— Maura Ema

If you are someone who has an aversion to single use appliances, it might not be something for you. But this little machine that I have right here is 15 years old. I have used it, uh, in cooking classes. I've used it at parties for children. I've used it to make dessert for myself. I'm gonna just show you how easy it is to use. So let me first tell you that the Yana headquarters are located in Cleveland, Ohio, but the Yanas are made in China. And during the pandemic, someone had borrowed this prior to the pandemic. So I thought, I've gotta, I've gotta get a fake yo machine. So I found a fake yo machine and had to return it stat because it sounded like a dental drill. It was the worst noise that you would ever wanna hear, and the product did not come out right. So this is very easy to assemble and put together. This is the shoot, this is the tamper. Your frozen fruit goes in here. I like to cut bananas into thirds and freeze them. They fit better. You can use, um, peeled cooked yams, which make a lovely, lovely ice cream, or mix them with peaches or whatever. You stick it in the chute and then it comes out of here. It's very easy to clean. You just unwind it this way. There are those little blades, boom, boom. Uh, it takes maybe 30 seconds for about six pieces of banana to come through your first plunged into the, um, into the, um, machine doesn't come outta the machine. So you always might wanna think about using extra fruit just to have enough on hand. Everyone's sorry for the noise. Everyone's always surprised at how delicious it tastes. However, if you don't have a unanimous machine, and of course, you know, I'm always gonna suggest using a small food processor just because the, the velocity of the blade isn't, as, doesn't become as hot as it does in the Vitamix, which will melt the fruit a little bit more, and you'll lose some of that icy texture that you're looking for. So I like to make it in a small food processor, which works very well. But one of the latest CRAs of right now is taking a microplane and, uh, grating the fruit into a dish. So I'm going to hold this real close. This one has bigger holes than this one does, but they both work. I prefer to use this one if I'm grating berries or bananas. I always wear gloves when I hand grate, not to protect anyone or anything if I'm cooking it for myself, but so that my body d that my body temperature does not melt the fruit because you wanna get it as icy as you can. So I say yes to yo Nanas, yes to a blender, yes to microplane. Um, and it all seems to work. But I will say that if you're having a party, whether it be for children or adults, setting up a Sunday bar with cut fruit and, uh, maybe some delicious, uh, grain free, um, vegan chocolate chips, um, kids absolutely love that. Uh, you could make some aquafaba to put on top as, uh, its whipped cream, uh, counterpart, but everybody seems to love the machine and you don't have to get the deluxe version, which is twice the price. The little simple one that retails for about $37 works very, very well. And you can see by the longevity of the one that I just shared with you that, uh, it works just fine.