Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

The Best Kind of Houseguest ...

The best kind of houseguest ... brings chocolate.  A stellar houseguest brings GREAT chocolate.

We had a visitor from New Zealand recently who ranks at the top of my list.  She cleaned up after herself, didn't stay too long, was friendly to our unruly dogs, but best of all, she brought us some of the best, swear-to-god TO-DIE-FOR chocolates from the Chocolate Boutique in New Zealand. 

They were tasty and SO pretty.  Little swirly decorations and fancy shapes, melt in your mouth chocolate, and different flavored fillings and centers that were just right, not too sweet, truly something amazing. 

I would love to show you what they looked like, but unfortunately, this is all that's left:

Ok, I'll fess up, I'm the nibbler.  But I was polite.   I waited until the hubs wasn't looking.  And as you can see, I didn't leave too many bones in the boneyard.

I found their website here.  Now I just have to see if they'll deliver.  Overseas for less than an arm and a leg, intact, not melted, even when shipping to Arizona in the summer?  Oh well, that's probably asking too much.    

Kitsch or Kewl?

I can't decide if this wabbit fambly tea set is cute-and-collectible or just gawdy-but-good-for-a-giggle. 

It was a gift from somebody who figured I needed more tea sets for my collection, so I'm loathe to throw it out.  It's a complete set - teapot, creamer, sugar bunny, 4 cups, saucers and little spoons.  Momma wabbit's head comes off, as does sugar bunny. 

It gave me a great chuckle when I unwrapped the box, and I do love bunny wabbits, but could I actually leave it out and serve tea with it?  I dunno, whaddya think ... kitsch or kewl?

Jane Austen -- Out Loud

I think I've mentioned here that I love Jane Austen.  Have I mentioned that I also love audio books?  Well combine the two and I'm in a little corner of heaven. 

Over the past few years I've collected most of the Jane Austen books on audio tape or CD, but there has been one version that I was never happy with.  I had a version of Pride and Prejudice that was read by a woman with a deep and gravely voice.  At first listen I thought, oh this will be fun, she can do all the men's voices as well as the women's, but the overall effect was ... well, in a word, awful.  Horrible.  Icky, even. 

The voice and the dramatic ability of the reader is SO important with audio books.  Especially with something in a period piece like the Jane Austen works.  Now, maybe I'm a bit spoiled having listened to Jim Dale do all the Harry Potter books, but honestly, if you're going to have somebody read through a whole book, unabridged, it ought to be somebody who is pleasant to listen to.  It doesn't even have to be Jim Dale quality for me, but it does need to be pleasant, and not overly singsong (don't get me started on having Michael York reading ruining The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia boxed set I got -- although I have to say the bad experience was nicely balanced by the heaven of listening to Jeremy Northam reading The Silver Chair - oh yummy yummy, I could just eat him up!)

ANYway, despite the gruff voice that grated on me, I held onto my Pride & Prejudice tapes and listened to them frequently, not wanting to admit that I had wasted money. 

Fate rescued me!  One of the tapes broke.  All gucked up in the tape player!  Whoohoo!!  I was free to order a new copy without guilt.

Shopping with no ability to preview the voice of the reader is majorly frustrating!  That's worth an email complaint or two.  But I'm here to tell you that the new CD version has arrived and is splendid, mahvelous, so soothing to the ear it's brought me back to my full state of bliss, in my little corner of heaven here, with Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice (read by golden throated Irene Sutcliffe!)

Color me happy!

Foam Sweet Foam

My brother called me a coffee snob the other day. 

"Coffee snob?" says I.  "Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

After we finished this highly erudite and mature conversation, I stopped to think about it.  Am I a coffee snob? 

I don't use all the fancy words like "cupping" and "floral and bright" to describe my tasting experience.  Coffee high mucky mucks can get into the special language trap and that puts people off.  I don't do that.

