Coffee Obsession

Since starting to work in a coffee shop, my obsession with coffee has grown. Right now it's full blown obsession. I'm obviously partial to my store's coffee as that's what I get to drink and that's what I get to bring home with me. I do not have nearly as in depth tasting of other coffee shop coffee so this post is in no way meant to disparage any other coffee shop. It is not meant to declare superiority of one brand vs another. This post is also NOT intended to be an advertisement for my coffee shop. I'm not paid to blog. This is meant as a means for me to look back at the evolution of my coffee obsession and talk about some of my favorite coffees, specifically the ones I've encountered that give back to the local community.

I've gone through many phases with coffee, once I started actually drinking drip coffee.

I started out just drinking Maxwell House's master blend. At one point, I tried the Organic Coffee Company's zen blend and gorilla decaf and was in love. Then I got sick of paying $9.00/lb of coffee and returned to the days of Maxwell House.

Once again, I became sick of cheaping out on my coffee. So I found a local blend called CityKid Java, specifically the Sumatra Mandheling. My Cub foods didn't carry many varieties so that's kind of what I was stuck with anyway. I was in love with this coffee and still am. If you're willing to pay $8.99/lb per coffee and live in the Twin Cities metro, I'd recommend trying this brand out. I really like that they give their proceeds back to the community through the Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation.

Now, of course I'm a die hard Caribou Coffee fan. I love supporting a MN company and working there, I get my coffee for free. My top 3 are: Mocha Java, LaMinita, and Acacia. The Acacia blend is also organic so there isn't the pesticide exposure involved. After I go through my stockpile of Reindeer blend and Mocha Java beans, I will be getting some Acacia if we have it. Always being a fan of products that also give back to the community, I'm really starting to like their Pass the Goodness Blend. For each pound purchased, they donate 1 lb to food shelves (1/2 to a local one, 1/2 to a national one).

As I close this entry, I want to reiterate: This is not meant to be an advertisement. I am not a professional blogger. I was not paid to write about coffee or write this entry as a means to promote where I work. I just really like coffee.


Coffee is the top traded commodity in the world behind oil. Yet alot of it is grown in some of the poorest regions in the world.  For an eye opening look at the coffee trade check out the movie Black Gold. This movie is what prompted my renewed desire to spend more for coffee that either gives back to my local community, is from a company that values responsibly raised product (either Rainforest Alliance or Organic), or is Fair Trade.

As I always say, Life is too short to drink bad coffee.

Oatmeal Adventures

When I was growing up, my mom would try to make me eat oatmeal. It was usually of the instant variety and the overall soupy texture of it was completely unappetizing to my picky palette. So I swore off oatmeal and have often referred to it with extreme disdain since then.

Recently, at my part time job at Caribou Coffee, they started serving oatmeal. I begrudgingly tried some with many reminders to everyone that oatmeal is not my thing. Well, a combination of trying several of them and a more mature palette, has led me to change my mind about oatmeal. I don't think instant oatmeal has probably changed much so I'm trying to see how I can replicate the pretty good oatmeal I have access to at work, at home. So I will be trying to find my way through oatmeal land. Look for more entries.

Attempt 1:
1/2 c Quaker quick oats
1/2 c near boiling water
1 T hot milk
1 tsp brown sugar
sprinkle of salt

Mix together, covered 1 minute, stirred, added maple syrup and topped with more brown sugar

Results:
I think the caribou oats are bigger. Mine were really compact, more "paste" like. not quite as well rounded of  flavor. I predominantly tasted the sweetness of the brown sugar, a bit of the maple and then the paste like nature of the oats.

Verdict: Caribou's is still way better

Ideas for improvement: try raw sugar, follow a different recipe

What's for dinner 1/19/2010

Tonight's menu:

• Maple Dill glazed salmon
• Glazed carrots
  
• Kraft Mac n Cheese

So a 1/2 glamorous meal for tonight.
I found the recipe for the salmon in a magazine. I've never tried it in the oven, just on the grill. It's too icky to go out and work the grill so I'm going to attempt to do this in the oven instead.

