Smoothie blender and mixer & smooth hummus

I had a couple of mini chopper/blenders for making hummus and salsas. One died, it was the more powerful of the two and more complicated to use, it allowed for pulsing and would make the blade go backwards on one setting. So, I had the more convenient one, but a bit weak. So I was looking out for another that was simple to us, cheap and would do heavy chopping.
Mary had a Nutribullet and they have quite gutsy motors and I thought I might get one of those as a substitute, as if you try to chop up a paua in one it buggers the motor, that is pretty tough to turn into a paua fritter.
Anyway, whilst at Brisco's looking for a lemon juicer, there was a deal on for a Zip blender that would make smoothies for 30$. A lot of the neutribullet type ones are about $100.
I like to try these type of things out, but I dodnt like paying a lot of money for them, especially if I don't end up using them.

So I decided to give this one a try as a smoothie blender plus also as a chopper upper.
The cup itself is narrow and deap, which is a bit irritating, but a long spoon will get to the bottom of  it.
The actual narrow vessel appealed to me as an alternative to a coffee cup to take on a walk. I can try to put this in my  jacket pocket to take for a drink on a walk instead, something cool instead of coffee.

 Hummus and Salsa (and paua?) blender

Not really for hummus as you need lots of liquid to make it work, also because its deep it might be hard to get a lot of it out. It might work for Salsa, but the blitzer does that fine.
Hummus recipe that looks really good as per this chaps videos:

This recipe is more like the lebanease hummus I'm used to, so adding garlic and 2 lemons is definitely the way to go, a more runny mix and more tart too. Very nice. I'll follow this recipe next time.
I'll also try some salsa recipes, although I quite like to weaker blender for that.

 Prices of produce.

its starting to warm up and i was going to buy a cabbage for making coleslaw. In Pak'n'Save it was 3.75 for a cabbage so I thought I'd go to the vege market and get some fruit and veges there. So things are cheaper, some about the same as supermarkets, but well worth going for the deals you can get. The cabbage was $2. But then I give the change to the Shelter people, so in the end I think its about the same price. But some cheaper fruits (apples/oranges) are definitely cheaper nand they are good for the blender, and that will be an addition to my diet.

Smoothie Recipes 

The gizmo comes with some recipes:

So far I've tried an apple & orange mix, but it needs liquid otherwise the bottom pieces pulp and the top bits just sit at the top. So I added some water, vanilla essence & milk and it was very nice.
I'm not sure how it'll do with ice cubes , I'll need to give it as try as I've just taken one of the bags of lemon I got from Zoe and put it into ice cubes (it made 10 quite big cubes. That will add a zing to the smoothies.

SUMMER AND FRUIT & ICECREAM MILKSHAKES

 With summer coming along there will be more fruit, Kiwi's pears (which normally I can leave but maybe the'll work in with smoothies. Also adding some icecream to them may be a way of making thickshakes with fruit (this may not be too healthy a contraption, now I think about it).
Anyway, I'll add some links to some recipes and see what works.

So far dec 2nd

I've been making a few as I bought some oranges and apples. I've been using milk and water as the fluid although adding some lime cordial in adds a punch.
I've bought some vanilla ice cream and put that in with the fruit and its a nice refreshingly cool drink, althoufgh thick.
Also, I've been taking it out on walks, coffee in one pocket, smoothy in the other.
I've used the lemon ice cubes, although I've tried to melt them first.
I found a whole lot of kiwi fruit in the freezer, I have a few bags of that, so I'm using those, taking some out and letting them melt.
Its a good way to get cheap fruit into me. I'm not a fan of apples, pears or oranges (too messy to peel/eat) but they are easy in the smoothie maker.
I've been trying some cheap coke and lemonade I'd bought for trying the beer mixers (totally unsuccessful) and the lemonade works well.
I need to stock up on cheap fruit when I go shopping as it adds a bit of something drink wise.