And I don't look down my nose at other people for what they drink.  I don't care what they drink or how they fix it.  I am very fussy about what *I* drink - ever since I started roasting my own coffee I can't drink much else - but I don't shove it down other people's throats.  Heh.  So to speak.   Except occasionally I play coffee bar for visitors, just so they can see what coffee really ought to taste like.

But I'm not a "purist".  I do sometimes drink black espresso shots with no frills.  But the fact that I like a latte or cappuccino might make me "less than" in a true coffee snob's eyes.  So by way of proof that I'm not a snob,  I have to cop to my latest addiction - sweetened froth.  omg this is good.  I just put a little sugar in the milk before I froth it.  The idea here is not to sweeten the coffee, although that happens too, but to sweeten the foam. 

I wonder if my brother will accept this argument. 

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ok, first I have to apologize.  This is NOT the recipe for cream cheese brownies that I've been promising.  I will get that posted soon. I will, no really, I will!!!  But for today, I'm bumping some old posts here by way of wishing everybunny a Happy Valentine's Day. 

Be sure to take a trip back a year and visit the Valentine's Day Carnival of the Recipes, which has some truly splendelicious goodies for you and your Valentine.

And here are some pictures I shared many moons ago, of a fun and scrummy Valentine's Tea Party I had:

First, I baked some Wally-Mari-Brownies (that's brownies with walnuts and marascino cherries inside). 

I just used a brownie mix, and these cute little heart-shaped tins I found in the baking aisle.

Added some chocolate kisses to the plate because ... well... you can never have too much chocolate.

The perfect complement to go with the brownies: Rosebud Gong Fu tea, which just arrived from JingTeas.com.

This is the perfect tea.  I lovelovelove it. Lightly scented/flavored, and there are tiny little rosebuds right in the tea.  It's a treat for all the senses.  Pretty to look at, wonderful smell, the taste is perfect, and the little afterbreath of roses is delightful.

And of course, the only possible china to use was my gold-rimmed roses cup and plate.

My Cozy Winter Tea

It has finally gotten cold enough here to qualify in my mind as "winter".  Just in time for Christmas.  Heheh. 

So I have an excuse now, to get out all my pretty Christmas things.  Today I'm having afternoon tea using some of my mom's china. This pretty gold-rimmed cup and plate are adorned with holly leaves and berries, and what I think are winter roses.  Very pretty. 

The holly reminds me of growing up.  My grandparents had a ginormous holly tree growing right outside the back door, and every year we kids had the job of cutting sprigs to decorate the house with.  Great, albeit prickly, fun.

For goodies this afternoon I'm munching on a lemon scone (in a word -- YUM), and cream cheese brownies that are to die for.  I really shouldn't be even LOOKING at these brownies, considering how much I ate for Thanksgiving, but it's my birthday, so what the hey. 

Heh.  As if I needed an excuse to eat chocolate. 

The recipe for the brownies will be coming soon! :)

Crack-Me-Up Teapots

While searching for cups on the net, I ran across Andy Titcomb's hilarious teapots. 

These on the right are the Toddler Teapots.  Aren't they a hoot?? If I had muy ducets I'd prolly become a teapot collector.  I just love kitschy stuff like this.

They're a little (a lot!) out of my price range - the one I really want is this cutey little dormouse teapot, but £75.00 translates to about $150 I think. Holy cats.

And at that price I'd be afraid to use it. 

Pumpkin Custard

Whatsa custard, you say?   We 'mericans usually think of a custard as anything resembling a pudding.  Our traditional pumpkin pie filling is usually something in a custard. 

Custards done the traditional euro-francais-way can get quite tricksy with the double boiler and the eggs going in one at a time, sometimes involving additional thickening agents, etc etc.  But for one-dot cooks like me, there are easier ways. 

This recipe is sooper easy, and the result is a nice change from the traditional pumpkin pie.  I started with the Pumpkin Custard recipe found here, and changed it to suit my taste (can't stand ginger snaps!  and don't get me started on pine nuts!!).  It's been thoroughly tested and sampled and ... sampled some more.  I'm happy to say it passed the custard  mustard  muster.  Pfff.  It's reel gud.