Recipe for Salmon:

1. Marinade:

• 1.5 t Dijon Mustard
• 1 T balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 c maple syrup
• 1/2 t minced garlic
• 1 t dill
• 1/2 t salt

• Whisk ingredients together

 
2. Marinate salmon for 1 hour.
3. Bake for 13 minutes at 375
4. Broil approximately 2 minutes



Glazed Carrots:

1. Drain 1 can of pre-sliced carrots
2. Put in small saucepan along with 3 T butter or margarine
3. Bring to light boil
4. Add 1/4 c brown sugar
5. Reduce to simmer
6. Simmer approximately 5 minutes

Results: The salmon turned out PERFECT!!!! It had a nice sweetness to it from the maple syrup. I used dried dill so it didn't seem to be very "dill" flavored. I mostly tasted the syrup. Cooking in the oven resulted in a nice even done-ness. Aside from the hour of marinating, the prep time and cook times were relatively low. One could probably prep and marinade in the morning and have an extremely flavorful, yet quick dinner.

Tips I've found helpful with salmon:

1. It's worth paying the money for a quality piece of fish. We used to cheap out and get the individually frozen pieces when they were 10/$10.... Then we made the "mistake" of buying a good piece of fish. It's made all the difference. Exception to the fresh is best rule: No Name Salmon filets are quite good

• Sometimes I really wish I lived on a coast where I could get really fresh salmon. But meat department of my local Cub foods will have to do....
  

2. Defrosting: I prefer to either leave in the fridge overnight or thaw in warm water as opposed to the microwave. I've found the microwave tends to start cooking the salmon
 

What's for lunch 1/15/2010

Tri-Color Rotini and homemade Arrabiata Sauce. Nothing too exciting.

My arrabiatta sauce is a recipe that I took from Lakewinds Co-op. Since then, its one of those recipes that never quite tastes the same each time I make it. I used the Lakewinds recipe as a bouncing off point and each time I tweak it. It's great to make in large batches and freeze and then pull out for a quick meal.

I'm getting so used to my homemade arrabiata sauce and sprucing up my normal pasta sauce with extra herbs and garlic that I can no longer stand plain marinara sauce from a jar. I also tend to feel more like I'm "cooking" when I'm tweaking the off the shelf stuff too.

Another sauce I make myself: Pizza Sauce. I love continuing to play with that too. It tastes excellent on our homemade pizza crust too.... hmmm... must make homemade pizza soon...

Lemon Juice + sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) = FUN!

My glass stove top was getting quite atrocious looking and I had long since run out of the cleaner I was supplied with when I bought my stove. I wanted it clean but didn't want to have to run to Home Depot just for over priced cleaner so I tried vinegar and baking soda. I got a lot of the gunk up, but still had a hard gunky ring where the pots sit. I tried copious more amounts of baking soda and vinegar and even picked up a razor blade to try to get the gunk off, but it still wasn't quite coming off.

I hypothesized that lemon juice is a stronger acid than vinegar so the combination of the stronger acid and the baking soda may be more effective on the gunk.

SUCCESS! I still had to scrape a lot with the razor blade, but I got the last of the gunk off. And working with the lemon juice smelled much better than the vinegar.  After I was done with the scraping, I blotted up with excess liquid with paper towel. Then took a soapy rag and wiped down the stove top.

spoiled food

I just found out what happens when Heavy whipping cream goes bad. I opened the carton and it was pink inside. Not just any pink, but an almost neon pink.

What was my first thought, aside from EEEW? "Huh, I wonder what bacteria caused that"

Once a lab geek, always a lab geek.

Cara Cara Oranges

About a year ago, a friend and I went to the Midtown Global Market over near Abbott Norwestern Hospital in S. Minneapolis. While there, I rediscovered my love of Bubble Tea and enjoyed perusing the various offerings of each booth. I came home with a couple different fruit and vegetables, one of which was a Cara Cara orange.

