Secret Recipe Club: Brazilian Chocolate

March 5, 2012 By

Brazilian Chocolate #diycoffeeshop

Welcome to the March edition of the Secret Recipe Club (Group A), the part of the show where the bloggers sing write about each others’ recipes (which they have secretly been testing on the sly).
My secret assignment this month was none other than our host for the week, The Heritage Cook. Jane, the heritage cook, is the one who keeps our Group A organized and ready to go every month. (Thanks, Jane!) Jane is passionate about eating local, organic and seasonal food, which appeals to me, as you can imagine. She has tons of recipes, and she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to the kitchen, so go check out her blog and be inspired!

My absolute favorite feature over at The Heritage Cook is Chocolate Mondays! Monday is bad, but Chocolate Monday? Good. Very very good.

So of course, I had to choose one of her delicious chocolate recipes; I simply had no choice! One of her more recent Chocolate Monday posts caught my eye because it featured not one, not two, but three chocolate drink recipes! You could take your pick of Orange Chocolate Ice Cream Shake, Copacabana Milkshake, and Brazilian Chocolate Drink.

Brazilian Chocolate #diycoffeeshopI went with the Brazilian Chocolate drink because:

  • It was hot and I was cold.
  • The other two had ice cream. I was cold.
  • And I didn’t have any ice cream.
Excellent choice, if I do say so myself! Brazilian Chocolate is kind of like a mocha in reverse: instead of a little bit of chocolate added to coffee, it’s a little bit of coffee added to chocolate. Either way works for me - those two are a match made in heaven! - but I think this Brazilian Chocolate drink would probably appeal even to die-hard coffee haters. The addition of strong coffee doesn’t really add any extra flavor, but it does bring out the chocolate flavor in a delicious way.
Really, the only change I made to the recipe was that I scaled it down for an individual serving. Sadly, my DH does not share my obsession with either chocolate or coffee, and my Certain Little Someone is allergic to milk. Baby Boy is too young for chocolate and coffee. So I just made one little delicious cup all for me. Ahhhhhh…
Oh, and the original recipe does not specify what kind of chocolate to use, but all I had was semi-sweet, so that’s what I used. If you use darker chocolate, you may need to add a bit more sugar or other sweetener.

Recipe: Brazilian Chocolate

Summary: from “Chocolate” by Jean Pierre Wybauw

Ingredients

  • 1 oz chocolate
  • 1/4 cup strong coffee
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1-2 tsp raw sugar (or a few drops of stevia)
  • 1 TBSP whipped cream
  • cocoa powder for garnish

Instructions

  1. Place the chocolate in the bottom of a large mug. In a small pot, bring the milk and sugar just to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour the milk over the chocolate, stirring until melted. Add coffee.
  2. Top with whipped cream and a sprinkling of cocoa powder.
Brazilian Chocolate #diycoffeeshop


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A Sparkling New Year: Make Your Own Sparkling Cider

December 31, 2011 By

If you want champagne, I can’t help you, because I don’t know how to make champagne. But if you prefer the non-alcoholic sort of bubbly, well then, you’ve come to the right place.

It’s actually incredibly easy to make your own sparkling cider! All you need is apple cider syrup and seltzer water.

Apple cider syrup? “What’s that?“, I hear you ask. I’ll tell you. It’s essentially boiled down apple cider. That’s it. Apparently, according to Foodie With Family, the early colonists boiled down their cider to preserve it throughout the winter and beyond following the apple crop season. They could have cider anytime, simply by reconstituting their apple cider concentrate.

There are a lot of applications for apple cider syrup, and it’s gaining momentum in foodie and food blog circles, and in my opinion, it’s worth keeping some jars of this stuff in the house year-round! Foodie with Family suggests a variety of usages, some of which I’ve tried, but I’m going to share with you her favorite, which is seriously the bomb.

But first, let’s make the cider syrup. Most of the posts I’ve read about it involve using large amounts of apple cider and boiling it away - on high! - for hours. Number one, I don’t have hours to babysit the stove. Number two, I don’t want the stove on high for hours. Solution? I just make less at a time. Works for me.