Vanilla Pumpkin Custard

1 (29-ounce) can pumpkin
2 cups hot milk
2/3 - 3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 eggs
1 cup crushed vanilla wafers
4 tbsp melted butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup finely chopped pecans

Beat together in a large bowl: pumpkin, heated milk (1+ minutes in the microwave does the trick), sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and eggs.  Stir in cookie crumbs, butter and vanilla.

Butter 8 10-ounce custard (baking) cups.  Spoon pumpkin mixture into the cups.

Combine chopped pecans with 1/2 tsp cinammon and 1 tsp sugar.  Sprinkle nut mixture on top. 

Place cups in a large shallow baking pan filled with hot water deep enough to half immerse cups.  I didn't have custard cups, so I used large muffin tins. placed in a cake pan.

Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes or until custard is set. 

If you used cupcake tins like I did, spoon, allow to chill overnight, then remove carefully with a spatula into small bowls.  Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Makes about 8 servings.

Enjoy!

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

I'm exhausted.  And Thanksgiving is still 3 days away.

Well, I can't really blame Marie Callendar, it's not their fault I walked the length of the grocery store 5 times looking for the stupid corn bread mix.  Only 2 of those trips were by myself.  The next was taken in the company of a store employee who swore to me they had some.  1 1/2 circuits later, she finally stopped to ask somebody else, and the 3 of us took another turn and a half around the store, enlisting the help of yet another store employee on the way.  We finally found it.  Not exactly hidden, just packaged differently (no more big round container!), and on a different shelf.  Boy I hate it when they change things.  Oy, my aching feet.

Recipes coming tomorrow.  I'm trying out this really interesting recipe for pumpkin custard.  They're baking at this very mo.  I just need to stay awake long enough to take them out of the oven.

The really big conundrum of the evening ... where am I going to put these custards?  Assuming they're fit to eat, of course, I'll post the recipe and pics tomorrow.  But they need to be chilled, and there's not one spare inch of space in my fridge.  Hmm, might have to co-opt the hubs' beer fridge.  Would he complain about having warm beer when game time comes?  Is that grounds for divorce?

Oh, before I forget, the theme for this week's Carnival of the Recipes is "What to Do With Thanksgiving Leftovers".  Perfect!

Cup Woes

I have a problem with cups.  Coffee cups in particular.

I'm really fussy.

For my morning latte, I like a bigfat (think mini-soup bowl), thin rimmed cup, both microwave and dishwasher safe, with a comfortable handle for my littlish hands.  Not an easy combination to find.  I had one, which I blogged about previously, that I loved loved LOVED.  It was big enough, had a lovely thin rim, pretty blue with little flowers on the outside.  The perfect cup.  Look what happened to it.

Is this not the saddest thing you've ever seen?  I didn't do this all by myself, I had help from a four-legged friend who got a little too rambunctious and paid for it by wearing spilled coffee on his head.

I went back to the store whence it came and tried to find another.  Unfortunately, there were none.  Line discontinued. 

I tried to glue it back together, but ... no go. 

So I got online and searched for the maker - it's one of the dine series made by HD Designs.  I found some HD Design stuff, but no dishware like this. 

Majorly bummed, I bought this, because it was the only BIGCup I could find.

Whimsical, yes.  Colorful, yes.  Big, sure.  But it's got an equally bigfat rim, and it's heavy.  Clunky even.  Not only that but - although it claims to be microwaveable - it heats up way too much in the nuker.  Don't know how to get around that problem.

Anyway, lo and behold, the other day I found a new cup that is almost big enough - just a skoche bigger and it would be perfect - and has a nice thin rim AND is safe in the nuker.  Not blue or flowery, but kinda classy in a country sort of vein.

Guess who makes it?

Yep, same company.  HD Designs.  I wish I could find a website for them, I'd email somebody and say - You're my kinda peeps!