It looks like a typical orange on the outside, but inside it has a pinker flesh.

From the Sunkist website:

Cara Cara Oranges
Cara Cara oranges, a type of navel grown in California's San Joaquin Valley, are available January through April.  Their outward appearance is similar to other navels, but their interior is a distinctive pinkish red and has an exceptionally sweet flavor with a tangy cranberry-like zing.  Cara Caras are a rich source of Vitamins A and C, fiber and Lycopene.  A perfect snack served as wedges, they're also a colorful addition to beverages or squeezed into a vinaigrette salad dressing.

It's rare that I enjoy an orange as much as I enjoy a cara cara orange. So if you're ever in the mood for an orange, but not your typical navel orange, check out the cara cara orange.

French Press Coffee

I've never tried french press coffee. I knew that it required a different grind than the pre-ground FAC stuff I used to buy. But now that I have a shiny new cuisinart burr grinder, I wanna try it out.

I followed the directions I found on ehow.

I ground about 4T of beans for a course grind. At the same time I used my electric tea pot to boil water for about 3 cups of coffee. I let the water cool a couple minutes while I put the course grounds into the french press. I brewed mine for 5 minutes.

Evaluation:

Ease (1 easy-10 hard): 3
It's pretty easy and actually not that much more difficult that setting up my drip coffee maker.

Practicality (1 extremely practical- 10 not all that useful): 5
Compared to my drip coffee maker which I can set up the night before and program to go off when i get up, this is less practical. Its good for making just a couple cups of coffee though. This would be a great thing for weekend coffee when i have more time to savor and set up for coffee.

Taste (vs Drip coffee)
I'm not quite sure I taste much of a difference, but I always put a little sugar to my coffee. I did try it before I added sugar and felt it was slightly less bitter than my drip coffee. Possibly slightly more flavor in the french press coffee than the drip coffee too.

What's for Lunch 1/6/2010

My fiance despises asian food. I have a soft spot for it, especially when I make it at home. I recently found a recipe for a peanut sauce and rice stick noodles and set out to make it. I wasn't 100% about the peanut sauce because the recipe was peanut butter, soy sauce and vegetable broth mostly. That's a combo I'd never have come up with. I made the sauce per my Betty Crocker Cookbook. It made about a half a cup. I made the sauce ahead of time and stored in a jar in the fridge.

Today, upon returning from work, I warmed up some sauteed peppers (also sauteed ahead of time), sauteed a piece of cut up flank steak, and boiled some rice stick noodles. I heated up a couple dollups of sauce too. Mixed them together on a plate and feasted!

Recipe for Peanut Sauce:
1/2 c smooth peanut butter
2 T Soy Sauce
1t ginger
1/2t crushed red pepper
1/2 c vegetable or chicken broth

Rice Stick Noodles:
bring water to boil
boil rice stick noodles for 1 min


Evaluation of lunch:

Peanut Sauce: It didn't look like a lot of sauce when I put it on the steak,peppers and noodles, but it packed a very flavorful punch. I could definitely have halved the amount of sauce I gave myself and not lost any flavor. It had a definite peanut butter taste but with a surprise spiciness from the crushed red pepper.

The noodles : I didn't separate them well enough so some noodles weren't quite fully cooked. Overall they weren't too bad though.

I would definitely make this lunch for myself again. I thoroughly enjoyed my asian inspired lunch. The steak I added was an excellent addition for protein.

New kitchen gadgets

I now have a food processer and a coffee grinder. Hope to post about learning to use them soon!

Happy New Year!

Goals: 1x per week I will post a What's for dinner? post.

Any time I try a new recipe, I will blog it. And hopefully add a picture

Recently tried recipes I need to post about soon:
-- Lemon Angel Food bites
-- Crock pot hot beef
-- my own little chicken pasta casserole