Ninja Compact Kitchen System, Auto-iQ, 1200W, 72oz Pitcher, Grey, AMZ493BRN

STRAWBERRY SPLURGE Make a great frozen drink! by Andrew Roller Ninja AMZ493BRN Compact Kitchen System, 1200W, 3 Functions for Smoothies, Dough & Frozen Drinks with Auto-IQ, 72-oz.* Blender Pitcher, 40-oz. Processor Bowl & 18-oz. Single-Serve Cup, Grey. Cost: $159.99 My brother, Pierre, was working in the kitchen. This surprised me. Pierre had never shown any interest in culinary pursuits. Pierre was adding ingredients to our family’s blender. It was a traditional model. The blender was tall, with its blades built into the base. Pierre turned it on. The blades whirled around. Then, Pierre poured out what he’d put into the blender. What came out didn’t surprise me, once Pierre told me what it was. He was mixing an alcoholic drink. I left him to his drink and, for the next four decades or so, I left the world of the blender. I’ve now rejoined it. Here’s how: In my room, I have a lot of carbohydrates. Potato chips, pretzels, cheese popcorn; a night’s meal, if you need to get full. What I keep exhausting is my supply of protein. I needed a way to obtain protein, without constantly making trips to the grocery store. ( On foot. I don’t have a car. ) I hit on an idea. Buy protein powder. I purchased the following at amazon ( dot ) com: Muscle Milk Genuine Protein Powder, Vanilla Crème, 4.94 Pound, 32 Servings, 32g Protein, 2g Sugar, Calcium, Vitamins A, C & D, NSF Certified for Sport, Energizing Snack, Packaging May Vary. Cost: $51.09. This review is not about Muscle Milk. I have yet to open the Muscle Milk container. Instead, it’s about how to make a great strawberry flavored drink! ( To which you can add Muscle Milk, if you desire. ) My Ninja blender arrived from Amazon. The version that I bought isn’t the least expensive Ninja blender at Amazon. So, if you decide to do as I’ve done, make sure you buy the same model. I chose this version of the Ninja because, doing research, I discovered the following: you need a powerful motor. A Ninja with a 1200W motor is powerful. ( The “W” stands for “watts”. ) I’ve since learned something more. According to author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, “W” doesn’t signify power. That is, my blender doesn’t put out 1200 watts of power. It consumes 1200 watts of power! All I can say is this: my 1200 watt blender crushes what I need it to crush. So, I’m happy. If you buy this version of the Ninja blender, you’ll also want to buy something else: leather gloves. This blender comes with three “blade assemblies”. ( Blade attachments. ) According to an Amazon reviewer, who tested them with his fingers, the blades on the blade attachments are “insanely sharp”. I never handle the blade attachments without first donning leather gloves. Also, I have a dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher, don’t buy this blender. You’re told to wash the blender in “warm, soapy water”. ( Ninja Owner’s Guide, page 18. ) Imagine washing three separate blade attachments in a sink, with your hands! Ninja recommends washing the blade attachments with “a dishwashing utensil with a handle”. ( A scrub brush. ) ( Ibid. ) My advice: don’t try it. The blade attachments are large and dangerous. No matter how careful you are, you’ll probably cut yourself. You’ll also need someplace to put the blade attachments. Each blade attachment can be placed into a Ninja container. However, I’ve found that I use two of the three Ninja containers to hold the frozen drink that I make. This leaves two blade attachments lying around, unused. They have to be stored somewhere. Currently, my unused blade attachments are sitting in a cardboard box. ( There is, in fact, a fourth blade attachment. It’s called a “Dough Blade Assembly”. It doesn’t look sharp, but I haven’t tested it with my fingers. ) So, to review, you’ll need the following items, if you buy this version of the Ninja blender: 1. A dishwasher. 2. Leather gloves. 3. A storage box. ( Ninja doesn’t provide one. You’ll have to improvise. ) 4. Metal tongs. ( Mentioned below. ) 5. Ear protectors. ( Mentioned below. ) You could buy more items: drink containers. I’m speaking of drink containers that can be sealed, and stored in your refrigerator. I don’t have any drink containers, except the ones that came with my Ninja blender. That’s why I have to store my spare blade attachments in a cardboard box. The Ninja’s three blade attachments are dangerous. Do they provide a benefit? Yes. First, you’ll be able to crush what you need to. Second, the fact that this Ninja blender can be fully disassembled makes it very easy to clean. When your blender arrives, put it in your dishwasher. Put the small items on the top rack of the dishwasher. Turn the big items upside down, and put them on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. Ninja writes: “It is recommended that the lids, containers, and blade assemblies be placed on the top rack of the dishwasher ONLY.” I put my blender’s lids and blade attachments on my dishwasher’s top rack. However, I put my containers ( which are large ) on the bottom rack. I’ve had excellent results, doing this. The “motor base” does not