Honestly, though, it doesn’t really matter how much you start with, as long as it’s at least about 2 cups. The point of boiling it is to reduce it, so you want to start with enough so that you can substantially reduce it. From there, you can boil several gallons at a time if you have a large enough pot. And apparently it can be processed and stored in the pantry, but I just keep mine in the fridge.

Here’s how you do it:

Pour at least 2 cups of apple cider into a large pot on the stove over high heat. Use a ruler, or mark a wooden spoon, to note the level of your apple cider before it begins to boil. Bring to a boil and allow it to boil undisturbed until it is reduced in volume to one seventh of the original amount. (I didn’t twist my brain in circles trying to calculate exactly how much one-seventh was or is. I just looked for a syrupy texture that was quite a bit less than what I started with.) The ruler or marked wooden spoon will help you determine when it’s boiled long enough. Be careful, though: it goes very quickly from syrup to sludge, so the first few times you make it, watch closely until you get a good feel for the timing and the proper texture. You’re looking for an almost honey-like consistency, a slight thickness, but still pourable.

Once you have your apple cider syrup, making sparkling apple cider is a breeze! All you have to do is stir 1 TBSP of the cider syrup into a glass of cold seltzer water. Serve it over ice, if desired. I sprinkled a few fresh cranberries into mine for visual interest.

Once you have a batch of apple cider syrup made, the sparkling cider itself is so QUICK. And the great thing is you can make the cider syrup any time, even a month before you need it.

It’s very EASY, too. There is a trick to boiling the cider the right amount of time, but once you’ve mastered that it’s no big deal. And once that’s made, even a kindergartener could fix a glass of sparkling cider! If you wanted your kindergartener in the kitchen unattended, which I wouldn’t. Just sayin’.

It’s CHEAPer than buying those over-priced bottles of sparkling cider and grape juice. A huge bottle of seltzer water is usually less than $1 at my grocery store, and I can usually get a whole gallon of cider for $4. According to my calculations, a gallon of cider reduced by 7 is 2.25 cups, which is 36 TBSP-sized servings. That makes it about $0.11 a serving. Add that to the seltzer water, at $0.13/serving, and it’s less than $0.25 for each glass of sparkling cider. Compare that to the bottles of cider that only have 3 servings and go on sale for $2.50-$3! (Now, unpasteurized organic apple cider is a lot harder to come by - usually only available at farmer’s markets during apple season - and more expensive, about $6 or so. The beauty is that it can be reduced to syrup and preserved for the rest of the year!)

It’s much HEALTHY-er than some store-bought versions. Although Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider is all natural with no added sugars, the same cannot be said for other varieties, which often contain high fructosed corn syrup and other evils.

Sharing at Katherine Martinelli’s DIY Blog Hop.

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Gifts from the Kitchen: Cardamom-Orange Coffee {To Go}

December 22, 2011 By

cardamom orange coffee to go

My friend Sheila of Alice and the Mock Turtle knocks my socks off with her creativity. Her active mind is always churning with ideas and new ways of looking at things to come up with such unique solutions and fun stuff of all kinds.

One of her recent blog entries totally blew me away with its simplicity and just sheer genius! She used empty tea bags to create individual instant coffee bags and dressed them up for gift giving. I didn’t even know you could buy empty tea bags!

Anything with the word coffee instantly grabs my attention, so I was all over this idea like white on rice (or brown, I guess I should say) and I started thinking about how I could incorporate this into my gifts from the kitchen for Christmas.

And since I can’t leave well enough alone, I began dreaming of different flavored coffees - my own coffee blends, so to speak - that could be placed into these little tea bags for sheer coffee-drinking pleasure. Cardamom-Orange Coffee to Go is the result of that mental brainstorming.

coffee bag

Sheila had found these amazing press-and-seal tea bags that you can iron after filling to create a completely sealed envelope of coffee. For some reason which I can’t remember now, I opted to go with Teavana’s PerfecTea paper filters instead. These tea bags don’t require any ironing (not my favorite chore), but neither do they have any way to seal them at all. I found that for my own use, simply folding over the top (as they were designed to do) was sufficient, and not even one teeny tiny coffee grind found its way into my coffee.

