Cuisinart SmartStick Hand Held Blender review

I'm a little late with this review. I received a Cuisinart SmartStick Hand Held Blender from Wayfair.com. I've wanted an immersion blender for a while now. Immersion blenders can be used to puree large batches of soup right in the pot, mix up batters, make smoothies, and more. It saves you the trouble of taking out larger appliances, and even then you still have to puree in batches.

This particular immersion blender is only $30, comes in brushed chrome and has a removable stainless steel shaft that is dishwasher safe. The body feels like plastic, but it looks nice. The motor boasts a powerful 200-watts, making quick work of whatever you need pureed to perfection. While it might be bigger than other hand held blenders, making it border on cumbersome if you prefer really small appliances, it's easy to grip and the blade can be removed to make storage easier. The larger size also makes it easier to puree soups in tall pots.The blender operates with a one-touch control, no alternate speeds. The cord is long so you can bring the blender to the pot instead of the other way around. It comes with a 2 cup microwave and dishwasher safe plastic beaker, in which you blend smoothies and other stuff. It's particularly nice because there are measurement lines.

I wanted to see how the blender would handle ingredients that aren't already softened, like vegetables would be in soup. I sometimes make green smoothies consisting of spinach, apples, bananas, yogurt, water (or green tea), and sweetener, so I decided to use the hand held blender instead of the regular blender, which I kind of hate getting out.

I made a mistake by packing the ingredients a little too tightly. The blender works best when submerged and when there's enough liquid to keep the ingredients moving. The way I packed it, the large fruit pieces were on top and all the liquid was on the bottom. A little prodding did the trick and soon enough all the ingredients were evenly blended. I'd still suggest chopping everything into smaller pieces like I did to make it easier to puree.

When you use the blender, it helps to keep the shaft submerged. Using a pulsing up-and-down motion helps cut through the ingredients, though you don't want the blender to surface because it'll spray soup or smoothie liquid everywhere.

I added the banana last only because I forgot about it, but it worked better this way.

Clean up is quick and easy. Simply press the button in the back to release the shaft and run it under warm water. I let it air dry.

And that's all there is to it. The smoothie was pureed evenly and very smooth. Sometimes with the blender you can still taste bits of spinach that weren't completely pureed, so that's a big plus for this immersion blender. The size of the blender is large, but that just means you can puree in even the tallest of pots and pans. I would say that this is a must-have item to own. For $30, I couldn't be more satisfied with this blender.

mother's day eats

Since Mother's Day usually falls around the time when May starts to warm up, I orchestrated a grilled dinner with a citrus flavored pie for dessert. The meal consisted of shrimp skewers with tomatoes and mushrooms, cheddar onion turkey burgers, Italian sausage, bulb onions, a salad, limeade for drinks and key lime pie for dessert.

The shrimp and vegetables were marinated in a simple cilantro-garlic marinade with a little paprika for added smokiness. The used a recipe from the back of a crispy cheddar onion bag for the turkey burgers (the kind of onions you use in green bean casserole). I didn't have one, but everyone said they were good.

The salad was a giant antipasto-like salad with marinated mushrooms, black olives, and green olives, dressed lightly with a homemade vinaigrette.

I had some extra limes leftover from dessert and used them to make limeade, which was then turned into strawberry limeade by adding macerated strawberries. Very cool and refreshing.
I followed Simply Recipe's recipe, minus the mint. I didn't strain the lime zest, but make sure you strain the lime juice because the pulp gets a little overwhelming. I doubled the recipe and used 2 cups of sugar, which ended up minimizing the tartness of the limes. I added more juice to compensate. I'd suggest starting with the lesser amount of sugar, holding back half a cup of the water you add to the sugar syrup and juice. Afterward, if you feel it needs more sweetness to offset the tartness, whip up another small batch of sugar syrup and add it to the rest of the ingredients.

As an aside, a small bag of ice costs $1.80. It wasn't just for the limeade; I made a sweetened and spiced cold brew concentrate that needed ice for iced coffees. Next time I make cold brew coffee I'll zest an orange into the coffee grounds.

For dessert, I made a key lime pie which I have previously blogged about. I didn't add the egg whites to the filling this time. I used them to make an Italian meringue (using the recipe from the frosting for coconut cake I recently blogged about). Since the egg whites are stabilized by the hot sugar syrup, it holds up much better than a traditional meringue. Those usually weep and dissolve after a few days, but this one is still looking good. I beat the meringue mixture for a few minutes on high speed after the last of the syrup was added so it would be stiff. I then baked the pie (sans meringue) for 7 minutes first, then spread the meringue onto the hot filling, sprinkled with sugar, and baked for 15 minutes. The top wasn't browning like I wanted so I turned the broiler on to finish it. Next time, I'll sprinkle lime zest on the meringue before it bakes.

