.
Next up were smoothies. I realize that they save you from the nagging chore of needing to chew, but they've never really been my thing. Fruit smoothies can be a nice treat, but I once had a green smoothie with what tasted like lawn thatch and had enough ginger to give acid reflux on the first sip, and that was plenty for a lifetime.
I had to test it, though, so I used the recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Ace Blender book, which was technically written for another blender. It involved baby kale (which is milder than full-grown), avocado, frozen pineapple chunks, pineapple juice, yogurt, and hemp seeds for texture and that great hippie flavor. The Breville has a smoothie button where it cycles through a high speed for 30 seconds, occasionally pausing to let things settle. While blender presets aren't usually all that useful, this one lets you butter your toast or make coffee while your smoothie comes together. I put fruit smoothies on heavy rotation, making breakfast smoothies for breakfast several days in a row, and while I'm still not a smoothie person, I liked that button.
