For years now I’ve been lusting after a Vitamix blender. This blog post from 2013 proves it. Last month I convinced my friend to take me to Costco so I could buy their Quest Bar rip-offs (they’re amazing!), but also because I wanted to eat so many samples I didn’t need to eat lunch (mission accomplished). There was a nice girl doing a Vitamix demo so my friend and I parked our cart and did nothing but eat her delicious blender creations for an hour (I’m not exaggerating. We were pretty much best friends with the Vitamix girl by the end). Watching her make tasty smoothies, soups, ice creams and dips in minutes renewed my longing for a professional-grade blender. So I went home and immediately started looking for Vitamixes for sale in the UK.
For those of you who don’t know, Vitamix is the Rolls Royce of blenders. Every professional food blogger (and chef, likely) uses one. They are amazing, high-powered machines. But they are also stupidly expensive. In the U.S. they’ll cost you an arm and a leg, but in the UK they’ll cost you an arm, leg and a foot. Even a used or refurbished one is pricey. I was reading reviews on Amazon, trying to convince myself that I should throw down £399 ($500+) on a small kitchen appliance, when one of the reviews mentioned the Vitamix competitor — the Electriq iQMix. I thought I knew of all the professional blender brands, like Blendtec and Ninja. I had never heard of this Electriq iQMix. So I looked it up.
“Vitamix is a great blender but why spend £400 when you can get the same results from the iQMix for under £100?” The website asked. Good question. I studied the specs and read all the reviews and was sold. I ordered my iQMix blender on Sunday and spent the next three days obsessively refreshing my email waiting for shipment confirmation. I am almost embarrassed to admit how excited I was at the prospect of a new Vitamix-like blender. (I’m actually devoting an entire blog post to it now, aren’t I?)
It arrived early this morning, so I spent my whole run thinking about the chocolate avocado ice cream I was going to make when I got home. Of all the creations we tasted at Costco, the chocolate avocado ice cream was my favorite. It legit tasted like a Wendy’s Frostie, even though the movie Mr. Deeds taught us it isn’t possible to make one at home. But I was going to try! I used the recipe the Costco Vitamix girl gave me (I told you we were buddies!), but realized I was missing one key ingredient — a buttload of ice. In what may come as a shock to my American readers (like my dad), I never have ice in my freezer. I don’t use it for drinks and I’ve never had a blender that can properly handle ice in a smoothie. So I filled one tiny ice tray last night, not realizing the recipe called for 2 to 3 cups of ice. So my chocolate avocado ice cream came out more like a smoothie, but it was still everything I dreamed it would be. And based off this one experience and this one recipe, I would highly recommend the Electriq iQMix to any of my UK readers who don’t want to spring for a Vitamix.
Reneedezvous 