For gift-giving, though, I wanted to be sure that the envelope didn’t spill, so I simply used a doubled length of thread and a needle to make a running stitch through the top of the folded filter. I left a 3″-or-so length of thread on either side and tied those together into a knot. Not only did this keep the coffee grinds from spilling out of the bag, but it also created a useful handle for pulling the filter in and out of a cup of hot water. And it gathers, so it can be used to help squeeze out all the coffee goodness! The whole process took maybe 30 seconds for each coffee bag (and I am by no means a proficient sewer!).

Unfortunately, it’s too late for you to order the tea bags in time for Christmas at this point, but they may be available at your local Teavana store (or other tea specialty shop). If you can find the tea bags, filling them up is super quick and easy, making them a great Christmas gift or stocking stuffer!

Some gifting suggestions:

  • in a coffee-themed basket for a coffee lover (with mugs, coffee-themed decor, flavored syrups, etc.)
  • in a tin full of home-baked goodies
  • with homemade (or storebought if you’re running out of time!) biscotti
  • by itself in a jar, as Sheila suggested, together with cream and sugar
  • in a portable re-usable coffee mug (I did this for a friend)
I had some small “transparent archival plastic bags” (similar to these, except not self-sealing), that I used to hold the coffee bags, both to help keep the coffee fresh, and to give it a nice clean look. You can just use a plain old zip-top plastic bag if you don’t have anything like that, or a jar, like Sheila used.
And just to make it all the more elegant for gifting, I even created some tags to go with my original coffee blend. I made it into a PDF just for you, friends! Cardamom-Orange Coffee {to go} label
Now… what to put in the coffee bags?! You can just use some plain good quality coffee beans, like Sheila did, or you can get all adventuresome with me and try out some exotic homemade naturally infused flavored coffee blends! I’ve been working on this cardamom-orange coffee flavor for a couple weeks now, so I’ll share it with you, but the sky is the limit as far as what you can put into the coffee to flavor it. Pretty much any spice or dried (dried to the point where it can be powdered) fruit can be added to the coffee beans to produce delicious flavored blends. If you experiment and come up with an awesome new flavor, tell me about it so I can try it, too!
And here’s a tip: the easiest way to get dried orange zest is to take the peels from an orange or clementine and set them out in a single layer on a plate to dry. When they’re completely dry, run them through the coffee grinder. I even just added a couple of the pieces of orange peel into the grinder with the whole coffee beans.

Cardamom-Orange Coffee

Ingredients

  • For each serving, you will need:
  • 1 TBSP coffee beans, your favorite roast
  • 1/2 tsp dried orange zest
  • 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Instructions

  1. Combine all 3 in a coffee grinder and grind until fine. Brew in 6 oz of hot water.

To use the tea bag, just place about 3 tsp of this coffee blend into the bag, seal as desired (or as required by the manufacturer), then place in a coffee mug. Pour 6 oz of hot water over the coffee bag and allow it to steep for several minutes, or until desired strength. I found that the tea bag filter limited the strength of the coffee, so any more than 6 oz of water resulted in a rather weak cup of coffee.
Once you have your little tea bags full of this yumminess, you will have super QUICK coffee at the ready wherever you are. You can fill your to-go cup with hot water , place one of these babies in there and run out the door!
Just as EASY as plain old coffee! OK, dealing with the paper filters is a little more effort, but not much.
Purchasing the filters is some additional expense that I normally don’t have, but for gift-giving, it can’t be beat! Definitely a CHEAP option for all the coffee-lovers in your life. And it’s way CHEAPer than buying the famous nationwide-brands line of naturally infused flavored coffee blends. Or even their instant coffee (does anybody really pay that much for instant coffee? You do? May I ask in the name of heaven WHY?!)
Infusing your coffee with natural elements like orange zest and cardamom is a lot HEALTHY-er than purchasing the artificially (read: chemically) flavored kinds available elsewhere.

4 Comments Filed Under: At Home, Beverages, Handmade, In The Budget, On The Table, Save Much Tagged With: ,

Pumpkin Muffins… but Savory!

October 17, 2011 By

pumpkins spice nice pumpkin muffins

I will be the first to admit that these pumpkins will not win any beauty contests. Thanks to the oats, they have a crumbly texture and bumpy exterior, and thanks to the lack of eggs and sugar, they don’t bind together and rise quite as well as a good little muffin should. But before you turn around and head back out the door - or off to your next blogging adventure - they do have a redeeming quality!