Ok, only one more pic, in homage to this new, almost-perfect cup, and then I'm done. :)

Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans

I've missed HOW MANY Chocolate Fridays? 

Well I'm jumping back into the blogosphere with something really easy that combines two of my favorite things: chocolate and coffee.  I've always wanted to try chocolate covered coffee beans.  I wasn't sure I would like them, to be perfectly honest.  I'm really addicted to my liquid coffee, but chawing on a crunchy bean... I wasn't too sure about.

I'm here to tell ya, they're great.  This is the perfect antidote for a long drive, or a hiking trip, when coffee of the liquid variety is hard to come by.  Pop a few of these for some tasty instant rocket fuel.  I'm serious, those with heart conditions beware.  I popped half a dozen and a few minutes later, the top of my head came off. 

And the recipe is so easy!  I tried using flavorings in the chocolate, and different types of coffee beans, some more exotic than others.  And the conclusion I've come to is they're best with a good hearty basic espresso bean, and just plain semi sweet chocolate.  Exotic coffee beans detract from the chocolate.  And added flavorings seem to detract from the coffee.  Basic and not too sweet is best, IMHO.

Easy Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans

1/2 cup espresso beans
1/4 - 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a bowl, melt chocolate chips in microwave for 1-2 minutes, stirring every 20 seconds or so, until creamy.  Stir in coffee beans till completely covered.  Spread on a sheet of wax paper.  Allow to cool on counter for 10-15 minutes, then place in freezer.  Once completely hardened, break apart. 

The result looks like peanut brittle... so maybe this should be called coffee brittle.  :)

Enjoy!

Coffee Roasting Report #4

I've been experimenting with blends.  I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it right.  Is it sacrilege to roast different kinds of coffee together? 

After trying umpteen different coffees together, I finally hit on one I really like.  I've been keeping records and rating the different coffees and blends on a basic ... very basic ...  scale, giving each a number 1-10 based purely on whether I like it or not.  I've only one batch in the negative numbers, way over-roasted and disgusting, might have been better used as kindling chips in the fireplace.  And I've had a few batches that were down in the 2-3 range.  Most have been in the middle numbers, tolerable, but nothing that really grabbed me.

This latest blend, however, is stellar.  80% Sumatria Classic Mandheling, and 20% Yemen Mokha Sana'ani produces a deeply mocha coffee, not just chocolately, but deeply darkly chocolatey.  I've tried this blend lightly roasted, medium / full city, quite dark, and something in between, and frankly, they're all good.  The mocha flavor is most apparent in the medium roast, so that would probably be my first choice.

I am still frustrated by the inconsistencies in roasting.  I assumed that once I found a good bean and darkness, I could set the roaster and walk away.  But that's just not so.  The exact same level of beans (from the same batch), roasted for the exact same amount of time does not always produce the exact same darkness of roast.  It's maddening.  I have no idea what other factors are affecting things - humidity?  It has been more humid than usual here lately.  And if the air conditioner kicks on in the middle of roasting, does that draw from the power needed for the roaster?  I'm not tech headed enough to know if that would make a difference, or what else to pay attention to.  Any advice?

Chocolate Friday: Good for a Laugh

Some of my favorite chocolate quotes:

I'm not overweight. I'm Chocolate-Enriched.

The Chocoholic 12-Step Program: Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate!

Chocolate doesn't make the world go around, but it sure makes the trip worthwhile.

I only recognize two food groups: fruit and chocolate.  And if it's fruit, it should be dipped in chocolate.

One of life's mysteries is how a two-pound box of chocolate can make a person gain five pounds. 

Man cannot live by chocolate alone.  But I bet a woman could.

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.

Say fast 10 times: A cheery chipmunk chucked chewy cherries in a cheap chocolate chip shop.

Chocolate is nature’s way of making up for Mondays.

There's more to life than chocolate ... I just can't think what.

There are four basic food groups: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, and chocolate truffles.

I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process.... It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?.