Ninja Master Prep Professional Blender

Product Description

Ninja Master Prep Professi Al Blender , Bunn Bxw Velocity Brew 10 Cup Home Coffee Brewer , Lello 1375 Ariete Cafe Prestige Coffee Maker , Bunn Vps 12 Cup Pourover Commercial Coffee , Francis Francis 207003 X7 Iperespresso Machine , Capresso Ec100 Pump Espresso , Braun Wk600 Impressi S 7 Cup Electric Kettle , Deals Del Ghi Esam3500n Magnifica Digital, Jura 13548 Impressa J6 Automatic Coffee , Zojirushi Cd Fac22 Zutto Micom Electric Dispensing Pot , Ninja Master Prep Professional, Black & Stainless Steel Design, Blender, Patented Ninja 6 Blade Technology Crushes Ice, Chops & Blends 2 Times Faster, More Power, 450W Motor, Mince, Dice, Chop, Blend & Puree Effortlessly, Powerful, Interchangeable Master Pod Activates The 48 OZ, Pitcher & The 16 OZ, Bowl, Includes: 3 Custom Fit Storage Lids, On QB1004 Only, For Both Pitcher, Bowl & Chopper, Dishwasher Safe Parts.
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This review is from: Ninja Master Prep Professional Blender, Chopper and Ice Crusher: More Powerful & 2X Faster- Recipe Book Included
I generally don't write reviews, but I have had an interesting enough time playing with my "Ninja" that I am writing this.

I bought the Ninja as a blender replacement and food chopper (more specifically, to dice and grind hard cheeses). I was initially going to order a Cuisinart/KitchenAid mini-prep or similar, or a blender/food processor from Cuisinart. However, after reading Consumer Reports' ratings of food choppers/food processors and blenders, I decided to give this a try - it has a lot of good ratings on Amazon, and CR rated it as the best food chopper and 2nd best blender (right after the $250 Vita-Mix, which I never even considered). The Cuisinart blender/food processor was ranked substantially lower, although it would have been able to slice and shred as well.

My needs - I am an amateur home cook, and I like to try different things. I do not cook in high volumes. I also try to limit what I have in my kitchen to tools that I enjoy and will use. Frankly, given that this is an infomercial device, I was wondering if it was a good option or not even after I ordered it.

Upon opening, it seems to be pretty well contsructed. No redundant tools, although for the smallest bowl/chopper, the blade assembly is in 2 parts rather than in 1 part. It takes about 5 seconds to assemble, so it's not a big deal, but I don't know why this is the case.

I have used it for several different tasks:

1) Blending a fresh mango/pineapple/coconut milk/milk smoothie in large blender. Quickly blended all ingredients into a smooth mixture. Am drinking this as I type. No chunks, lumps, or other problems. Definitely above my old blender, which is over 10 years old (Oster). Also processing sauteed leeks into a leek pasta sauce with parsley - a few missed parsley strands (stalks), some missed bits around edges. Suspect a food processor with a feed tube wouldn't have had this, but would have been much more difficult and messy to get thick pastelike sauce through a feed tube.

2) Grinding hard Romano cheese in small chopper bowl. Very quickly reduced 1" wide chunks into coarse powder. No lumps, worked very well.

3) Avocado/goat cheese dip in medium bowl. Worked well without lumps or problems.

In summary:

Pros - easy to assemble, multiple bowls so you can work on multiple food projects at the same time without rinsing or cleaning bowls (this is really convenient), blades remove easily and you can fiddle with bowls without fear of nicking your fingers, works well for all food chores, cleans easily in dishwasher (blades)

Cons - am still getting used to "top down" blender rather than the usual blender style with lid on top and blades on the bottom, blades need to be in bowl before adding food, initially bowls didn't clean well in dishwasher (not sure why; the avocado dip and and leek mixture took a few washings. This may have been a dishwasher issue, and haven't heard of similar problems)

In short, I would buy this again preferentially over a blender and food processor, as this is easy and convenient ehough that I think that I will use it sporadically to regularly, probably moreso than a blender/food processor combo. If I do need to slice/shred, will probably buy a Presto Professional Salad Shooter (have used one and it works, although it's messy) over a larger food processor given my needs. If I had to use a blender/chopper often, I'd still go with the Ninja. The ability to use multiple bowls/projects is much more convenient than I had anticipated.

I do hope they come out with a food slicer/shredder now. :-)

Update 12/5/2011 - I am actually using this significantly more than I anticipated. The small chopper gets used for blending protein powder into chocolate milk/smoothies for my daughter, and I just used the large blender today to process some chunks of Gran Panado and ricotta cheeses with spinach for a "spinach ricotta" sauce for pasta. It's really easy to grab an empty blending container (I keep the blades in them and the tops on), toss some stuff in, and blend the heck out of it. It does not dice, however - you either end up with large chunks, or to process those some other chunks get pureed in the process. Still gets 4 stars, and I still hope that they come out with a slicer/shredder/dicing machine. As for cleaning, they wash as clean as anything else in my washer without any residual film or food particles (I still don't know what was so bad about that leek mixture!), although the flat bottoms collect water and need to be rinsed off.