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Great gift for the gadget lover…, December 10, 2009

By 

A. Boston (Boston, MA United States) – See all my reviews

  

Customer Video Review Length:: 6:04 Mins

This is my first video review, so here goes nothing! A couple of notes: I repeatedly said Ninja Master Pro, it’s Ninja Master Prep. I love it!! Something I did wrong in my video review that I just learned. When making ice based drinks, do the ice on it’s own first, then add your other ingredients. It makes the ice more like snow then baby ice chunks. As far as gadgets, this might intrique a non-cook into cooking.

So far, I have made hummus, chicken salad, cheese dip, ice cream, italian breadcrumbs and a few various drinks. I hate processed breadcrumbs in the little cardboard cartons. I tossed those and now we make our own breadcrumbs in about 1 minute. So really no extra effort and it tastes so much better, plus I know exactly whats in it(herbs, bread, garlic, cheese)with no added chemicals or preservatives.

For those people who rely on a food processor as their main go-to item when cooking, this might not be your thing. But for people like me, who tend to chop by hand while cooking for two and pull it out about twice a year, it’s perfect. I also am not a huge blender user, though this will get me to try new things, since it’s got 400 watts of power and seems like it can make just about anything. Lastly, dishwasher safe is a huge plus as well.

On those two sites amazon and the ninja official site specifically, I have seen it for sale with the ninja pod unit, a blender accessory and a 2 cup processor accessory. Some other places(wholesale clubs and a few tv shopping networks) have it with 2 more added accessories, for the same price(or less!). It’s definitely worth poking around and finding the one that comes with 4 accessories total.

Be kind to the ninja pod. Always use it in bursts and do not hold it down. I have heard of other ninja owners stripping the gears by holding it down trying to use it like a traditional blender. It’s not meant to be used that way.

ICE CREAM:

No lie, I just made ice cream in about 2 minutes. I am shocked and amazed. I used 1/2 and 1/2, white chocolate pudding mix(for flavor) and frozen strawberries with a few semi-sweet chocolate chips thrown in, which it completely shredded and integrated into it. If you have a sweet tooth, add a little powdered sugar. Seriously, it’s like bought ice cream, but better. A-mazing.

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 Comments (18)

Useful but not likely durable, December 5, 2009

By 

Nicola S. Pioppi “Pretty Nicola” (Gainesville, FL) – See all my reviews

  

I purchased this item at Bed Bath and Beyond instead of the Cuisinart blender I had intended to buy. This blender is less expensive, but the next time I am in the market for a blender or a food processor I think I would pick a different item. This seems to be one step up from those terrible Magic Bullets.

PRO: It comes with two different containers, one for “blending” and one for “processing”. You can blend two different things without needing to clean the pitcher in between.

CON: there is not much difference between the food processor part and the blender part, other than in size.

PRO: The blades detach for safe cleaning.

CON: The blades themselves are difficult to clean, and I have found that the plastic part stains easily.

PRO: The motor part is light and and the whole thing stores easily. I keep the blades in a shallow drawer with my cookie cutters, the pitchers and lids with my tupperware, and the motor attachments lives inside my massive stock pot.

CON: The motor is not very powerful. It blends things well enough if there is plenty of liquid, but even after several blends our smoothies end up with massive ice chunks. You also are not supposed to run the motor for more than two minutes straight, but even after about thirty seconds the motor is very warm.

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 Comments (8)

Excellent!, December 9, 2009

By 

B. Kerr (Phoenix, AZ United States) – See all my reviews

  

I’ve been putting this little blender through it’s paces the last couple of days, and I have to say, it passed with flying colors.

- Icecubes (even the pretty massive ones)were not an issue, it blasted right through them and did indeed produce creamy/fluffy snow.

- Grinding nuts – awesome! I frequently use nuts in my baking and cooking, from really coarsely chopped to fine nut flours. It did it all! A regular food processor generally either can’t go beyond the coarse chunks, or has the undesirable three-fold of nutbutter at the bottom, somewhat coarsely chopped nuts inbetween and hardly touched nuts on top! I would usually do little 1/4 cup batches in my coffee grinder, which a lot of shaking and sifting! Not anymore!

- Chopping veggies – performed beautifully. I added chunks of random veggies, they all came out nicely and pretty evenly chopped – even leeks!

- Finely chopped some lemon and orange peel in there too, no problem! Very nice and even processing!

- Processed smoothies beautifully.

- Soups – excellent and creamy processing.

- Pastry dough and crumble toppings – did very well in the even distribution of the cold butter.

The secret to this machine does however seem to be the short pulsing actions. Letting it run for any length of time, doesn’t help much and is in fact counterproductive in this machine! Unless you’re going for pulp, then that’s what you want to do

Right out of the box, it seems quite sturdy. Not indestructable, but pretty sturdy for a plastic food processor.

All the parts seem to be coming apart nicely, even the non slip rings come off, so clean up is not a problem! After use, pretty much everything rinsed off quite easily.

The lids do come in handy too!

The only cons I could find:

It’s simple to overload the containers (especially the small one) and then you do not get the even processing – or you can’t fit the lid on correctly anymore.

Lining up the lids and the machine can take a second or two. They do not just go on any which way, you do need to line them up.

All in all it is so far the ideal performing food processor/blender/smoothie maker I have used (I’ve used quite a few!) and is an excellent value for the money. Time will tell how it performs on durability!

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