Two, actually:

  1. They have no sugar.
  2. They are moist and delicious! Dee-lish-us, I tell you!

These ugly little savory muffins have amazing flavor that is the perfect accompaniment to an autumn soup. I served ours with potato soup, and it was a match made in heaven. So who cares what they look like? They taste good, and after all, that is the point.

pumpkin muffins

Ugly Savory Pumpkin Muffins

adapted from love food eat

Ingredients

  • 1 cup white whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup oats
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp dried sage
  • 1 tsp rosemary
  • 1 tsp parsley
  • 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 TBSP vinegar

Instructions

  1. Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. In a separate bowl, stir together the wet ingredients until well combined.
  3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring just until combined.
  4. Scoop batter into greased muffin tin and bake at 350F for about 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

pumpkin muffins
Muffins are such a great QUICK bread that you can serve with soup or salad for a light dinner or lunch.

And so EASY, too! Just be sure not to overmix the batter, or they will get really tough.

This particular recipe takes a lot of pumpkin, so it’s not necessarily CHEAP (depending on how much you paid for said pumpkin). Around here, that’s at least a couple dollars. However, this time of year is the cheapest pumpkin’s gonna get, so now’s the time to make them!

These muffins are probably the HEALTHY-est I’ve ever made. They have no sugar, use whole grains, and are largely based on a very healthy vegetable. Very healthy, indeed!

Linking to Tasty Tuesday and…
Beauty and BedlamHearth & Soul Hop Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays

3 Comments Filed Under: Beverages, Bread, On The Table Tagged With: ,

Iced Tea: Your Way

June 3, 2011 By

Today is actually breezy and cool but this past week has been one long heat wave with temps in the 90s and more. Perfect for sitting in the shade, shooting the breeze… and sipping iced tea.

I’m not even going to pretend that I know how to make the perfect pitcher of iced tea, because I am well aware that there about as many methods of making iced tea as there are people. I will show you a yummy twist on sweet tea that I think you will enjoy, but first let me share my readers’ favorite ways to make iced tea:

Marika likes to make hers “old school”: black tea over ice with no sweetener.

Mary Jo changes hers up by using Celestial Seasonings berry teas in the summer, brewed this way: ‎4-6 teabags in about 5 cups water, bring to almost boil and turn off to steep, add 3/4 cup sugar and cold water to equal 1 gallon.

Missy gets fancy by pureeing frozen peach slices (she also suggests strawberries, blueberries, or mango chunks) and adding the puree to already chilled tea.

Ann and Shalene follow the classic method of boiling 6 tea bags in a saucepan of water, bringing to a boil, then adding water to fill a gallon pitcher.

Amy at A Little Nosh does a slight variation by putting the tea bags straight into the pitcher and pouring the boiling water over them, then adding ice and/or cold water to fill the pitcher.

When Shalene has time, she likes to make sun tea by placing 10 tea bags in a gallon container full of water and setting it outside in the sun to brew.

Heather puts the microwave to work with 1 cup of water and 3 tea bags for 2 minutes, then adding to a gallon of water.

Recommended brands include Lipton and decaf Luzianne. My readers must mostly be Northerners because sweet tea was not a favorite! I am from Maryland, which is decidedly undecided about whether it is the North or the South, and my iced tea reflects that: sweet but not too much so. “Real” sweet tea is too sweet for me, I usually only add about 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup at the most to my pitcher of tea.

And now… if you want to try something different with your tea, here’s my variation!


Recipe: Sweet Peppermint Tea

Ingredients

  • 1 Lipton family size iced tea bag
  • 2 Celestial Seasonings peppermint tea bags
  • 2 cups boiling water
  • 1/4-1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 6 cups cold water

Instructions

  1. Place the tea bags in the bottom of a 2qt pitcher, removing any paper tags. Pour boiling water over all and allow to steep for several minutes. Remove tea bags without pushing on them, and stir in sugar until it dissolves. Stir in vanilla. Add cold water and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Preparation time: 10 minute(s)

Number of servings (yield): 8

To be honest, I never measure when I make tea, so those water, sugar, and vanilla measurements are approximate. I know I fill a 2 qt pitcher, and I know I give one good squeeze of the vanilla bottle, and I know my sugar scoop is a scant 1/4 cup (I use one scoop worth for myself, and 2 when I’m making it for company). I also like to use half sugar and half honey.

