Archive for the ‘Drinks of all kinds’ Category
Happy Tuesday, Dear Readers:
I hope everyone had a peaceful Memorial Day yesterday. Here in Houston, it was OK first thing in the morning, but as the afternoon wore on, the clouds started coming through and eventually we got some serious rain. It’s great, we needed it, only the timing was off. It rained pretty heavy this morning, too, although it receded when I went out to bring my sewing machine to Hancock Fabrics.
Oh, I broke it last week. I took it to Hancock Fabrics for repair; there’s a gentleman who picks them up every Tuesday and repairs them, then returns them a week later. I did NOT intend for that to happen, but it did. Oh, well.
At least the HeatCageKitchen garden is happy with the rain.
Yesterday I had my first mojito. That’s a Cuban cocktail with lime and mint and rum. . .and sugar. I used Suzanne Somers’ recipe from her Cocktails book, and sweetened it with SomerSweet. I could only get key limes yesterday at Food Town, but that’s OK. The recipe calls for vodka or light rum; I had vodka left from making vanilla extract, so that’s what I used, along with mint from the garden.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a regular thing–I just felt like having a good cocktail, and this mojito doesn’t have any sugar. After binge-watching 7 seasons of Burn Notice out of order, I figured a mojito would be great to try. Delicious! But more on that later.
In my kitchen, not in Carlito’s.
Two things I managed to complete this weekend were carpet cleaning and tidying up the pantry. The pantry in this place is a floor-to-ceiling corner cabinet with three doors and five shelves that is deep enough that you could get lost in it. The pantry measures 8′ high, 22″ wide and 21′ deep, with some wasted space above the top shelf. More on that extra space later.
In one of my prior reorganizations, I labeled each shelf to categorize things and keep it organized. Over time (particularly when I don’t have time to be neat) the organization kind of took a nose dive, and it looked like this:
It took a while to get this bad.
The bottom part of the pantry, which sits on the floor, looked like this:
That’s the extra stuff that ended up being jumbled in there.
I actually couldn’t close the pantry doors. That’s great, because I have plenty of supplies.
I couldn’t close the door. That’s a kitchen laundry bag.
I added these door racks when I moved into this place, and they too are full of spices and wraps.
![IMG_0500[1]](http://heatcagekitchen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/img_05001.jpg)
Can you tell I love my Brother P-Touch label maker?
I do this pantry re-org every so often, when I really have to, and it’s usually an all-or-nothing thing. I take everything out of the pantry, wipe down the shelves, clean up any spills, and put it all back.
It was ALL OVER my kitchen. Which is fine, because then I can see what’s stuffed where:
That’s one batch
Ran out of room on the countertops, so I used the floor:
From the bottom of the pantry, the spare and storage area
And when I ran out of room in the kitchen, I moved it out:
The end of the unpacking
I’m low on baking soda, almond milk, kosher salt and nearly out of quinoa. I’ll live without the quinoa, of course, and I’ll get more soon. Normally I have a large jar full of quinoa, but I’ve been using it and not replacing it. Now I’m nearly out. See why your pantry needs to be tidy?
I tossed some things that were way too old that I didn’t realize I still had, like 10+ year old packets of star anise and pennyroyal. (I’ll find a place for that big apothecary jar that used to hold the packets, maybe in another cabinet.) I also consolidated some things, like three containers of Herbes de Provence:
Central Market Herbes de Provence
Now, longtime readers of this blog may remember my column last year on the old Suda Salvage store in River Ridge, Louisiana. I bought this bottle of Central Market herb mix on one of my last trips to Suda.. If you’ve never been in Central Market, you won’t know that this bottle sells for about $7 or $8 in HEB and Central Market. The contents of this unopened bottle and another small, partial bottle went into a larger bottle of Herbes de Provence from Phoenicia. Saved a little space, and really, I don’t think it’s going to make that much of a difference. Dried herbs are pretty good for a long time anyway.
Now, because the pantry is as deep as it is wide, stuff gets stuffed way back in there, and you don’t realize you’ve got a jar of curry paste and three unopened jars of French chestnut creme bought on sale at Williams-Sonoma right after Christmas after Nigella Christmas came out.
It took pretty much all afternoon. Between consolidating, tossing stuff I don’t need anymore, and figuring out what goes where, it took about six hours. No kidding. I was too tired to clean carpets when I was done, that’s why I was doing it Monday.
Did I mention two broken sewing machines? Anyway. . . .
I did manage to make more of my favorite sugar-free Barbecue Rub I told you about last week, using up the thyme in the fridge. (The thyme was in one of those cups like the ones you get cold coffee drinks with whipped cream in at Starbucks, with the hole in the top.) I also have two very large containers of chili powder, after running out one day and not realizing I’d already bought some. Time to start making more chili.
![IMG_0508[1]](http://heatcagekitchen.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/img_05081.jpg)
The easy-to-make barbecue rub. No sugar or toxic additives.
How hard is it to miss this?
The canister holds a nearly-full bag of . . .decaf coffee. I got the canister several years ago when they were selling them at HEB with a pound of regular Community Coffee shrink-wrapped to the front. I gave the coffee to someone else, just so I could have the canister. You can’t buy it on their website right now by itself, but it is available as part of a set.
