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Color me disappointed........

When I inherited the little Keurig from my mother, I quickly bought a container to use when I wanted to use my own coffee instead of K-cups. I also bought a special filter. Out of curiosity, I just finally tried both and neither work in this machine. I am very sad about that. I think this version of the Keurig is older and the newer versions allow for use of these items while the older ones do not.

I am quickly becoming convinced that I can't spend close to $40 a month for coffee. That must be for rich folks. I'm not one of those yet.........

So, I guess I am going back to the French Press. I bought one of these years ago and just kinda used it now and then with no idea of how it SHOULD be used. Then Joe moved in and brought a larger French Press with him. There's never been a question: the French Press makes an outstanding cup of coffee. However, it takes longer because first you must boil the water, then pour into the French Press and let it steep, probably a 10-12 minute process.

Well, tonight I broke down and went on YouTube and watched several videos on the "proper" way to make coffee in a French Press. Here's what I learned:

1) The coffee needs to be ground to a particular size. You should be using a "coarse" grind.

2) You need a "uniform" grind. All the bits of coffee grounds should be the same size.

3) Apparently the coffee grinder we all know and love is not so good for creating a "uniform" grind. You get stuff ground to dust and bigger pieces as well.

4) That same coffee grinder doesn't really allow you to determine the size to which your coffee will be ground. About all you know is that if you whirrrrrrr it a little longer, it'll be finer.

5) The recommended type of grinder is a "burr grinder". I checked on Amazon and these are available in prices ranging from around $27 to $449. Obviously, I am looking at the lower price range!!!!!!! Some are manual, some electric. But the objective here is to grind just a bit of coffee, not a mountain. So who needs electric? I can just think of it as exercise.

6) When making coffee in the French Press, the first step is to boil water. Yes, all the way to boiling. Then you let it cool slightly so that the temperature is between 195-205 (as opposed to 212 which is the boiling point for water).

7) Opinions vary, but it makes sense to me that you stir the coffee just a bit after you add the water to your French Press. The objective is simply to make sure all the grounds get wet. When all the grounds are wet, stop stirring; don't beat it to death!

8) Apparently the "correct" amount of coffee is 2 TBS (that's two tablespoons, or 7 grams) per cup of coffee.

9) Once the water is added and all the grounds are wet, you want to let the coffee steep for 3-5 minutes. Just cover the French Press with a saucer. Do not insert the plunger yet.

10) At the end of the steeping time, some foodies use a cupping spoon to remove the "crust" of coffee that forms on top of your brew. Under the "crust" you'll find foam. The foam is also removed. Removing the grounds makes the use of the plunger much easier and I'm betting it makes cleanup much easier as well.

There are some new innovations/items of interest here. Burr grinders come with metal blades or ceramic grinding stones. The foodies recommend the ceramic. Apparently the metal blades can make a slight change in the flavor of the coffee. I do think you'd have to be a connoisseur (and awake, LOL) to notice, but I can attest to the fact that ceramic doesn't dull nearly as fast as metal blades which might be a consideration. Here's an "old fashioned" manual grinder I'm considering:

The other new thing, and this one also intrigues me, is that you can now buy thermal French Press coffee makers. This seems to me to be an excellent idea. I can also testify that coffee left in a French Press cools very quickly. Unless you can swallow scalding coffee in one swallow, when you come back to the French Press for your second cup, the coffee will be cold if you don't have the thermal version. For budgetary reasons, I will be giving new consideration to storing my fresh-brewed coffee in one of the thermal carafes I already own......... I will use a little of my boiled water to warm up the carafe and then pour my next cup of coffee in there to keep warm. But, if you want to spring for a thermal French Press, I like this one:

Just another personal note. I think I will be using the "cupping" idea of removing the grounds at the end of the steeping time. Otherwise, with just pushing down the plunger, any left over coffee (your second cup) sits exposed to those grounds and it does tend to alter the taste of the coffee and not for the better. Also, I find that when I push the plunger down with all the grounds still in there, it is somewhat of a task to dump all the grounds out for cleanup. They seem to want to stay just where they are, perfectly molded to the inside of the pot.

I also think I'll be buying a burr grinder next month. That will be cheaper than buying another stash of K-cups.

