Sometimes you just can't control your urges!!! (Braun Hand Blender)

Name: paule23

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Product:	Braun Hand Blender
Date:	22/06/01 (312 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Easy to use, Easy to clean

Disadvantages: No attachment included

There are some times when the urge just overtakes you. There is nothing you can do to try and suppress it. It creeps up behind you and then WHAM!!! there it is.

This urge usually strikes after a very long evening of excess. You know the sort I mean, it all starts off with a few beers at home, an evening on the town with more beers and a rather tasty curry, followed by a club, more beers and a kebab on the way home. Awaking the next morning there is no getting away from it, the urge is all pervading and irresistible. The urge to BLEND!

And before you say it, no I?m not mad (well, not completely anyway!!!) There is definitely some method in this madness. I?m not just talking any old blending, I?m talking fruit smoothies.

What could be better for you after a night of far too much than a very refreshing, full of vitamins, low on calorie fruit smoothie. Just the thing to begin a detox and start to get your body feeling relatively normal again, and not the alien being it seems to be the morning after the night before.

I?ve found the easiest ways to make a smoothie is to use a hand blender. I?ve got a very basic 250W Braun Hand Blender that comes with a measuring jug/cup. Just chuck some assorted fruit juices in (it doesn?t really matter which juices, let?s face it, after the previous evening drinking you might not be able to read the label anyway!) add some assorted fruit from the bowl, ensuring you add at least one banana (remember to peel it first though!) and BLEND. MMmmmmm, feel the power flow through your hand as you annihilate all those bananas and strawberries to a pulp.

Sorry, getting a bit sinister their!

A few seconds later and voila, one very healthy hangover cure. OK, it?s not going to cure the hangover but it?s going to make you feel a lot better than a full, fried English breakfast!

But seeing as this review is about hand blenders and not hangover cures, I?d better tell you a l
ittle bit about the aforementioned item!

As I said above, I?ve got the very basic Braun model. It?s only got a single speed for blending, but I?ve always found it perfectly adequate. And it really is the simplest thing to use. Just plug it in, put the blender in whatever you want to blend, press the power button and off you go.

These things really are great, particularly if you?re in the habit of making rather lumpy sauces like me! I don?t do it intentionally, but I always seen to get massive lumps of flour in my cheese sauce and custard powder in my custard. This hand blender has saved my bacon on many occasion, and I?m a vegetarian!!! The beauty of it is you don?t have to take whatever you?re cooking out of the pan. You?ve heard the old saying about if the mountain won?t come to Mohammed, well the same principle applies here, why take your food tot he blender when you?re blender can come to the food! Just shove the blender into your sauce and blend away those lumps. Nobody will ever know you?re cooking isn?t perfect!!!

Before I go any further I?d best add a little bit of advice here. Whatever you do, make sure the blender is deep in the sauce BEFORE you press the power button. I think you can imagine why! Believe me, it can take a while to remove cheese sauce from your light fitting. I would say it?s a mistake you only make once, but I think I?m one of those people who just never learn (or so my girlfriend tells me!). On the same note, don?t remove the blade from your food until it has stopped spinning. The contents won?t splatter quite so far as I mentioned above, but you?ll certainly have to pop your clothes in the wahser straight away!!!

Anyway, you don?t have to use it for just removing lumps, it?s excellent for making vegetable soup.Just chuck a load of peeled vegetable in a pan with some stock, boil for about 30 minuets, then blend into a mush. Yum yum!

And another favourite of mine has to be milk
shakes. Why pay £1.00 for a MacDonalds shake when you can make a much tastier one at home! Just put a couple of scoops of quality vanilla ice-cream in the jug, add some milk and some fruit (strawberries for a strawberry shake, raspberries for a raspberry shake, this isn't rocket science!) blend for a few secs and you have the most divine milkshake. Great for the taste buds, but another that?s not so good on the old waistline!

They are really easy to clean. The blender comes in two pieces, the power unit which you hold when blending, and the blade attachment that you just take off and dump in the sink to clean. Saves messing about with a table top blender where you have to put the whole jug in the sink and try (and usually fail!) to get all those bits of fruit from between the blades.

There are better models available that have twin or variable speeds, and that come with all sorts of attachments such as a chopper or a whisk, and if you?ve got the extra cash I?d recommend going for one of those. But for £15 this really is a top kitchen item, I don?t know what I ever did without one. Oh yes, I used to have that fried breakfast instead!


Model Braun MR400
Available from most electrical stores such as Comet, Curry?s, Argos etc.
Argos Cat. No. 420/2804 £14.50 (although I paid nearly £20 for mine a year ago!!!)

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