Shake shake shake

For me, it seems, the Holy Grail looks something like a clear plastic cup. With sharp metal pieces at the bottom.

Somehow, despite wanting a blender for years, I've never managed to either justify the purchase of one or make a sneaky impulse buy that I justified later. This is probably because after the fiasco with my dad's smoothie maker (I swear I didn't do anything. It's like it just exploded in my hands) I don't trust cheap blenders, and I don't have the money for a good one.

However, I have taken the plunge (literally) and used my immersion blender twice to make peanut butter-banana-chocolate smoothies.

I chucked a few bananas in the freezer two days ago, and learned things - saw things - experienced things I never wanted to know! Now, I'm not stupid; I just tend to leap before I look. The internets said to freeze the bananas, and who am I to question the internets?

Well, the bananas froze. They froze but good. I extracted three hard-as-ice (because, um, they were) bananas, still in their skins, from which they would fain be parted.

Now what? I wondered. Am I supposed to wait for them to thaw? How long will that take? The internets didn't say anything about thaw-time.

Giving up, I used a fresh banana and gingerly used the immersion blender to crush two cubes of ice, shivering with fear (or because I was holding a few extra ice cubes in my hand, your call). The smoothie was ok, but weak. Health-food like. Which okay, it is supposed to be healthy, but it's not supposed to TASTE health-food like.

I left the frozen bananas out to thaw and later in the evening, I removed their (now black) skins and transferred them to plastic baggies. This was a sticky, gross endeavor reminiscent of grade school lights out horror houses that unexpectedly plunge peeled grapes under your fingers.

However, this morning, I was rewarded by a sadly phallic frozen banana in a bag. The banana at first compressed well into my blending cup, giving me hope that it would blend nicely - but it took twice as long as the ice cubes had! It did, in the end, give way beneath 3/4 c of light chocolate soymilk (I used 8th continent) and just under two T of peanut butter. Plus a scoop of soy protein powder my mother passed along. (I wonder if I could get her to eat it in a smoothie like this?)

The smoothie blended out to a little more than 1 c. Next time I might make it a bit bigger, by using a bigger banana or a little more soymilk, but keeping the peanut butter and protein powder measurements the same. It was wonderfully smooth and creamy with just a hint of graininess from the natural peanut butter and the protein powder.

I also got a wonderful surge of potassium-laced, soy-protein-goodness energy.

But the immersion blender is not going to cut it for long - literally. I still need a blender.