The RainyDayKitchen folks have been busy testing the new Cuisinart food processor. Vegetables were being sliced, diced, and minced all week long. By Friday, they had accumulated an impressive assortment of nicely "processed" vegetables. They realized the best thing to do with a big pile of veggie bits was to make vegetable soup :-) 

As it turns out, making soup was also a great excuse for folks to try out the new Waring QuikStik Immersion Blender. The QuikStik is a commercial quality (steel blade, 2 speed, 100W motor) unit. It has a 7" insertion depth and is very comfortable in hand. The stainless steel touches are practical and attractive. 

This is a corded unit, so you will need to be near an outlet to use it. Waring does make cordless units, but they are about 7X the price. So unless you need to use one everyday, we say save the money and get the corded one.

Using an immersion blender is simple. Just put the tip into the liquid, press the switch, and move the wand around. The only thing to remember is DON"T lift the blade out of the liquid when it is still spinning. Smoothness (of the soup, in our case) is controlled by the amount of time blending.

The QuikStik worked flawlessly out of the box and the entire process took just a few minutes. We could hae done all of this with our standard blender, but it would have meant transferring batches of the hot liquid from the pot to the blender and back. It definitely was a lot easier to just blend everything right in the pot.

The Waring QuikStik is a versatile and powerful handheld blender. It won't replace a heavy-duty countertop unit, but it is an excellent complement to one. Get yours at where we got ours, at Everything Kitchens.   [Permalink] - Waring Quik Stik Immersion Blender  

NOTE: There is a sale going on at the moment and the price is tough to beat (List: $107, Sale: $70+FREE shipping).