If you like to leave out the sweetener until serving, I recommend using TrueVia or liquid Stevia instead of sugar substitutes like Equal or Splenda, which are chemicals not easily digested by your body.

Homemade iced tea is so QUICK, there is really no point in purchasing those chemical-laden powders (that don’t taste like real tea anyway), or bottled teas like Lipton.

It is so EASY, too, especially since you make it to your own taste, not somebody else’s. I admit that it actually can be more difficult than it should be to make iced tea for company since everybody has a very individual taste when it comes to their tea, but if they don’t like it the way you drink it, oh well. The more left over for you!

Making iced tea from your own stash of tea is so much CHEAPer than buying it made or even buying the powder, especially considering it’s the real deal! Even organic tea is not that expensive.

Tea is very HEALTHY for you. I haven’t seen any studies that compare the relative healthiness of cold vs hot tea, but I imagine they are similar since the tea itself is usually hot brewed to start with in both. No matter what kind of tea you use - black, green, white, red, or herbal - it will be full of antioxidants that will help your body fight off disease. Just keep the sugar to a minimum, and avoid the artificial sweeteners.

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Orange + Chocolate = Tastebud Heaven

March 22, 2011 By

Have you ever had a chocolate orange? They’re more readily available in Europe than here in the United States, but you can still find them around. If you’ve never had one, and you come across one - snatch it up! It’s pricey, but it’s worth every penny (well, once in a while anyway!).

It’s been a loooooonggg time since I’ve had one, but I remember well the amazing (and yet unlikely) combination of chocolate and orange. Whoever first put those two flavors together was a genius! Lately, I’ve been experimenting with the combination myself… and having a great deal of fun in the process! This morning, for example, I treated myself to orange chocolate pancakes. Wow. Orange juice in the batter and shaved chocolate stirred in - to die for!

Mostly, though, I’ve been experimenting with an orange mocha drink, or perhaps better entitled, “Chocolate Orange Cafe au Lait“. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

The orange flavor is more of a faint reminiscence than a full-on tastebud explosion, but that’s probably a good thing considering all the other stuff going on in this drink. It starts with a simple syrup, to which is added a very basic hot chocolate, and a splash of coffee, all topped off with whipped cream (if desired). Once you’ve made the syrup, you can enjoy more Chocolate Orange Cafe au Laits for the next couple of weeks (if you don’t share! and I wouldn’t blame you.).

Chocolate Orange Cafe au Lait

Orange Simple Syrup:

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

rind from 1 small orange or clementine

Mocha:

1 TBSP cocoa

1 TBSP water

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup brewed coffee

whipped cream, optional

To make the simple syrup, bring water, sugar and orange rind to boil in a small saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to steep as long as you’d like. Strain and store in refrigerator.

To make the cafe au lait, stir together the cocoa and water in the bottom of a large mug until you have a smooth paste. Stir in milk. Heat in microwave on High for about a minute. Stir until well blended; stir in coffee and 1-2 TBSP of simple syrup (or to taste). Top with whipped cream (if desired). Enjoy!

Once you’ve made the simple syrup, assembling the drink is super QUICK: quicker than standing in line at the coffee shop at any rate!

It’s very EASY, too. (That’s why being a barista doesn’t require any kind of culinary expertise!)

It’s also much CHEAPer than purchasing a fancy drink at a coffee shop (or even cheaper than purchasing store-bought orange simple syrup, especially since you’re using a part of the orange that is typically discarded).

It’s a lot HEALTHY-er than coffee shop drinks, too, because all the ingredients are natural, and you can use organic ingredients too!

Photobucket
Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays

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Winter Warmth in a Mug

January 14, 2011 By

Hot Milk

Usually, my go-to hot drink is coffee, followed very closely this time of year by hot chocolate. Hot tea is a distant third and the occasional hot simmering cider is always a nice treat. Hot milk, though, has never been in my repertoire of hot drinks.

