Is there a favorite amongst the veterans? Favorite brand?

By no means a vet, but I love my little Hamilton Beach $15 blender. It's one with a lid you can use to drink from if you make a smoothie, and so far it's handled everything I've thrown at it - chicken, beef cubes cooked in a crock pot, shakes, veggies, whatever. The only thing it struggled with was refried Beans, and it turns out I didn't really need to blend those anyway.

I have the ninja chopper/purée mini machine. It works awesome, it's small, and it was only like 20 bucks at Walmart!

I'm super spoiled. I have a vita mixer.

I have a cuisinart mini food processor that I used for pureed foods, and a cuisinart hand/immersion blender that I use for protein shakes. I love the immersion blender because it doesn't add any air to the shake -- a lot of regular blenders will leave you with a shake so foamy it needs to sit in the fridge for hours while the bubbles die down.

This is the blender I use:

http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-CSB-75BC-2-Speed-Immersion-Blender/dp/B00ARQVM5O/

It is super easy to use and clean, comes in tons of different colors, and with a mixing beaker you can use to make your shakes. I've used mine every day for the past 18 months and it still works perfectly.

Thanks to everyone so far. My wife is the one having surgery and im just trying to help her out.