I got the scoop at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show in Houston in 2011 from the Community Coffee reps, who had plenty of fresh hot decaf on tap and gave these babies away. You can buy them for 50 cents on Community’s website. (You can see my pictures from the food show with this link on Facebook.)
Maybe one day I’ll write a blog post about my coffee cups, coffee and stuff, and the French press pots I use. I’ll give that some thought. I’ve got a lot of coffee in the back of that pantry, along with the tea. Need to start drinking it again. I did make some iced coffee, but going up and down the stepladder had a lot to do with that.
Another thing I discovered a surplus of is. . .SomerSweet. I’d bought a case of 12 during a sale, and another case of 12 during another sale, and had some already, but didn’t realize it. Once I’d pulled everything out, I sorted these cans by expiration date. Now, it’s a dry powder, and it’s in a sealed can, so a sell-by date doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad. But there are three cans that I will use first, (the ones with check marks on them) and the rest in time.
I have a stockpile, not a stash:
That’s a total of 25 cans of delicious, natural SomerSweet, not counting the open can in the fridge. Time to start making some sugar-free delights!!
I happily made myself a delicious sugar-free mojito last night using SomerSweet. Took a little more SomerSweet than the recipe required, but that book was written when the cans were very small. Now SomerSweet is cup-for-cup with sugar, so you multiply the old amount by 5 or use the sugar equivalent.
I’ll be doing that again one day. Maybe soon.
Now, you’ll notice that there is a lot more space above the SomerSweet, wasted space. Last time I had wasted space like that I put in some wire shelving that held extra stuff and emergency supplies. I have considered adding it here, but I’m not ready to do that just yet.
Another thing I discovered was a supply of canned salmon. At $2 or $3 a can, it’s great to keep on hand for quick meals and for emergency backup food. However, now and again, I make some salmon salad, just like tuna salad, and put some things like garden parsley and celery in it. I also have a couple of other recipes that use a can of salmon, and I’m always looking for more that taste good. Right now I think I have 15 cans, and you know I’ll eventually buy more. (I don’t like salmon croquettes, however.)
So, when I had everything sorted, organized and neatly returned to the pantry, this is what it all looked like:
The neat and tidy HeatCageKitchen pantry
The “spare” area at the bottom is also tidied up. But the little cans of cat food are still on the stove. Maybe I’ll find space another time.
And look–now I can close all three of the pantry doors!
No more open door and stuff spilling onto the floor every time I need something.
Seriously, I should have done that a long time ago. Like a lot of things, I put off dealing with the pantry.
I am also a big believer in dumping my purse occasionally and tidying that up, too. Because I’ve been interviewing, I have a nice purse I bought in December just for interviewing, and I’m also using a cloth purse I made just for short trips like the library or the grocery, so I’m aware of everything in my purse. But over time, stuff accumulates, gets heavy and gets lost.
Dump your purse regularly, and you’ll be able to lighten the load a bit, and keep from losing things, too.
When I was at Boeing, I had a BlackBerry, along with a wired headset for long meetings and a Bluetooth headset for traveling. One day I took the all-black Bluetooth off and stashed it in my black purse, “just for a little while.” For a couple of weeks, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I knew I hadn’t lost it, but couldn’t remember where I’d stashed it. I was about to tell my boss I’d lost a piece of equipment, and found it when I dumped my purse. It was in there the whole time, I just couldn’t remember where I put it in a hurry thinking, “I’ll get to it later.”
Whew!
Men, you are not off the hook–tidy up your wallet now and again, and make sure there aren’t any “ex” pictures in your wallet, OK? And you don’t want to sit on a big lump of whatever’s in there, right?
I’ll get my sewing machine back next week, I hope, and I’ll be happily stitching again.
Yes, I know that there is a grocery store by the name of Pantry Pride. There used to be a huge chain, but they’re gone now, and the only one is in St. Mary’s, Ohio. I looked it up, and figured it was safe to use it for a title.
Meantime, have a great week, and Happy Dining!
Good evening:
Regular readers of this humble blog may remember the chocolate-laden, gluten free post I re-blogged last week from fellow foodie writer Sophie James, who writes a very elegant blog called Stories from the Stove. Of course, that’s where the similarity ends, because mine is. . .less elegantly written. But that’s OK, I get my point across, and that’s a nice gluten-free cake she’s got there.
I’m going to tell you about another chocolate cake in a minute, and the story that’s attached. In a minute. Because, it was my BIRTHDAY.
This week marks a number of starts. First, I have switched phone companies and now have an iPhone 4s. I really didn’t want a Smartphone, because I see how dumb it makes people. But I was missing too much important email; people and companies assume everyone has one, so it became a necessity. I’ve loaded it up with lots of cool apps, including one from east coast grocery chain Publix, which includes a nice grocery list function. It’s free and really handy, although it can be a little fussy. And you don’t have to go to Publix to use it! My local HEB used to have a similar thing on their website, but not anymore—and the only apps HEB has are all for HEB Mexico.) There are a number of free grocery list apps available for the iPhone, but I’ve been using the Publix grocery list for a couple of years on the PC, so I decided to stick with that one.