Until now.

Now it’s one of my favorites, right up there with hot chocolate. Easier, though, to make from scratch (although making hot chocolate from scratch is not super difficult) and in a jiffy. And soooo soothing… you might fall asleep immediately after imbibing!

If you are one of the (un)lucky ones who have been dumped on liberally by snow this year (I’m one of the very lucky ones who has managed to miss it all for the most part!), you will want to keep this recipe handy and make sure you have plenty of milk in your fridge for the next snow storm. After a round of romping through the white stuff, this hot white stuff will hit the spot!


Soothing Hot Milk

1 cup whole milk

1 TBSP honey (or to taste)

1/8 tsp cinnamon

dash of grated nutmeg

Place all ingredients in a microwave-safe mug. Heat for one minute and 30 seconds or 2 minutes. Stir until honey is melted and spices are incorporated. Sip and relax!

You can also make this on the stove-top simply by placing all the ingredients in a quart-size saucepan and heating over medium heat, whisking constantly until it bubbles around the edges.

You can vary the flavorings to suit your taste: add a little vanilla extract, or try some more exotic spices like ginger or cardamom.

This is one of the QUICKest homemade hot drinks, just as quick as a packet of hot chocolate or hot tea.

It’s also super EASY! Can’t go wrong with this one!

It’s just as CHEAP as making hot chocolate from scratch (which requires milk), but not as cheap as hot tea or coffee because it’s mostly milk. If you don’t mind buying a little extra milk, or cutting back your milk consumption in other areas, this is not a bad deal.

It’s very HEALTHY! You can’t get too much more straight-forward than these ingredients, all very beneficial each in their own way. Honey is still a sweetener, so it’s important to remember that, as healthy as it is, you should still limit your consumption of it. However, in my opinion, it’s the healthiest sweetener possible, and ideal for hot drinks.

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Baby, it’s Cold Outside: Time for a Peppermint Mocha!

December 7, 2010 By

Is it frigid where you are? Is the wind whipping around your place like it is mine? If so, I have the perfect prescription to warm you up: a nice hot cup of Peppermint Mocha!

And you don’t even have to leave the warm and cozy comfort of your home to go get it at your favorite coffee shop, because you can make it yourself in your comfy cozy kitchen.

I have visited this idea before, but the recipe I shared then is only useful if you have these hot chocolate pods handy. I didn’t have any today, but I was seriously in the mood for a good peppermint mocha, so I had to come up with a different method.

There are essentially four elements necessary to create a peppermint mocha:

