Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

Make Your Own Chocolate Liqueur

To celebrate Chocolate Friday and the end of the month, make your own chocolate liqueur!  And when your friends ask where you were all weekend, you can tell them you got lost in the land of chocolate!

Of course you can buy this stuff.  Godiva offers four variations:  chocolate cream,  dark chocolate, white chocolate and (ohmigod) chocolate cappuccino.  But if you have an adventurous do-it-your-own-self spirit, you might want to try one of these recipes for great at-home chocolate liqueur:

Chocolate Liqueur
From Busy Cooks at About.com

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp. chocolate extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup vodka

Combine sugar and water in medium heavy saucepan over medium high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower heat and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool thoroughly. Stir in chocolate extract, vanilla and vodka.  Pour into a clean glass bottle with tight fitting lid and store in a cool, dry place. This can be used as a substitute for Creme De Cacao. Makes 1 pint

NOTE: This recipe calls for chocolate extract, which you can buy online here if your local store doesn't carry it

This next recipe takes longer to produce something drinkable, but it might be worth it. Worth a try, at least, to be able to compare the two.

Chocolate Liqueur
from The Recipe Link

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
5 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups vodka
1 vanilla bean, split

Mix sugar, water, and cocoa in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, just until sugar and cocoa are completely dissolved. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

Pour into a clean 2-quart glass container. Stir in vodka and vanilla bean. Cover tightly; keep in a cool, dark place for 14 days, shaking container thoroughly every 2 days.

Strain liqueur through a moist paper coffee filter into a clean glass container. Straining will take a couple of hours as residue is very thick. Change filter halfway through. If residue remains, strain again immediately.

Cover tightly; let liqueur age in cool, dark place at least 1 month.

If you don't really want the alcohol, but want the chocolatey flavor, you can substitute chocolate syrup.  And if you want to keep in the "make it yourself" theme, you can find recipes for homemade chocolate syrup here and here.

Not sure what to do with chocolate liqueur?  Here are some recipes to try:

• Godiva Chocolates Drink Recipes
• Drinks Mixer's Chocolate Liqueur Drinks
• Chocolate Honeybee - from Webtender
• Mudslide #5 - from Webtender
• Tatooed Love Goddess - from Webtender

That ought to set you up right for the weekend.

Enjoy!

Ups & Downs of Kitchen Appliances

Daddy broke the crockpot.

Sounds like the beginning of a country western song, doesn't it?  Sung by Dolly, crooning in the kitchen. 

Seriously, the hubs broke the crockpot.  Or to be more precise, he broke the lid.  I heard it shatter from the other side of the house.  He swears there's another lid somewhere in this house, but I'm not going to look for it.  And after a few minutes of trying to find it himself, he gave up and said "Let's just buy a new one." 

Hal-ee-loo-ya (Dolly's singing on an up-beat now) gonna get me a new slow cooker, a real good-looker, shiny and new (do they come in blue?), with buttons and dials to make me smile. 

Heheh, I'll never make it as a song writer. 

ANYway, this is a really wonderfully good thing because I couldn't really justify buying a new one when the old ugly one worked just fine.  Even better -- since he broke it, he gets to replace it.  And I can keep saving my money for that coffee roaster I've been wanting for months and months.  My oven roasting days are over until October at least, and I'm getting really REALLY tired of trying to find good fresh coffee beans at the local shops. 

And you know why I can't use the oven?  C'mon everybody sing along with Dolly.  You know the song ... I've been singing it over and over. 

"It's too darn hot!"

I guess that's not really a Dolly kind of song.  Maybe we could revive Norma Jean from the grave and she can do a steamy version for us.

ARR Dubyou Bee Fruit Salad

Get it?  Arr Dubyou Bee?  Snerk!

I was going to make a fruit salad for the fam-damily on the 4th of July.  But I ... ummm ... I had to test it out ahead of time, yeah that's it, because it's so complicated and ... ummmm ...

