WFMW: Brand Loyal Edition

I LOVE my Magic Bullet.

I have purchased a lot of junk from the TV, so I know that if it's $19.95, or if it's "buy one, get one free!!!" it's usually crap. However, the Magic Bullet is not crap. It is awesome.

I've had mine for about 2 years, now, and it still works as well as it did the day I opened the package. When Mary Grace was little, I made almost all of her baby food using the bullet. When I made dinner, I'd just toss a little bit of whatever she could eat (veg, fruits, casseroles, whatever...) into the bullet, blend it for a few seconds (literally!), and feed it to her. (Add a little liquid to thin it - juice, cooking water from the veg, milk, etc. Whatever makes sense with what you're making. Add baby cereal to thicken it, or mashed potato flakes, or mashed potatoes, for that matter... Whatever you have handy). No preservatives, no tiny jars clogging up the landfill, no money wasted on jarred food (50 cents for about 2 dozen peas, blended? Puh-lease!). It easily paid for itself by the time she was off of pureed food. And it's much easier than dragging out the food processor - I just leave mine on the counter, and it's ready to rock and roll.

By the way, have you tasted commercial baby food? Nasty. I think the reason that she's such a good eater now has a lot to do with the fact that I've always fed her "real" food, and not the jarred stuff. (Well, ok, we used the jarred stuff when we were on the road... We kept some on-hand for really busy days, or days when we ordered pizza, which doesn't puree well, or whatever...)

But that's not all! Once she was eating "real" food, one of our favorite breakfasts became the smoothie. Take some of those frozen bananas I've been pushing, and throw it in the bullet with some vanilla yogurt and whatever fruit (fresh or frozen) that you have lying around. Poof, smoothie. You can even be mean and add protein powder and other nastiness... Vitamins, whatever. I don't, but you could. I'm just happy that she's eating fruit, and she thinks it's ice cream. It's great for days when you have to be somewhere, and you don't have time for a sit down breakfast, and it's much healthier than anything you'll get in a drive-thru.

Another brilliant thing I do with mine is make my own Aveeno bath gunk for a fraction of the cost of the real thing. If I hadn't already paid for the bullet with the baby food, I'd have paid for it by doing this. Take a handful of oatmeal. Put it in the bullet and blend it until it's a fine powder. You have just made Aveeno. But wait, there's more! If you add some baking soda (to soften the water) and some powdered milk (to moisturize), you have a bath powder that will seriously cure the toughest diaper rash in the universe. Just pour in about a third of a cup (more or less, this isn't science...) as the water's running in the tub, and swish it around with your hand to mix it and eliminate clumps, toss the baby in (gently!), and by morning the diaper rash will be a thousand percent better. I promise. You will save money on diaper rash cream, too. I'm not even kidding - MG had a rash so bad that she had blisters, and we gave her a bath with this, and by the next morning it was almost entirely healed. It's magic.

You can also do Frappucino style drinks, and they're really good. Use that creamer stuff that my husband's addicted to - Coffee Mate liquid. Get fun flavors (they have a bunch, Creme Brulee is my favorite). Coffee (cold, left over from this morning, works fine), some ice, some creamer, poof. You just saved $4.

The salsa and guac that they do on the commercial didn't work that well for me, but I over-mixed them. You can do batter, but I've never though stirring was such a big deal (and things with flour tend to toughen if you overmix them) so I don't do that. You can make Slurpee or Icee style drinks by using fruit juice and ice (real fruit juice, not the flavored chemicals with food coloring that they sell at the gas station). You just saved another $2, and you didn't fill your kid up with Red Dye #3. Yay!

Do yourself a favor and buy one. If you use the link above, it's buy one, get one, and you can save the second one for a baby shower gift (print this post and give it to the Mom-To-Be - tell her I said congratulations!). Or you can do what I did and buy yours at Walgreen's for instant gratification. You won't be sorry!

If you're here for WFMW, don't miss my other WFMW posts:

How to quickly cool Mac & Cheese.
How to soothe a teething baby without whiskey - oops! I mean Tylenol.
How to do Time Outs correctly.
How to improvise a changing table.
How to get a baby and a toddler into the car.
How to keep your house decluttered with an old waitressing mantra.
How to find a great baby sling.
How to manage your grocery list online.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope to see you again soon!

Visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for more WFMW tips!