mgaretz

First reports. The first spin was my "normal" peanut butter salted caramel. It came out great. Very dense texture, very much like gelato, very smooth with no iciness. This has ice cream texture right out of the machine - not soft-serve like when you churn. This took a single spin on the ice cream program. First picture is right out of the unit after taking a small spoonful off the top. Second is a scoop into a bowl. The real test will be to see how the scoopability is tomorrow. Second spin was the zero sugar almond milk chocolate. This took a spin on the lite ice cream program and three re-spins (there's a re-spin program) to get a creamy texture (vs crumbly). The flavor was OK, but the texture was thin, more like ice milk or a chocolate sorbet than ice cream. It wasn't icy, but it did leave a layer of hard frozen product coating the sides and bottom of the container. This didn't happen with other recipe. This either needs some stabilizer help or more fat or both. I am guessing this will be rock hard tomorrow, but we'll see. Tonight I went to the store and stocked up on lactose free half and half (actual dairy), canned coconut milk and coconut cream, Silk non-dairy whipping cream, and Tofutti non-dairy cream cheese to experiment with. Then I took their main chocolate base recipe and made some mods: Their recipe calls for 1 tbs cream cheese, 1 cup whole milk, 3/4 cup cream, 1/3 cup sugar and 2 tbs of cacao powder. I substituted 1 3/4 cups of the half and half as this is pretty close to their milk/cream ratio, mine being a little more heavy on the cream side, the tofutti for the cream cheese and I upped the cacao to 4 tbs. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon of espresso powder. Their recipe calls for whisking the sugar, cacao and cream cheese until it looks like frosting. Didn't work, probably because of the extra cacao. I ended up blending everything. Now in the freezer and will spin it tomorrow night. General thoughts. Pretty easy to assemble and use. Not messy - the outer container didn't even need a rinse. I expected the blade to be super sharp, like a food processor blade, but it isn't. Easy to handle safely. Takes about 2.5 minutes for a full spin, the re-spin is shorter. It is quite loud.

Thick pork chop and grilled zucchini, both cooked on the NFG, served with some leftover fried rice.

Thursday my plan is to do a "french-fry-off" making from scratch fries in both the NFG and the BSOA.

@blue_dolphin wins! I decided to make my normal peanut butter salted caramel ice cream using almond milk and the soft-serve mix, though I used about 25% less mix than normal and a little less of my normal anti-freeze hack (vegetable glycerin). I also tried to make a recipe from the book (lite chocolate non-dairy ice cream). I say "tried" because it turns out my canned coconut milk had expired long ago and didn't taste right to me. So instead I opted for almond milk. (They recommend oat milk, but when I tried oat milk instead of almond before I didn't like the taste. Could have been the brand of oat milk, but I never tried it again (well, except for "barista blend oat milk" with my Nespresso machine - didn't care for that either). I also used an erythritol/monk fruit sweetener and added 50% more cocoa powder than they recommended and a teaspoon of espresso powder - another hack to increase the chocolate flavor. Both are in the freezer now and they will get spun tomorrow evening. I haven't powered up the motor base yet, but so far my first impressions are good. I especially like the fact that they have lots of vegan/non-dairy/low sugar options for almost every recipe and that's very rare in the frozen dessert field. So this lactose intolerant guy gives them kudos for that. They also have a number of recipes labeled Try It Now for folks that don't want to wait for the 24 hour freeze cycle, but most (maybe all) are milk-shake recipes. They say if I register I get a coupon for additional Creami pint jars, but so far no coupon has appeared in my inbox. I did get a 10% off coupon for signing up for the mailing list - hope the jar offer is better. I watched some of their videos tonight and it sure looks like it works exactly like the PacoJet, minus the air pressure feature. On the other hand, PacoJet's website and manual is pretty vague about what the air pressure feature actually is good for.

Tell him I command it. 😉

The Creami arrived. It has been unboxed but that’s about it. I had a rehearsal tonight. I am now pondering what to make for the first try. Trying to decide between my normal churned non-dairy ice cream or a recipe from the book that came with it.

UPS says the Ninja is out for delivery!

UPS just sent me an update - the Ninja is back on for tomorrow 8/31. We'll see.

Pizza with a cracker-thin crust, mozzarella, chicken Italian sausage and an abundance of mushrooms.

For those that are interested, Amazon has some refurbished Ninja Food Grills on Deal of the Day: https://amzn.to/3mSNV1w $104 for the model without the probe, $169 with.

Now they are saying Wednesday 9-1 but it appears it hasn't actually been given to UPS yet, so the actual date is anybody's guess.

Top sirloin, cooked SV then seared, served with the last of the leftover potatoes. The odd shape is because it was a large piece and I always ask my wife to cut what she wants and leave me the rest, so that's what she left me.

Kohls is now saying it will arrive on Tuesday 8/31.

Cream cheese is available in any market. Stabilizers/hydrocolloids, not so much. Do you have any recommendations? Keep in mind that all of their recipes are cold preparations - no heating, just mixing. I do have some Cremodan, but that requires heating to 186F. I'll likely try my standard addition of vegetable glycerin, but open o suggestions.

A. Leftovers. 😉

My guess is that they will make slightly different packages for different markets. There seems to be a model with less programs (no smoothie bowl is the example I saw in the manual), and also less or more pint containers and lids. The model I am getting seems to have all the programs.

It's not an error - the basic recipes in the book do call for cream cheese (just a tablespoon) but a lot of them don't. I certainly won't be using it so we will see if something needs to be substituted or not. I will likely get some non-dairy cream cheese if leaving it out doesn't give satisfactory results. Jeni's ice cream recipes usually call for cream cheese and I seem to remember a discussion somewhere here about what the effect was. Possibly that can shed some light on a substitute or two.

I checked the recipe book and it doesn't appear cream cheese is a requirement. Lots of non-diary and low sugar recipes which is a good thing for me. It sure looks like it works the same as a PacoJet. I decided to give it a try. Everyone has it for $199, but I got it at Kohls with 20% off with a friends and family code of FAMILYSHOP and also included $30 of "Kohl's Cash" which I will likely never use. The discount code is good through 4-29. I will report back on how it works, of course. Supposed to arrive in a week or so.

Thick pork chop, cooked on the NFG along with potatoes, coleslaw and garlic bread leftovers from last night's chicken dinner takeout.

Burger and grilled cauliflower, cooked on the Ninja Food Grill at the same time, along with steamed spinach with butter.

Stir fry with noodles, char siu, snap peas, mushrooms, spinach and onion.

Yes, so far, but the BSOA has it beat for capacity. But I am also liking the grill part of the Ninja, which I will now call the NFG, not a great set of initials for something that is actually pretty good... 😉

Panko breaded shrimp with sweet potato tots, both made in the air fryer, and steamed cauliflower with butter.

Kirkland Panko-breaded shrimp and sweet potato tots, air crisp mode at 390F for 16 minutes. Both came out great.

Did some fries made from scratch in the Ninja Foodi Grill (Air Crisp mode). Russet potato, skin on, soaked in water for 30 minutes with a few water changes, dried then tossed with some peanut oil. Book called for 20 minutes at 390F and these were pulled at 18 minutes. They were yummy, mostly crisp on the outside with a creamy interior. None overcooked or burnt.