I would never give up on the Keurig except for the cost. I may even buy K-cups at Costco with their house brand coffee. I have been buying 50 K-cups for about $35 on Amazon. I saw K-cups at Costco last night, 100 K-cups with a good variety of roasts in their Kirkland brand, for $38. That would be more reasonably priced and would still allow me to enjoy the convenience of the Keurig from time to time. I've used their house brand coffees in the past and enjoyed them. Having a nicely brewed cup of coffee in 2-3 minutes IS a luxury I enjoy! Particularly since I allow myself no more than 2 cups per day..... I guess I will need to think up tasks that can be performed in the time it takes to boil the water and steep the coffee if I'm going back to the French Press. Otherwise, I'll stand there impatiently waiting for a watched pot to boil.

Okay, that's my thing today on coffee making.

 

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Late dinner..........

I did it. I went to El Cheapo. Those people must have had some kind of a weekend. When I got there, there were two carts left inside the store and THEY were stuck together! Some kind shopper went out and gathered up 7 or 8 carts and wheeled them in. I grabbed one and they all taken in seconds!

I went to the store with 5 things on my list. I bought a lot more than 5 things, but I got some decent deals, considering today's prices! Never in my life would I have expected I'd be telling you I got evaporated milk on sale for $1.18/can. Yeah, I remember buying it for $.59 a can--exactly half of today's sale price. They had those smoked ham hocks and dried peas were on sale. You can't count on them having the smoked ham hocks as a regular item so it's smart to grab 'em when you see 'em, particularly when you're going to need them in a matter of days. So, I bought both though I didn't plan on those purchases.

Their house brand bleach was on sale so I bought some. The small bottle I keep under my sink is EMPTY.

I needed chicken broth for the Zuppa Toscano (potato soup). I couldn't believe the paper containers were $2.48 each. Wow! That's pricey. I found the cans on sale, and the price was low enough that I could easily buy 2 for the price of one paper container, get a comparable amount, and still save $.50. That was a deal.

I've gotten to the place where I buy instant coffee pretty much whenever I go there. They have that dark roast instant coffee from Mexico and it's the only place I know of where you can get something like that. Of course, I had to track down someone to open the jar before I left the store, LOL.

I had hoped to buy single potatoes. Yeah, well, this was El Cheapo. No such thing. That must be considered a "frill". So I bought a bag, I think it was 10 pounds. $2.28 for the bag. Not too bad.......

I needed heavy cream for the potato soup. Holy cow! I nearly had to be resuscitated when I saw the price. My goodness! I ended up buying the smallest size they had (like the size of milk carton you used to get with a school lunch). At least I don't have to supplement the price that size with money borrowed from a loan shark. I also got some half-and-half to use in the soup in lieu of more heavy cream.

I've been completely out of sweet-n-low for more than a month. They had it on sale today. So, I bought 400 packets. That'll last a while. My daily carb count just went down a LOT. That's good!

I just got my first taste of the soup. Oh, my goodness, it's Goooooood. Here's the look-alike recipe I used. (There are numerous versions of this on the net.....)

Zuppa Toscano Look-Alike

1 pound mild Italian sausage

1 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

4 slices bacon cut into half inch pieces

1 large onion, diced

1 Tbsp minced garlic

Chicken broth, about 70 ounces

6 russet potatoes, thinly sliced

1 cup of heavy cream

1/4 bunch of fresh spinach, heavy stems removed

First, you need to slice open the links of Italian sausage and start it frying in a deep Dutch oven style pan. As it cooks, break it up with your spatula into small bits/bites. Throw in the Diced Onion and when the sausage and onion are cooked, add the minced garlic. In the meantime, while the onion and sausage are cooking, slice the potatoes. When the garlic has been added to the pot, add the chicken broth. Add the red pepper flakes and the bacon pieces and let cook until potatoes are beyond tender. At the last stir in the heavy cream and the fresh spinach. Let cook for just a few minutes (4-5) til the spinach is cooked. Stir and serve.

Okay, first of all, I omitted the bacon. To the best of my remembrance, Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscano doesn't have bacon and there was already plenty of meat from the Italian Sausage.

I do NOT like super hot/spicy food. I added just a smidge under 1 tsp red pepper flakes and it is plenty for me. Obviously, you can adjust this to suit your taste.