Ok, ok, I'm silly.  Talk about your easy recipes.  Get some fruit.  Get some kind of whipped topping and mix together with marshmallow topping in equal parts.  Add to bowl.  Eat.

Except of course, I was going for a red, white and blue theme, so it had to be certain kinds of fruit.  We just happen to have fresh blueberries right now, and the strawberries are luscious.  But I also added some marascino cherries because I like it sweet.  For regular fruit salad I would mix the fruit all into the white stuff.  But it looks kinda pretty like this, huh? 

The weird thing was while deciding which picture to use for this post, I noticed this one was named #DSCF1776.  No kidding! 

Carnival of the Recipes #97

This week's Carnival is up, hosted by Booklore, which is a great little blog for book reviews and such.  The theme was travel - I didn't have time to think of a good travel-friendly recipe, but I'm sure getting some good ideas from the contributions!  Check these out:

• KeeWee's Ham & Cheese Scones - never thought of a scone as travel food?  Well think again!
• Sweet & Spicy Chicken Sandwiches from Men in Aprons.  I'm not too sure about the hot sauce, but the rest of this recipe is right up my alley.
• Marscapone Brownies - These marbled espresso & mascarpone (soft Italian cheese in case you never heard of it) very fudgy brownies from Seriously Good sound seriously good but seriously deadly. 
• The BBQ General serves up a complete Red Truck Picnic, with all the best stuff like deviled eggs and chicken and potato salad.  Gotta go on a picnic with this guy for sure.

Next week's Carnival will be hosted at Caterwauling. Please submit your links to recipes to [email protected] before noon Central Standard Time on June the 29th.  I've got just the thing for Independence Day!

Coffee Colors

Does this qualify as coffee porn?  Does it even qualify as coffee art?  Well, hey, art is in the eye of the behinder, and it's MY behind, so hell yeah it's art.  Heheh.  Just wanted to share what I do in the mornings when I'm not quite awake --  take pictures of my favorite cup holding my favorite thing - coffee!  I really loved the colors,

And just a smidgy closer...

More on Flickr

Kopro Shrumak

Any Myst-ers out there?  Got Uru?  Get a chuckle out of this: Kopro Shrumak, a rare and gourmet coffee from Teledahn that is made from spores passed through the digestive system of shroomies.  Read the details here.

For those who haven't played URU, a shroomie is a sort of sea creature that feeds on spores and oversized mushrooms on one of the "worlds" in the game. 

This is, of course, a nod to the rare and famous (or infamous) Kopi Luwak coffee that costs an arm and a leg (if you can even find any) because it passes through the digestive tract of a small creature called a Luwak. 

If you haven't played Uru, it won't be as funny, so ... whaddya waiting for?  Go get the game!!

Old Man Drinking Coffee

This offering, in honor of Father's Day (although I realize most fathers aren't old men, heheh) for our coffee drinking dads  - Old Man Drinking Coffee, drawing from the Vincent van Gogh Gallery.

Happy Pater's Day!

Gifts from the Tea Fairy

Cindy of Cuppa Tea & a Blog - who shall henceforth be known as the TEA FAIRY - sent me this wonderful little package of Yunnan teas to taste. 

I've been meaning to do a real scientific type tasting of all four to compare but first I didn't have time, and then it just got so hot that tea in the afternoon didn't appeal at all.  (I did mention that it's hot here, didn't I?)

Well, I finally got the packages out and decided to taste two of them today, and then maybe two tomorrow.  For those of you who don't know the history of this, Cindy first turned me on to Yunnan gold when she posted about her search for that elusive hint of cocoa in a yunnan tea she'd run out of.  These that she sent me come close, she says.  She's such a generous tea fairy.

