Last week, our hand-cranked blender arrived in the mail, but we didn’t get to use it until today. Since our work schedules are basically opposite right now, Jason was gone when I got home today. I decided to give the blender a whirl (literally).
I’m not sure if it counts as a smoothie, since I just threw some frozen berries and vanilla yogurt together with a few drops of pineapple juice. It actually turned out to be quite tasty, if expectedly thick, almost like apple sauce.

Smoothie success = a bit of a mess!
The blender worked awesomely. I could see the cranking getting a bit tiring, but it’s a great workout. The model we bought is a two-speed Vortex blender that clamps onto the counter or table for stability. So far, I’m very happy with it. I have read that some of the parts break down after a while, but it seems fairly cheap and easy to buy replacements. And this sort of device will save on energy use, for sure, which will be a major concern for us on the boat. But more about that in another post.
Please share your smoothie recipes with us in the comments below!