I didn't have minced garlic. I chopped fine 5 cloves and used that instead.

The photo which came with the recipe (which I am not showing here for a reason) showed potatoes cut in half lengthwise and then being sliced. I did as they showed and I regretted it. I wish I had at least done a rough chop on those potato slices. I was hungry and the smaller you cut them, the faster they cook. Besides, you want them to get mushy and break up some in the soup and that is easier to achieve if they're cut small too.

I know I used more half-and-half and heavy cream in combination than one cup. My soup was REALLY thick with chunks of potato/sausage, etc. I really wanted it to be the consistency of soup, not stew. So I added the 1 cup of heavy cream. Then I rinsed the measuring cup out with water and poured that in. Then I dumped in half-and-half til I had what I thought was a proper consistency for soup.

I added about 8 ounces of chopped mushrooms. These 'shrooms were on sale. I recently learned that mushrooms are in the crustiferous veggie family (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.). We're supposed to have these 3-5 times a week. My reasoning was that mushrooms are relatively tasteless unless you add flavor to them. So, they wouldn't add any kind of strong flavoring to the soup but they would add nutrition. I am not tasting them at all in my soup.

I substituted frozen Kale for fresh spinach. First of all, I've never been able to ask anyone, but I really do think Olive Garden uses Kale, not spinach, though for color either will do. But, I also know that Kale packs a bigger nutritional punch than spinach. (Somebody should have told Popeye, right?). AND, I had a bag of frozen chopped kale from Trader Joe's in my freezer so it was "free". I have no idea what 1/4 bunch fresh spinach, chopped would measure out to. I used about 1/3 of the pack of chopped kale. I would guess I used something more than 2 cups. Again, this was by choice, I added a LOT, knowing that I was adding essential vitamins and minerals.

Here are a couple of observations:

1) For those of you that think about fat grams, I was surprised how very little fat rendered from the Italian Sausage. I had counted on it to render enough fat in which to fry the onion. It did, but just barely. Of course, as to fat in this soup, you can rest assured there's plenty with 1 cup of heavy cream!

2) For the sake of convenience and the fact that frozen keeps longer than fresh, the Trader Joe's kale is wonderful. However, if you go looking for it, be prepared that there ARE stems in there. It's not that bad, but more than I want to fish out of frozen kale I'm about to dump into my soup. Kale stems really are slow cooking and I'm not sure they ever get cooked enough not to be crunchy.

So, there's the result of my foray into the world of food shopping and the recipe plus my feedback for this yummy soup. I am going to have many containers of soup to put into the freezer tonight! And maybe a second helping........

 

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Giving in to a craving.......

Thursday........

Do over!

Hey, it's Monday. That tells me I get a chance at a do over for last week. Last week was incredibly stressful, upsetting, and unproductive. I'm grateful for a do over!

I found a recipe for Parmesan Chicken in one of those weekly coupon flyers that come in the mail each week. I tried it. It was good but overwhelming.

The recipe called for 4 chicken breasts, 1/2 c mayonnaise, 1/4 c parmesan, and 4 teaspoons of breadcrumbs. It appealed to me because it is very low carb. However, I found the coating to be so rich I could barely eat it. In fact I ate the chicken breast in two sessions.......... Ate some, waited til I decided I really was still hungry, ate most of the rest except for 2 bites that went to the dogs.

According to the recipe, you pre-heat the oven to 425. Then you mix together the mayo and the parmesan and spread it on top of each chicken breast equally. Then you sprinkle each chicken breast with the breadcrumbs and bake for 20 minutes.

There are a number of good things about this recipe. I used boneless skinless chicken breasts but they did not dry out. I think they were partially seared by the high oven temp, and the fat in the mayo also helped. I also liked the easy prep and the fast cooking time.

I cut the breadcrumbs in order to cut the carbs. I just sprinkled a pinch on each breast and called it good.

When I make this again, I think I will just "dip" the chicken breasts in the mayo-parmesan combo. I think that would result in using a lot less and, for me, a more edible outcome. Spreading it on, it slathered on there pretty thick. And, like I said, I found it overwhelmingly rich.......