S'wenyway, to the tasting.  I tried the Inperial Gold Tips from Yunnansourcing, which is selling on EBay (not sure how to find it there, maybe Cindy will clarify that for us), and Black Dragon, a golden yunnan which I think came from China but I'm not sure.  These two teas are so different, and yet, they're both definitely yunnans.  With the Yunnansourcing tea ... I finally tasted it!  That hint of cocoa.  It was in the smell, more than the taste, and that translated to a mild aftertaste of cocoa, very mild but very pleasant.  The taste itself was much like the Adagio Yunnan Gold, which up till now has been my favorite. 

I have a new favorite now.  This Black Dragon stuff ... I am totally in love with this tea.  It's got all the character of the other yunnans, but the flavor is ... I wish I had the right "tea afficianado" words to use here ... I would say it's a little smokier, but that might not be right.  In any case, it's wonderful, very smooth, very comforting.  I wish it were a cold winter night with rain falling outside my window.  And me, sitting in front of a roaring fire, wrapped in a bigfuzzy blanket.  That's the way to properly savor this tea. 

The other two teas will have to wait for another day.  But thank you Tea Fairy, thank you so much!!

ChocoFriday: Oddz-N-Endz

It's been a while since I've done a Chocolate Friday!  Bad Christine.  I shall punish myself with a chocolate voodoo doll.  Heheh, what fantastihorrible torture. 

Or maybe I'll torture myself by sending some virtual chocolate.  Seriously, I don't know if sending one of these would be considered a friendly act or really truly torture.  These are some mouse waddling pics!

Some other oddball chocolate stuff I found:

• Apparently somewhere in the Phillipines you can get chocolate toothpaste.  Heh, that's one way to get yer kids to brush.  But doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?
• Kooki Sushi - Chocolate made to look like sushi.
• Chocolate Cheeseburger and Chocolate Spaghetti from Creative Chocolate.
• Chocolate Cigars - now here's an idea for Father's Day!
• Chocolate Condoms - What?

That's all I have time for today, I'm off to the store for apples and latte!

Crockpot Cobbler

Since I can't use my oven (have I mentioned that it's HOT here?), my baking adventures are sadly curtailed, unless I get a wild hair and decide to get up and bake in the middle of the night.  Naah, prolly not.  So I have to find other outlets for my creative cooking needs.  Searching the web I ran across this recipe for Crockpot Cobbler. 

I don't know why this has never occurred to me before!  Of course, my crockpot is older than dirt, and ugly to boot, so it lives in a dark corner of a downlow cupboard.  Out of sight and out of mind, I guess is true.  Click on the pic here to blow it up if you wanna see how TRULY ugly and disgusting it is.  The destructions say to use a 3-4 quart crockpot, and I have NO idea if my old-un here is that big.  I guess I'll have to do some measuring and testing.

No matter.  I'm determined to try this recipe, with a smidgy of modification because ... well, I'm just that way.  Here's what I plan to do (right after I run to the store and get some apples!):

Crockpot Apple Cobbler
2+ cups peeled sliced tart apples
2 cups granola
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup dried cranberries (I used orange flavored)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp melted butter

Spray inside of crockpot with nonstick cooking spray. 

Combine apples, cranberries, granola, 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and mix well.  Pour mixture into crockpot.  Stir together remaining brown sugar and melted butter and drizzle over the apple mixture.  Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until apples are tender.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

UPDATE:  Recipe success! 

This is delicious stuff.  If only the hubs hadn't eaten the last of the vanilla ice cream, it would have been the completely perfect afternoon treat. 

It's certainly not pretty though.  As you can see from the pic above, it does look a little bit like something the dog threw up, but if you ignore your eyes, and just let your nose and tongue enjoy, you'll be happy.  Way.

Another note: I had forgotten how much apples cook down.  As you can see here, the result after 6 hours cooking was quite a bit less in volume.  For my next attempt at this, I'll use more apples.

I've modified the recipe again, because honey AND brown sugar seemed like a bit much, and I also felt it was done at 6 hours, though the original recipe called for 8.

Enjoy!