  • peppermint flavor
  • chocolate flavor
  • coffee or espresso
  • milk
The coffee and milk are easy, no problem there. Peppermint and chocolate are a little trickier! Once (a long time ago) I tried just putting a little dash of peppermint extract in my coffee. YUCK! That was NOT a successful experiment. Since then, I’ve seen recipes online that call for exactly that, but I can’t bring myself to try them because that awful taste is still in my mouth. I personally think that the peppermint extract (like vanilla extract) needs a “carrier”: something that will deliver the flavor without the yuck factor. Also, like vanilla extract and medicine, it needs a little sugar to help it go down.
Enter Peppermint Simple Syrup.
That’s the easiest way to get a deliciously sweet peppermint flavor without the overpowering sensation of heavy-duty mint. In order to make your peppermint mocha, you’ll need a little peppermint syrup. But don’t worry; it’s not hard and it won’t take long! And the good thing is, you can use this syrup in any hot or cold drink that could use a little extra holiday flavor: hot chocolate, hot tea, ginger ale, club soda, etc. etc..
By the way, simple syrup is essentially made of equal parts sugar and water. I like to use raw sugar, but you can use any kind (except powdered). I also cheat sometimes and use less sugar, just because that’s how I roll.
Peppermint Simple Syrup
1 cup raw sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp peppermint extract
Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring to dissolve sugar. Reduce heat and add peppermint extract; simmer for at least 15 minutes, or up to 30 minutes. Cool slightly.
Simple, huh? And now that you have your simple syrup, you can continue with your main task, Peppermint Mocha. I’ve given you both stove-top and microwave instructions below, so you can choose your preferred method. Stove-top is green and microwave is red.
Simple Peppermint Mocha
2 TBSP peppermint syrup
3 TBSP cocoa
3 TBSP water
1 cup strong coffee or espresso
1 cup milk
Stir together cocoa and water in a small saucepan {in a glass microwaveable 2-cup measuring cup} until a paste forms. Add milk and bring to a simmer (not a boil) {microwave approximately 2 minutes, stopping after 1 minute to stir}; simmer for a few minutes. Remove from heat {from microwave}. Add coffee or espresso and peppermint syrup. Add more syrup to taste. Pour into two small mugs or one very large mug. Top with whipped cream if desired, and/or crushed peppermint candy or candy cane.
Once you have the simple syrup made, it’s a very QUICK process. And if you make one cup’s worth of simple syrup, you will have enough for quite a few more servings of peppermint mocha, saving time in the days to come when you get really crazy with the holidays.
It’s EASY, no question! (That’s why they call it “simple”!)
It’s certainly CHEAPer than buying it at a coffee shop! I think it’s also cheaper than other methods, which call for gourmet syrups, or packages of instant hot chocolate and other things. This recipe uses very basic ingredients that most people already have in their pantry.
It’s probably the HEALTHY-est version of peppermint mocha you will find anywhere. To be honest, in the past I’ve made it with a package of instant hot chocolate, and a candy cane or peppermint candy. Not healthy! Basic ingredients are not only cheaper; they’re also usually much healthier.
Did you like the mug and saucer set in my pictures? You can find them for yourself (or one for a friend) at Dayspring. They are only $12.99; a great price for a great gift! Dayspring has an entire line of additional dishes, and even kitchen accessories, in the same design, priced from $9.99 to $19.99. Some pieces are on sale right now, so check them out!
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

5 Comments Filed Under: Beverages, Home, In The Budget, On The Table, Save Much

Fall Fest 2010: Spiced Cider… Want a Sip?

November 23, 2010 By
A long time ago, I think when I was a teenager (a very long time ago, indeed), I started making spiced cider for my family on special holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s since become a tradition, at least for me! I don’t know if anybody else still wants hot spiced cider, but for me the holiday is not complete without it.
When I first began making it, I used a recipe, but after making it a few times, I just kind of started dumping stuff into the pot. As long as there is cider (or even apple juice in a pinch) and some holiday spices, it’s all good. I even like to add cranberry juice sometimes for an extra kick, or a small amount of lemon juice.
Most of the time I make it in the crock pot, which is perfect, because it frees up the stove for other important things like boiling potatoes for mashed potatoes and the like. The slow cooker is also convenient because you can set it going pretty much at any time that is convenient to you, as long as it is a few hours before you plan to serve it. Otherwise, if it’s on low, you can let it go for quite a while.
Of course, the stove top is definitely an option, but it’s not as convenient. You have to keep a much closer eye on it, and the longer it sits on the stove, the more it will simmer and burn or evaporate away.
I did my best to come up with some accurate measurements for you, but there are two things you should keep in mind:
  1. The spices can definitely be adjusted to taste. If you love cinnamon, use the full amount or more, but if it’s not your favorite, reduce as much as you want.
  2. This is hardly an exact science. Increase the sugar, use half cranberry juice and half cider, add some additional spices, take away any spices you don’t want, etc. etc. Completely flexible! So do it your own way!

 