go in the dishwasher! This is self-evident, but I figured I’d mention it. The Ninja blender is easy to assemble. Put the “Total Crushing Pitcher” onto the motor base. The Ninja blender was built for right-handed people, so the pitcher’s handle will be on the right, when you put the pitcher onto the base. Once the pitcher is on the base, grasp it with both of your hands. Give it a firm twist to the left. ( In essence, you’re twisting the pitcher toward you. ) The blender will not operate until you’ve turned the pitcher toward the left. On page 12 of the Ninja Owner’s Guide, you’ll see a drawing. It shows how the pitcher will look, once you’ve twisted it to the left. You’ll need your blender to look like that. Next, put the lid on the pitcher. You’ll need to line up the spout on the lid with the spout on the pitcher. The spout will be opposite to the handle. ( I failed to line the spout up properly. I was trying to jam the lid down onto the pitcher. That didn’t work. ) There is a handle on top of the lid. The handle is sticking up. I tried to shove the lid’s handle down, when the lid wasn’t on the pitcher. That didn’t work. The handle will only go down when the lid is on the pitcher. The lid of the Total Crushing Pitcher has a spout. The spout has a cover. I can’t get the cover to pop up. It’s stuck on the lid. I could exert more force, but I’m afraid that I’ll break it. The lid of the Precision Processor Bowl has a spout. The spout has a cover. I am able to open and close this cover. The same is true of the cover on the Single-Serve Cup. I make my frozen drink in the Total Crushing Pitcher. This pitcher is too big to store in my refrigerator. So, I do the following: 1. I make my frozen drink. 2. I remove the lid. ( Press the button on the lid, in order to remove the lid. ) 3. Remove the blade attachment from the pitcher! I forgot to do that. I poured out my drink from the pitcher. Liquid came out of the pitcher. Then, to my horror, out came the blade attachment! It fell, upside down, into the container that I was pouring my drink into. At that point, I resorted to metal tongs. I used the metal tongs to take the ( upside down ) blade attachment out of the container that it had fallen into. So, here’s another item that you should buy, when you buy a Ninja blender: Buy metal tongs. I didn’t see any way to retrieve the blade attachment, except by grasping its blades. No way was I doing that. ( I may seem squeamish. Trust me: these blade attachments are nasty. I’m surprised that Ninja can sell them. You’ll definitely want to keep small children, pets, and clumsy people away from your Ninja blender. Joe Biden: stay away from this blender! ) A common refrain about a microwave is the following: don’t use the popcorn button. If you use the popcorn button on your microwave, you’re likely to overcook, or undercook, your popcorn. Currently, I use the button marked “frozen” on my blender. It delivers a wonderful drink that consists of small crystals of crushed ice. However, the ice will melt. Since the joy of the drink lies in the fact that it contains crystals of ice, your drink soon becomes a smoothie. My advice: simply turn on the blender. Crush the ingredients until you’re satisfied with the result. However, don’t crush everything in one go. That is, load all of your ingredients into your blender. Then, turn your blender on. Next, before the crushing is finished, turn your blender off. Wait. Let the ingredients settle. Then, turn your blender on again. Do this several times. This is called “pulsing” the blender. If you press the “frozen” button, you’ll notice that it, too, pulses the blender. That is, the blender turns on and off, repeatedly, until it fully crushes your ingredients. What result am I aiming for? I want larger ice crystals. That way, it will take longer for them to melt. I pour my result from the Total Crushing Pitcher into the Precision Processor Bowl. Some of my drink remains in the Total Crushing Pitcher. So, I pour the rest of my drink into the Single-Serve Cup. I am able to store both the Precision Processor Bowl and the Single-Serve Cup in my refrigerator. The Total Crushing Pitcher, its lid, and its dangerous blade attachment go straight into my dishwasher. When you turn on your Ninja blender, you’ll find that it’s very loud! So, here’s another item to buy: ear protectors. I wear ear protectors when I operate my blender. The single serve cup can be described as “a sippy cup meets a thermos.” It’s a large, sealable container. I drink out of it. It’s not insulated. Making my drink, I was tempted to put ice cubes into the bottom of my blender. That’s not what Ninja recommends. According to Ninja, you put the lightest items into your blender first. You put the heaviest items in last. Here’s the drink that I made: Strawberry Splurge ( My recipe. ) 1. Two twelve ounce cans of Black Cherry soda. 2. Three single-serve containers of strawberry yogurt. 3. One bag of whole frozen strawberries. ( You can use sliced frozen strawberries, if you desire. ) 4. Three handfuls of ice. The result is a delicious fruity drink! Recommended with this: Snyder’s of Hanover “Snaps Pretzels”. ( Not the butter version. )

