Prep like a pro: If you’re hosting and want to do more than one course, then soup (hot or cold) is your easy solution. Any seasonal veg sweated and boiled down with softened onion, garlic, and stock forms the perfect base. Then blend with a little cream, crème fraîche, coconut milk, or toasted nuts for super silky texture. It can be made a day ahead, then blended and adjusted for seasoning and taste in your own time. Then reheat and serve.

Perfect your sauces: What often separates chefs and home cooks are silky smooth sauces, condiments, and purées. Vibrant in color and packing a punch, they’re best made in a blender. Try a dollop of smooth spiced apple chutney on a plate with a liver parfait (also made in a blender). Or homemade ketchup to accompany BBQ grilled meats. A good blender helps takes your presentation to a whole new level.

Enjoy cocktail hour: When the sun’s out, your blender is ideal for cocktails. Try making a Pisco Sour in a blender with Peruvian Pisco, fresh lime juice, sugar syrup, egg white, and ice. Done by hand you’ll get two portions at a time, but the blender will give you that frothy consistency with 10 portions at once.

Freeze to avoid food waste: Make smoothies with fruit that is on its last legs. Chop fruit such as pineapple, mango, peach, and banana, and lay it on trays to freeze. Once frozen, put them in a sandwich bag and you’ve got small enough pieces to blend up with fruit juice or milk whenever you need.

Clean up effectively: If you’ve been blending strong flavors such as garlic, be sure to give your blender a good clean before putting it away. Blend a cup of warm water up with a drop of citrus juice. The acid from the citrus cuts through grease, garlic, and stains, and this will get rid of the worst of the mess inside the blender, now ready to rinse with hot soapy water.