I think today will be my day for making Greek yogurt. I found a recipe that gets prepared in the crockpot. I bought whole milk for it. I wanted to see how that works. The recipe says you can use a lower fat % milk, but that it's thinner. I don't think I want runny Greek yogurt.

Here's the instructions for that: It requires 8 cups of whole milk and 1/2 cup of commercial yogurt with active cultures. First, you add just the milk to the crockpot and turn it on low for 2.5 hours. Then you unplug the crockpot and let it sit for 3 hours. At the end of 3 hours, add the 1/2 cup of commercial yogurt which you stir in. Then you wrap the crockpot in 2 large towels or a blanket and let it sit for 8-12 hours. At the end of 12 hours, you have yogurt. The recipe indicates it will be a little runny but will set up in the fridge. This recipe is from a blog called Bless This Mess. She recommends storing it in a glass jar in the fridge and saving 1/2 cup of the mixture to use as a starter for your next batch.

What can you do with Greek yogurt? Well, for starters, you can eat it. You can add bits of fresh fruit, jarred preserves, or honey and chow down. I've seen it with cherries, strawberries, blueberries, figs, pomegranates, and more. In addition, if you are worried about the fat in your diet, you can pretty much use it in lieu of sour cream in most recipes. Lots of folks use it in their smoothies too. 

Well, last night, when I looked back over my day, I was pretty well pleased with what I had done. I could have/should have done more, but I did spend some time just dealing with the head/neck/shoulder thing. So, today, I'll see if I can better what I achieved yesterday. I think I can, with prayer and determination.

Today is drag the trash to the curb day. I have LOTS of trash. The trash guys are gonna hate me, again. I figure one way to decide how well you're doing on decluttering is by how much the trash guys wish you'd go on a long vacation. Right now, I think they must be considering pooling their money to book me a one-way ticket to anywhere, LOL.

I am going to try to combine dragging the trash out with dragging a bucketful or two of dog food in. Great to kill two birds with one stone. I really want to stay on getting that dog food in--yesterday's discovery of ants in the van scared me. I do NOT want to waste 40 pounds of dogfood because it's become ant infested! I have decided to try to drag a bar-be-cue grill to the curb. It's an eyesore and the bottom is rusted out. It's just sitting around and couldn't be used for anything. Time for it to go.

I have some paper work to deal with here on the desk. And there is mucho shredding of old tax returns and sorting and trashing the papers from that Joe-box I've been working on in the garage. I'd love to get that emptied and outta here today.

As always, the kitchen needs work.

I am trying to get all that fabric I found in the sewing room "filed". It is piled on the floor right now and I want it put away. Then I can dig some more and see what else I find. There's still a mountain of stuff to go through.

I didn't tell you I found a vacuum cleaner in there, did I? Holy Toledo, where did THAT come from? I figure it must have moved here with Joe........ Anyway, it looks to be a cheapie, with a dirt cup about the size of a thimble. I think I'll try it the next time I vacuum just to see if it works. If it doesn't, it can go to the curb Thursday afternoon for Friday's pickup. If it works, it might be good for something. It appears to be small and maybe lightweight. Both of my other vacuums are big and heavy and it's a bit of a pain maneuvering them, for example, when I'm trying to use the tools. One thing that puzzles me is that, after we were married, I spent weeks haunting e-bay to buy us a new vacuum cleaner at a more reasonable price. Why didn't he ever tell me he'd moved in with one?

Over and above all that, I'd be pleased to do some "neatening" of the place. I'm bad about cleaning up after myself as I go. I have to go back and do that later and today is later!

I need to find a functional place to store cleaning tools. I have a very small closet, meant to be a coat closet, I suppose, near the front door. But there is no way I can wedge vacuum cleaners, carpet shampooer, tools, and more in there........ I have the sinking feeling I'm gonna eventually have to park 'em in the sewing room. Bah!

I got my kit for this week uploaded very late last night. It was a trial as the upload service was not functioning well. It took 3 tries to get some of the parts of the kit uploaded.

Now, I need to finish that back-to-school kit. I lost mojo last week with all the upset and stress. I hope it comes back soon! And, of course, I have my usuals to do--tagging stuff in ACDSee, unzipping and organizing files, deleting e-mail and so on.

I'm pretty sure I can stay busy this week!

YOU be BLESSED today!

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