Very good product. Peace of mind

Excellent product. High powered

Love it. It’s a must have for every home. Have used it for years without issue.

I also have a larger Ninja blender system, but I had to replace the dough bowl several times. Instead of buying another one at $80 I chose to buy this smaller version that comes with some accessories. It is still very powerful. The only downside side for me is figuring out how to make my smoothie as perfectly as I did when I used my old Ninja dough bowl with wide blades. I think the bigger bowl and longer blades mixed the ingredients better.

What this product does is fine. It does a great job on ice and other things you need to blend up. One of the major flaws is the noise. Maybe I am being overly sensitive, but I swear I need to wear ear protection when I use it. Especially the small personal blender container. I have always liked Ninja products, as they do what they are supposed to and typically last a long time, but I think they went overboard a little on the design. I feel like something to going to break sooner than later. It seems a bit bulky and takes up a lot of space. I like the old glass containers, though I bought a traditional blender last year and it was not up to the task of cracking up ice and even blending. This does much better, but the other blender felt more durable and sat in the base tighter. Too bad it could not blend. LOL I am hoping for the best, as my last Ninja blender lasted over 10 years and was still working when we decided to disposed of it. Mistake? We shall see. For now I give it 4 stars as it's doing what was expected compared to the last Ninja we had.

Great gift for someone!

I pretty much use this exclusively for smoothies, using the "smoothie cup" included with this. It's nice to have the larger pitcher, which I have used, but for my needs it's the cup. The cup just makes everything easier, and clean up simple. Add your smoothies stuffs, screw on the blending blades cover, twist, and press the "smoothie" button. Remove the blending cap, rise it off, and screw on the "cup cap" which has a nice snap close for safe traveling. When your done, the cup and lid are very easy to clean. The smoothie button has it's own running process involving starts and stops initially to allow for the solid chunks to sink down to the blades, and finishes with a longer continues run for proper blending. It goes for 60 seconds, and I've never had to re-blend it(except for when I forgot to add juice, and just ended up with a puree instead of a smoothie). It locks into the blender itself with with plastic tabs which slot it, and with a short twist, you feel them hit the stop. It attaches and removes easily(same with the pitcher). I've really only used the pitcher once, and it worked great, but as this is a smoothie mixer for me, a pitcher is too much. More cleaning, and the extra volume isn't really needed when I can just refill the cup if I want another. I think I've had this for... maybe 2 years? I guess I just forgot to review it. Anyway, it's been working fine for me, and neither the blender, nor the cup attachment i use regularly are showing signs of wear yet. I'm happy I got it, it was worth whatever I paid for it at the time, and I'd consider buying another one if/when this one ever dies.

O melhor que já vi, super pontente. Amei

Amazing! I love my Ninja products. I like the different size containers and how easily the Ninja blends everything. Even ice!

Este sistema de cocina es perfecto, tiene todas las opciones para hacer de tu cocina el principal electrodoméstico. Silencioso y de simple lavado

Es una buena marca, funciona muy bien,los accesorios que la acompañan son muy útiles y la recomiendo mucho

Ótimo produto, ótima qualidade