6640-022 Table Top Blender, Oster 6640, 10 spd White Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This blender does crush ice and makes my smoothies with ease (the recipe's in my book, Feeding the Kids!). I have even ground coffee with the blender a few times. Its motor is holding up well after around 2 years of heavy usage and washings in the dishwasher.
The other review mentioned leaking. The blender only leaks when you put the rubber gasket on below the blade attachment. It's an easy mistake to make--and an easy mistake to correct. There is a note engraved on the blade attachment showing just where to put the gasket, but it's not very noticeable unless you look for it.
My main complaint is that the lid of the blender is very poorly made and warped in the dishwasher. Also, the middle part of the lid fell into the blender and was pureed into my soup while I was blending it. That's a major design flaw. The lid is the main reason I give this product 3 stars.
Update: It finally died after about 4 years of fairly heavy usage. The motor still works, but the stem that spins snapped off. I did have to replace the rubber gasket, blades, lid and glass jar (my fault, I dropped it) over the years--but still, an OK blender for the price.


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Factory-Reconditioned Cuisinart CBT-500FR Brushed Stainless Power Blender Review

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(More customer reviews)There is, effectively, no spout from which to pour; consequently, I am always making a mess, especially with thick liquid. The bottom blade assembly is poorly designed and has locked up on me twice from crushing ice and blending thick soup. Cuisinart sent me a replacement once, and then, reluctantly, a second time, warning me that this was the last time. Now another cheap plastic piece has broken and they won't replace it. Total piece of junk.


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West Bend 82386 Kettle Krazy Popcorn Popper and Nut Roaster Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I shopped around quite a bit for a popcorn popper. I was tired of microwave stuff, and don't like the results from a hot-air popper.
There are several like this, with a motorized stirring rod and a cooking surface, but either they get poor reviews for reliability (Cuisinart), or were too expensive, difficult to maintain, scratched the Teflon cooking surface, etc.
This model is very similar to the West Bend Stir Crazy, but has two heat settings (nuts or popcorn) and - most importantly - a much thicker stirring rod. With the more basic Stir Crazy, the rod is thin and easily flexed (think coat-hanger) and diverted by the weight of the popcorn itself, causing it to be pressed into the Teflon surface while rotating, thus scratching the Teflon. This model has a MUCH thicker stirring rod (I took a few pictures and added them above to demonstrate) that never makes contact with the surface.
The popper pretty much performs like it's supposed to. I was curious to see if the lid stayed in place while popping a full batch, because is simply sits on top and is only held in place by the weight of the cover. It does in deed stay put.
It doesn't seem to matter what brand of popping corn you use. Name brand or generic seem to perform the same - very well. I have never used the butter well, because I don't like how you wind up with a few soggy bits of corn rather than all of it having a consistent flavor and texture. I've experimented some and found that simply adding several pats of butter to the oil and corn does a great job of giving you a nice mild butter flavor. I thought maybe the butter would burn, but that did not happen. I also reduced the oil by 1/2T Spoon, but don't recommend reducing the oil much more than that, since the distributed hot oil is what promotes the rapid kernel popping. I also added salt directly to the oil and popping corn at the beginning of the process, which worked well enough, but was more difficult to clean in the end. I'm also worried that it might over time scratch the Teflon surface, so I don't plan to do that again.
The bowl is moderate thickness, and appears fairly sturdy. It is not flexible, so I imagine a hard drop might crack it. Because it is a hard clear plastic, it is susceptible to scratching if you use any kind of abrasive to clean it. I'm not sure why you would, considering it only takes a bit of soap and hot water to clean popcorn/oil/butter residue, but whatever.
Finally, it comes with a few recipes in the manual. We've tried a couple and they turned out well. One of them was Scotcheroo Popcorn - which is a sort of gooey sweet treat that includes chocolate and butterscotch chips.
All together we are really, really happy with this popper. I recommend it without hesitation.
UPDATE: UPDADE: I often wonder about these reviews. 99% of the good reviews are written in the first few days of ownership. This tell you nothing of the longevity of the product. So, I am back after a year to tell you that I still love this popper. It still does a great job, and has had absolutely no issues.

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Ideal for anyone who loves to curl up with a bowl of popcorn and watch movies, this electric popper quickly pops up to 6-quarts of fresh, hot popcorn in minutes. The versatile appliance can also be used to make up to 3 cups of mall-kiosk-style glazed nuts or roasted nuts to serve to friends on poker night or when watching the big game. Simply turn the control knob from "off" to "popcorn" or "nuts", depending on the task at hand. The unit's motorized stir rod and nonstick temperature-controlled heating plate work together to keep the kernels or nuts in constant motion and evenly heated for thoroughly roasted nuts or perfectly popped popcorn (with very few unpopped kernels). Even more, the machine's see-through lid doubles as a 6-quart (24-cup) popcorn bowl. Simply pop, flip, and serve. Extended stay-cool handles assist with flipping the base and lid when emptying popcorn into the bowl, and the unit's removable heating plate cleans up effortlessly by hand or in the dishwasher. With its sleek, curvy design, the popcorn popper and nut roaster measures approximately 12 by 15 by 9-1/2 inches.

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Black & Decker BL10450HB Crush Master 10-Speed Blender with 42-Ounce Glass Jar, Black Review

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(More customer reviews)We have had our blender for about two months, and we use it all the time. We use it to make smoothies, milkshakes, and we use it for cooking. It is very powerful and can blend anything. The thing we love most about it is how easy it is to clean up. The bottom isn't cupped so it makes it easy to get a wet rag in and wipe it off. And if something spills it just drips down the side and doesn't get trapped inside. The price was awesome and it arrived sooner than expected. We would recommend this blender to anyone.

