Strangely, I owned a hand blender before I had a set of dishes or silverware. My aunt and uncle gave one to me one Christmas when I was still in my early twenties, living a carefree existence with minimal possessions. I couldn’t find the exact model, but it looks similar to this Sunny Morning by Kalorik Stick Mixer. I made some great single-serving milk shakes, small batches of pesto, pureed creamy soups right on the stove top, and created many other tasty concoctions over the years.

Flash forward to 2006, when I discovered that an immersion blender was more than an appliance for a free-wheeling single woman. It was perfect for whipping up smaller batches of baby food, when I didn’t want to clean out my entire food processor or food mill. Say I had a cup of black beans or a single sweet potato or two bananas, for example—I just put them in the cup that comes with the appliance and blended them away.

If you don’t do much cooking and therefore don’t want to shell out hundreds of dollars for a food processor you’ll never use, an immersion blender might be all you need. You can buy the Silex Immersion hand blender or the Toastmaster Immersion hand blender for just around $13. The Kitchenaid hand blender or the Cuisinart hand blenders come in different colors and offer more attachments for about $50. If you want to get really fancy, why not try the Robot Coupe Turbo Power mixer for just $760.00? Actually, I am not sure this is even for mixing food. My modest immersion blender has worked just fine for at least fifteen years, so there’s no need to go nuts with the fanciest model on the market!

Thus concludes my series on “gadgets with which to pulverize baby food.” For more exciting reading, check out my posts on using a food processor and food mill. Also, weigh in on the great Green Baby Guide duel of 2010: pro-blender vs. anti-blender.