The meringue was amazing and almost marshmallowy. In the future, I'll never make a regular meringue again.

For the crust, I par-baked a homemade coconut shortbread. I winged the recipe because I wasn't sure what I used last time and I forgot I had blogged about it. Next year, I might use browned butter in the dough.

So ends another Mother's Day with a successful dinner. It was low key and fun. I look forward to grilling some more food now that the weather cooperating.

What was the highlight of Mother's Day weekend for you guys?.

Lemon Spritz Cookies with Xylitol

You may have heard of xylitol before, but if not I'll sum up. Xylitol is a natural sugarless sweetener made from corn cobs or hardwood trees like birch. Emerald Forest Xylitol only uses Northern American hardwood, which differs from the majority of xylitol available on the market that uses corn cobs. I don't know exactly what the difference between xylitol produced from hardwood and corn cobs is, but if you prefer to buy from an American company, Emerald Forest is for you.

I'll give you a quote from the email I received containing xylitol facts:

Xylitol is the same sweetness as sugar, has 40% fewer calories, and 75% fewer carbs. In about 95% of recipes it is a literal sugar replacement.

Xylitol is well known in 2 specific areas - the dental and diabetic communities. In the dental community it is well known because it is proven to prevent cavities. Xylitol creates an environment in your mouth where bacteria literally cannot grow. Sugar is a fuel for bacteria growth and Xylitol is an inhibitor. With 6+ grams a day of Xylitol you will be well on your way to preventing cavities. Xylitol chewing gum, mints, and candies are primarily what you hear about from the dental side because the Xylitol disperses in your mouth over time - and we manufacture a full line of these products.

They say that xylitol acts and tastes exactly like sugar. Unlike many other natural and artificial sweeteners, xylitol has no aftertaste (though excessive use can result in a mild laxative effect).

After tasting it I can say it's really not like sugar, and definitely not as sweet. It almost seems like a mint in that the taste is rather cooling as it dissolves. My test today was to see if it was a good sugar substitute in baking. I don't often bake low fat or with reduced anything because I can always eat less, but every now and again a healthy alternative is nice to have on hand.

I started with a simple spritz cookie press recipe, replacing all the sugar with xylitol. Lemon zest was pressed into the xylitol to release the oils and give the cookies a burst of lemon. Since the xylitol is more coarse than granulated sugar, I wondered if it was really going to affect the outcome of the cookies.

Usually after creaming the sugar with the fat (shortening, in this case), you can still feel granules of sugar if you press the mixture between two fingers. This is often why bakers use superfine sugar, though it really doesn't affect the consistency or texture much at all. However, in this case you could still feel large granules of xylitol, sort of like baking with coarse sugar (which is often used to finish a baked good as the sugar won't dissolve from the heat as easily as does granulated sugar).

After adding the egg, vanilla extract, and flour, the mixture was more crumbly than I remembered it being, but still came together and went through the press without a problem.

Upon close inspection I could still see shiny crystals of xylitol in the dough. When I ate a little I could taste the crunch of the crystals, and the dough wasn't really sweet nor flavorful. Strangely enough, the lemon flavor was nonexistent.

When the first batch finished baking I could tell the texture was different. The cookies seemed spongy and bendable while warm, much different than how they usually are when made with sugar. When cooled, the cookies firmed up well enough that they could be shipped. The taste was lacking, though, as these cookies weren't very sweet at all.

I would think of these cookies like shortbread -- buttery, sweet, with a flaky and sandy texture. Much of that was missing and although they did taste good, I could tell that I would eat more of them since my taste buds weren't satisfied. The cookies were also speckled. This was probably due to the xylitol leaving marks when it melted. I used xylitol earlier in a chocolate chip cookie recipe, replacing just the granulated sugar with xylitol (there was also brown sugar). The dough that was baked the same day had the speckled marks, but the dough baked the next day had smooth tops. The taste was also a little different, as was the texture. It wasn't that bad of a difference, but it definitely did not taste like cookies made with sugar. I'm sure if you were to decrease sugar consumption you might adjust to the taste of baked goods with xylitol.

Overall, I can't say I'm pleased with my experience using xylitol in baking. I might just use it in the future to replace a portion of the regular sugar. From this take, xylitol won't make your baked goods taste exactly the same, but if you need to reduce your sugar intake I'd give it a try since the benefits outweigh the negative.