Food

A while back Tam posted about how she does her coffee, and apparently today a nother blogger commented there about how he was giving a Chemex a try. (I was decried as an infidel in the comments for my flavored coffee, poor folks have never had the good stuff :p.) I’ve thought about trying a Chemex several times, but first thing in the morning I’m just not that functional. As much as I’d prefer to grind my coffee on a daily basis I don’t even do that every morning. Instead I grind a weeks worth at a time, and I brew it in my Mr Coffee (though I’ve a stovetop perculator for when the power goes out) cause I can do that without requiring thought.

We’re currently ordering from Berres Brothers, and we usually get a selection, including Highlander Grog, and their Breakfast blend (look, a non-flavored coffee!!). They ship quick, and have wonderfull coffee. I used to exclusively buy Millstone’s Chocolate Velvet coffee (it smelled and tasted like a fresh baked chocolate mocha cake) but when Smuckers bought them out they stopped selling the whole bean in 5lb bags which I found annoying as heck, so I decided that if I was going to be reduced to ordering in small bags I was going to find someplace I was willing to buy a selection from.

So thats my coffee story!

Homemade Iced Tea in-fact.  (cause I need cheering up)

This started out several years ago.  In an attempt to loose weight I cut all soda’s, and sugary drinks out of my day.  I lost less than 5lbs.  Sigh.  Anyway, I discovered that although I didn’t miss the soda’s (which I now only have if we’re eating out, and then only ONE and don’t let them refill my glass), I DID get sick of nothing but water, or lemon water, all the time.  I looked at the iced tea’s sold in the stores, and cringed at the list of ingredients.  Next thing I knew I was making my own.  It took some trial and error to find a method that was easy, and worked consistently to produce really good iced tea.

The first thing you need is a slow cooker (or crock pot, same difference) that will hold at least 3/4 the liquid contents of your chosen pitcher.  Yes, a slow cooker trust me.

Next you need tea.  Sure, you can use anything you like, but I grew up in a family of tea snobs.  I’ve been ordering loose leaf tea from Upton Tea since I was a teenager (well, ok, my dad was the one ordering tea when I was a teen, close enough).  I’ve looked around, and for the quantity, and quality, there’s no match for price.  Which isn’t to say that the other tea companies are no good (there are some really nice teas out there), but if I find one that has good tea, their price is higher than Upton’s, at least at the quantities I buy it in.  For the recipe below I use peppermint, spearmint, and honeybush vanilla.

I also buy teapot sized tea bags from Upton cause I hate trying to strain the tea after the fact, but you can do whatever you feel like.

Now, my tea pitcher holds a full gallon of water, my slow cooker is an itsy bitsy model that holds about 3/4 of that, which is actually perfect for what I do, if your slow cooker is bigger you may have to play around with the exact amount of water to use.  At any rate, I fill the slow cooker with water and turn it on high, don’t put the lid on yet though.

I “measure” out the tea as follows:

3 very heaping teaspoons (tableware teaspoons, not measuring spoon teaspoons) of the honeybush vanilla
6 very heaping teaspoons of the peppermint
9 very heaping teaspoons of the spearmint
(I know, awesome measurements huh?  I guess I ought to weigh it out or something one of these days)

since I use teabags everything is put into the teabags, closed with a clip (purchased from Upton as well, but they’re reusable), and then dump teabags into the slow cooker.  If you’re not using teabags just dump it all in.  I’ve tried infusers, but they don’t seem to make them big enough, that will actually stay closed and won’t leak tea leaves.

Put the lid on the slow cooker, and set a timer for 2 hours.  Yes, two hours.  Now walk away.  Come back when the timer goes off.  Turn off slow cooker.  If you use teabags, or infusers or whatever, remove them from the tea, if you’re going to filter it set your filter up.  Pour tea into pitcher (this can take practice so don’t panic when you miss the pitcher the first time, just make sure the pitcher is set in the sink so spills aren’t a problem).

Now, the mints do need sweetening to bring out the flavor, what you use is up to you though, I use plain old white sugar, but there’s no reason why you can’t use honey, or artificial sweeteners or what have you, but whatever you’re going to use, put it in now while the tea is still hot and stir it up well.  Once its all stirred add enough extra cold water to the pitcher to fill it the rest of the way, cover and set into the fridge.  It’ll take a few hours to cool down though you can have a glass earlier with the help of ice cubes.

Now, everyone who actually “does” tea is cringing right now, first off, a SLOW COOKER, and for 2 HOURS???  Yes, I’m serious.  The slow cooker heats slowly enough that by the end of two hours the temperature is barely 150 degrees (at least in mine), which means that no, the tea doesn’t get bitter, cause although its a long time, its no where near high heat.  And this method produces more consistent results than boiling water then timing the brewing for the right number of minutes.

Ok, so those of you who actually know me know that I don’t drink alcohol, except for very very rare vodka milkshakes (which shall have to be a whole ‘nother post).  But when I ran across a recipe a while back for beer bread I had save it to try at some point.  After all I love bread, in almost any form, and although I can’t stand beer I was pretty sure that it would end up like a different tasting sourdough.

I was right.  Just had my first couple slices off the hot loaf with some chedder cheese and its awesome.  The residual beer odor isn’t enough to throw me off and it tastes awesome.  I used Saranac Pale Ale (grabbed at a random off the shelf since I don’t drink the stuff).  Here’s the recipe I used, originally found here, though there are a selection of almost identical recipes floating around teh interwebs.

3 cups (sifted!) all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 (12ounce) can or bottle of beer of your choice (yes the alcohol matters, non-alcoholic won’t work)
1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375.  Mix dry ingredients, stir in beer.  Pour batter into well greased loaf pan, and smooth out the top as best you can.  Pour melted butter on top and set in the oven (place a piece of tin foil underneath unless you really want to be cleaning up burnt butter off the bottom of your oven).  Bake for 1hr.  Should be nicely golden all over when done.  Let cool for 10 – 15 minutes before cutting.  Enjoy!