What's a Magic Bullet?

Here is a link:
http://www.everythingkitchens.com/magic_bullet.html

You can look up reviews at either epinions.com or amazon.com

If you bought the Magic Bullet can you please give your review here. I was considering buying a blender but this might be better if it makes smoothies as well as a blender.

Well? Did you buy it?
One thing about it that I don't like (but the other brands are the same so you can't avoid it) is that all of the plastic cups, etc are not dishwasher safe. To some extent they are, maybe the china setting on your dishwasher would be OK. They don't want you to leave it in the dishwasher through the dry cycle because of the high heat. I'll never remember to stop the dishwasher in time to prevent that, it automatically goes into the dry cycle. So this means hand washing. ick.

I got one, and if you want a personal malt maker, get it, other than that, we really don't like it. Onions are too mushy when using this (plus my pampered chef chopper makes them "chopped"), salsa -- may be ok, I just like mine chunky. My Daughter tried the Alfredo sauce, her boyfriend LOVED it. For $40 if you need a personal blender, go for it. If you drink a lot of smoothies go for it. But if you want to replace ALL THOSE GADGETS, forget it. (But it makes GREAT GIANT MUDSLIDES - or maybe I just don't care after?!?!?!?

Vickey-MN

Hi Marie26 - Did you end up getting one after all? I bought one recently when it was on sale, though it didn't come with the bigger blender or juice extractor attachments which would have been nice to try.

After about 3 uses, I somehow mangled the white (gasket?) ring that is inside where the cups thread on to one of the bladed black pieces. I think it came loose in the dishwasher and I probably didn't push it back in properly before using it again. Luckily it came with 4 extra white rings; they can be problematic and sometimes come loose/out in the dishwasher (the manual discusses that).

I love that all the pieces can go in the dishwasher. Flyingflower I can't find in the manual where they don't want the plastic cups to go through any particular dishwasher cycle, including heat for drying. I've washed mine several times in the top rack and had no problem so far.

I've used it for grinding coffee beans; it seemed to do a better job for fine grinding than my Cuisinart blade grinder but it's not perfect for espresso making. Have also used it a couple of times to grind dry spices but don't want to impart lasting smells (so far ok); I've avoided grinding cloves as I think that's the one that causes discoloration/clouding of plastic as happened in my old Braun coffee grinder.

I loved using the Magic Bullet for making a modest amount of pesto, and for mincing several cloves of garlic and adding various spices & herbs for a made up mix to flavor chicken. The other day I used it instead the food processor to "blenderize" some chana dahl (I had forgotten to soak the chana peas for 3 hours as per instructions - they seem harder than regular yellow split peas - and wanted to use it both as a dahl and some thinned with broth as a soup.... it was great for that, albeit done in 3 or 4 batches. I liked that there was only the small items to clean up.... by putting them in the dishwasher, but even by hand it takes less counter or sink space.

We don't have a regular or immersion blender, and somehow I haven't gotten to using the big food processor a lot because of the heaviness to move it and it seems like a bigger deal to clean, even if there's a small bowl (though I could make myself try more to more fairly assess, especially as it's easier to move now since putting a slide-able plastic placemat underneath). But so far I quite like the Magic Bullet, and plan to try it for smoothies.... I expect it to be especially nice for that in the summertime. I'll probably also want to try grinding ice in the summer, but am a little leary about that... maybe I'll make smaller ice cubes for that in case that helps.

I do try to remember to unplug it after using as there's no "off" switch, and it can be dangerous to either hands or machine to accidentally push on the mechanism when unintended.

I don't do a lot of microwave heating in plastic, but they promote being able to do so, in which case it does seem handy to chop/mix/puree in a cup, heat, then store in fridge if need be by using the appropriate covers. Otherwise the lot of cups with lids do take up quite a bit of cupboard space, not being very stackable or nestable.

Hope that helps anyone still pondering.