Holiday Spiced Cider
1 gallon apple cider
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp allspice berries
6 2″ cinnamon sticks
Place all ingredients in slow cooker and set on low. Serve as soon it’s heated through, although allowing it to heat in the slow cooker for a while will blend the flavors and bring out the spices more.
For an elegant touch, serve with cinnamon sticks as stirrers.
The great thing about this recipe is that you can make it ahead. All you have to do is rinse out and dry the apple cider container, and set it aside until the cider is finished to your satisfaction (at least a few hours on low). Allow it to cool until it is room temperature or close to it. Use a mesh strainer to remove the spices.
Place a funnel over the opening of the apple cider container. It might be useful to place the mesh strainer over the funnel as well to catch any remaining cloves or berries. Pour the cider carefully through the strainer and funnel into the gallon container.
Store in the refrigerator. When ready to serve, you can do either of the following:
  1. Reheat one cup at a time in the microwave.
  2. Heat the contents of the entire container in the slow cooker (this will naturally take some time).
  3. Heat the contents of the entire container in a large pot on the stove.
It is perhaps not as QUICK as using a packet of mulled cider flavoring, but if you use a slow cooker, you can forget about it once it’s mixed together.
It’s very EASY, just as easy as using one of those afore-mentioned packets.
Well, a gallon of cider isn’t exactly CHEAP, not in my book anyway, but if you’re really on a tight budget, you can use apple juice instead. (Nothing beats the cider, though, it’s definitely worth the splurge for the holidays.)
It’s one of the HEALTHY-est holiday drinks you can indulge in throughout the season. There is sugar in it, to be sure, but not much: that 1/2 cup is spread throughout approximately 16 servings.So enjoy guilt-free!

 

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International Fare: Russian Blini, Greek Yogurt and Cardamom Coffee

October 18, 2010 By

Every year in October, my church has a “Missions Banquet”, where, ideally, everyone brings a dish representing their ethnic background. Both my DH and I have a lot of mixed European blood, but we also each have a strong presentation of one particular European country that dominates the mix. My mom is 100% Finn, and my DH’s mom is mostly Greek, both of which provide a great deal of inspiration for a variety of delicious ethnic foods. On top of that, I spent some time in Russia in my teen years, and gained an appreciation for a variety of Russian foods, my favorite of all time being blini.

Blini are kind of like the Russian version of crepes, or very thin pancakes. They can be served with savory or sweet accompaniments. Caviar is a favorite (not for me, but for people who happen to like caviar!), and sour cream (or plain yogurt/kefir) is also very common. Smoked salmon is popular, and I recall once having them as a snack for tea in a Russian home, served with jam. In my brief research, it seems like there are about as many different recipes for blini as there are people in Russia, but I use a recipe very similar to what was taught to me by a friend in Russia.

I am no blini expert, so I will just give you the ingredient list that I used, and then direct you to this site, which has very specific instructions for the method that is a lot more precise and helpful than I would be. In Moscow, my friends would say that the first blin was for the cook, meaning that the first blin never quite turned out the way it should. When I make them, the first 2 or 3 are for the cook!

Here is the ingredient list that I used (more accurate, I think than the one in the link above. My recipe doesn’t have buttermilk or kefir, but you can certainly substitute part of the milk with either of those).

Russian Blini
2 eggs
1 TBSP sugar
1/3 tsp salt
3/4 flour
2 cups milk
1 TBSP oil

Whisk together the eggs, sugar and salt. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture, and then stir as you slowly add the milk. Mix until smooth and well blended - no lumps of flour. Stir in oil. Continue as directed here.

The other component of my international potluck offering was Greek yogurt. Oh. My. Word. I’d eaten Greek yogurt from the store before, but this was homemade, and WOW! It was sooooo good. The best yogurt I’ve ever had. I made my own yogurt with whole milk in my yogurt machine the day before, but you can use any plain yogurt.

Greek Yogurt with Honey and Vanilla
2 cups plain yogurt
1 TBSP honey
1/2 tsp vanilla

Line a strainer or colander with cheesecloth (or…. paper towels, she whispers embarrassedly. No cheesecloth here, so I had to make a quick substitute. And no, there were no flecks of paper in the yogurt!). Pour the yogurt into the colander or strainer and place over a bowl. Allow to sit for several hours to drain out all the liquid in the yogurt (I left mine in the fridge for a large part of the day). You should have almost a sour cream consistency with the remaining yogurt.

Remove yogurt to serving bowl, and stir in honey and vanilla until well blended. Prepare for bliss… and taste!

SOOOO EASY, and aside from the draining time, very QUICK too. It’s a great CHEAP dessert (or snack or breakfast) AND it’s very HEALTHY to boot. And did I mention that it’s fabulously delicious?! A winner in my book!

My final contribution was cardamom coffee, a nod to my Finnish heritage which I have already blogged about, so you can read here if you’re interested.

I think I have just given you the components for a yummy breakfast… Enjoy!

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