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Oster BCBG08-C 6-Cup Glass Jar 8-Speed Blender, Brushed Nickel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It's sweet! Feels a bit cheap in the controls, plastic buttons but who cares. The jar, sharp blades, lid are all exactly like my parents Osterizer they got for their wedding in the 60's (which is still going strong). I make smoothie-whey protein shakes everyday (juices, yoghurt, apple sauce, whey protein, ice cubes, frozen strawberries-blackberries-blueberries, flax seed) all this stuff fills it to the top and the Oster made short work of it. Ten seconds or less. I think I kept it running longer just because I was used to my Kitchen Aid blender that I ran at multiple speeds plus pulse and still had chunks left over.
Anyway, it's cheap, it's basic, it works better than high dollar blenders. I blend daily, I'm totally happy. 'nuff said.

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Magic Bullet BER-0601 Bullet Express Trio 3-in-1 Blender System Review

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(More customer reviews)I own this product and would not, repeat would not recommend it. The motor overheats easily and well under the cautionary three minute time stated in the directions. It will run again AFTER SITTING TO COOL OVERNIGHT. Mine overheated after about a minute pulsing pre softened ice cream. Seriously.
The juicer does not do the job, it doesn't even come close to extracting all the juice from tomatoes or cooked elderberries which should not be much of a challenge. The pulp cup is tiny and fills quickly with juice laden pulp. I put the tomatoes through the Bullet three times before setting up my other juicer and still got juice from the "pulp" when I put it through that.The pieces do not fit tightly together which allows some of what little juice it does extract to spray in a pretty fan pattern across the front of whatever shirt you are wearing, including the sleeves so don't bother with an apron.
The processer itself does chop stuff up but the pieces are not uniform and they fly all over the place when they come out of the Bullet rather than falling nicely into a bowl. If you have a helper they could hold the bowl and tip it up to catch the pieces. I tried raising the bowl up as high as I could but still had food pieces all over. And the feed chute is so small (especially in relation to the size of the cutting bowl)that by the time you've cut the food small enough to feed it through with just a few more cuts you could have the job done without all the set up and clean up hassle.
This product has as many pieces as the processors they claim it is superior to, and these pieces are cumbersome to handle and take a ton of room to store.The way you have to grab the blade to remove it for cleaning is of some concern although I was very very careful and never got cut. There are also small tabs on the plastic attachments that seem like they might not hold up to mush use. However, that isn't a problem for me because mine sits in a box in the basement. I wish I'd kept my old 1970's processer!
The company is completely unresponsive, so if you think you still want to try this product pay careful attention to that 30 day guarantee and be prepared to pay for the shipping to get it to you and return it which adds up to over [...]. I'd sell mine but that would be irresponsible. Read other reviews.

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Bodum Bistro Electric Two Speed Citrus Juicer Review

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(More customer reviews)I really wanted to like this juicer, but I was quickly disappointed.
Pros:
*It's quiet.
*It's easy to take apart and wash, and the relevant parts are even dishwasher safe.
*The glasses are very nice (if a bit thin), stackable, and bigger than I expected. They're the highlight of the product, actually.
Cons:
*The juicer cone is not very aggressively constructed. I found that I really had to push hard and wiggle the orange around a lot to get it going.
*The juicer does not turn very quickly. I think using a manual juicer would be just as quick.
*Though this juicer is 100 watts, it bogs down and strains if you push very hard (which it cautions you to not do).
*The "cyclone function" does not come anywhere near to extracting "all" the juice from the pulp, as they claim. It's only a little faster than the regular juicing speed, and it did pull out a bit more juice, but I was still left with a heap of sopping pulp in the strainer.
*Because the performance of this juicer is really not much better than a manual juicer, it might seem that it would be useful only for someone who would be juicing a lot of fruit at one time. But, per the instructions, you can only use this juicer for three minutes before you should stop and let it cool down to "room temperature." (I never sensed that it was getting hot, so how could I tell when it had cooled?) Given how long it takes to juice a single orange, you might be able to juice two oranges (one glassful) at the most before having to wait. This isn't a machine that will let you blaze through a bag of oranges and produce a pitcher of juice as breakfast cooks.
Overall, the Bodum Bistro juicer does indeed juice and is well designed for easy cleaning, but considering its price, large size, and so-so performance, I can't recommend it. Amazon offers other juicers that are highly rated and cheaper. In an electric, you might consider the very reasonably priced (and far more versatile) Black & Decker CJ525 CitrusMate Juicer, the even cheaper (and higher powered) Oster 3186 Juice-n-Serve Automatic Citrus Juicer or the Tribest Citristar Juicer; or go low-tech and cheap and try the aggressive cone on the Oxo Good Grips Citrus Juicer.


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Better Chef IM550V Juicer Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've just finished drinking my first glass of carrot juice made with this juicer. I couldn't be more satisfied.

First of all it's very easy to assemble, disassemble and wash. I've had two other "under $50" juicers and have had trouble getting the stainless steel baskets in and out and remembering what order to assemble it - with this one it was a breeze.
Carrots are one of the harder textured food to juice. This machine was so quick and powerful I couldn't believe it, it took seconds!!!! I can't attest to whether it will continue to work, but for function and ease of use you can't beat it. It also does a good job of extracting all the juice out - the pulp was very dry.
Would recommend it if it were five times the price - I've never seen a juicer so inexpensive. This is the machine to buy if you've considered juicing, but were hesitant to invest the money. Also, makes a great additional juicer.

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