My Vitamix saga

A few weeks ago, my husband was awarded a Vitamix Blender. It was an award he received from work. Originally we wanted to buy a grill, but we just couldn't find one we liked on the online award site. Our second choice was the Vitamix. I have heard so many good things about it and my husband decided he wanted to make some healthy smoothies to get more vitamins from whole foods into his diet. We also really loved the seven year warranty.

We soon received it and it was very large and a little quieter than I expected it to be. It also works really quickly. You can blend or make smoothies in a minute. The cleanup was easy, too. Also, it makes HUGE smoothies. That was a good thing.

The bad thing was that when we tried to grind flour from spelt, it overheated and wouldn't come back on.

We were kind of frustrated, but when we called Vitamix and told them our problem, they paid to have the blender returned and sent out a new blender as soon as the original was received. I was pretty upset at first that my ultra expensive blender stopped working as promised, but I was happy with the outcome.

I did receive a DVD and a cookbook with some great recipes -- including, of course, some whole food smoothies, sauces and bread recipes that begin with grinding your own grains.

Each recipe has a full color recipe. That is good.

And I finally ground the spelt into flour. The problem the first time I tried to grind it was that I put too much in the blender at one time. Two cups of grain is the maximum you are supposed to use. They told me at Vitamix that the blender should have gotten hot and the fail safe switch should have turned it off and it should have come back on after about twenty minutes. Mine was obviously faulty, according to the representative I talked to. When I ground the flour tonight with the new blender, I used no more than two cups and it worked perfectly.

Now I can buy whole wheat, spelt and even beans and grind them to make bread. This is really making it from scratch and my flour will be super fresh.

Here is my husband's recipe for whole food smoothies. It is good, smooth and full of vitamins.

1 carrot, cut into slices
1 apple cored, with peelings left on
1 banana
1 to 2 cups of frozen blueberries, strawberries or peaches
2 cups of washed, fresh kale, collards or spinach
1 to 2 cups of soy milk or vanilla almond milk
Optional: 1 tablespoon flax seed
Enough ice to make the mixture thick (at least 1/2 cup)

Put all into blender. Turn on low and gradually increase to high. If necessary use the tamper to push mixture into the blade. Pour into large glasses and enjoy. This makes enough for two smoothies.