Once in a while, I actually make a real, live phone call with my iPhone. Go figure!
I also take comfort in the fact that people who are considered geniuses have very messy desks. That’s why you’re not seeing pictures of mine. Ever.
Also this week for my music fans, Def Leppard’s CD/DVD set of their Viva Hysteria concerts in Las Vegas earlier this year was released this week. If you buy it from Amazon, they also have something called “AutoRip” where you can download the audio for free, right away, and import it directly into iTunes before your hard copy arrives. Mostly I want to see the concert video, since I couldn’t get to Vegas to see these five handsome UK males (and they didn’t come to Houston this year) so that will be next week. I also have their previous live CD Mirrorball, and kept up with their shows on Facebook, so I kind of know what to expect. If you’re a fan—and yes, I am—you can read more on DefLeppard.com.
Yeah, I know, it’s not foodie related. But it’s new. And it’s Def Leppard. RAOW.
The current diet phase is over, and I’ve lost ten pounds. Woo hoo! Should have been more, I tell myself, but if you don’t sleep 8 hours or so a night, and you sneak some chocolate now and again, you won’t lose as much weight. I know this because I’ve seen it myself on the daily diet charts. On the mornings where I slept less than 6 or 7 hours, I either stall or gain a bit. When I sleep enough and more or less follow the program, I drop it. Mostly I sleep in on the weekends, because there is too much to do when I get home at night. My evening task lists always start with, “feed cat. Feed big cat.” You can guess which one is the big cat.
I also ordered a case of 12 cans of Somersweet two weeks ago to stock up for a while. There was a free gift with purchase, travel sizes of some of her exclusive toxin-free hair care products. The day the box arrived, I got an email from SS’s website telling me that “Somersweet is 25% off!” Had I waited a week, I would have saved about $22.50. AAAAHHH!!! But that’s kind of the way my luck goes sometimes; I didn’t know that was coming. Darnit.
Last week was the annual Bootcamp for American Writers & Artists, Inc. (AWAI), where I’ve been for the last three years, twice on my birthday. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it this year, but will try again next year. It’s like missing the family reunion to me, but I wasn’t able to go for a handful of reasons. Keep your fingers crossed for next year. Last year they not only baked my cake, I also had 325 copywriters sing me Happy Birthday.
This year, I’m on my own. But that’s OK too.
It was also at last year’s Bootcamp that my friend Akinnyi from London, a very nice man, said to me, “well, why don’t you write a food blog?” On the way home, the ideas started to gel, and I got on WordPress a few days later. In fact, when I logged on tonight to start this blog post, WordPress had a message for me: Happy Anniversary! It was one year ago, October 29th, that I started this blog.
Foodies have been rolling their eyes ever since. Including Sophie James, I bet.
This one’s for you, Akinnyi. Thanks for the idea. I ran with it.
Since I didn’t go to Bootcamp this year, I had to bake my own birthday cake. I already knew which one it would be, because I baked it many times before. It’s the Chocolate Ganache Cake from Suzanne Somers’ original 2002 Desserts book, incorporating her newly released Somersweet in to the recipes so that delicious desserts were available to make and not give you sugar crashes or toxins from aspartame. It was a while before I tried Somersweet, but eventually I was won over, and I still buy it today, in it’s updated form.
So this cake is, indeed, gluten free, because there is absolutely no flour of any kind, no sugar, and made from basic ingredients (and Somersweet). But since Suzanne Somers Desserts was published in 2002, most people hadn’t heard the term “gluten free” unless they were suffering with celiac disease or some other reaction from wheat. In this book, it’s considered “low carb,” because that’s primarily what SS’s books were about. Sugar manifests in many forms, wheat included, since most carbs turn to sugar in your bloodstream. That sugar then stimulates the insulin response, and that’s where things can go awry, particularly with continued intake of sugar.
You may not realize this is happening until your doctor starts talking about “options for managing your diabetes.” I know this because my Dad continually ate what he was told by his doctors that would “improve his heart health,” only to later find out the hard way that none of it was true. Didn’t help his heart and didn’t prevent diabetes.
Anyway, enough of the Wheat Belly lecture.
This book was published just after Somersweet first came out in 2001, and the entire book, plus another called Chocolate, are all healthier versions of various desserts (although some may have small amounts of sugar for the times you can handle it.) This particular cake calls for a small amount, since the original Somersweet was 5x sweeter than regular sugar. Today, Somersweet is cup for cup like sugar, so I did a little reconfiguring to make it come out right.
The actual cake part is made by beating 8 eggs for several minutes with some baking soda and getting so much air into them that they bake up and come out baked as a cake. I haven’t made this one in 3 years, but it’s pretty simple to make, and works every time.
Beating eggs for 8 minutes fluffs them up for a perfect cake
You bake the cake for longer than the 15 minutes in the book. I think the new Somersweet changes that part, since it used to be just 15 minutes. But that’s OK. What you get out of the oven (using a 9 inch springform pan) looks like this:
It got a bit browner than I planned
Then you cut it into three layers, not the two I used to do:
Oops. But we can fix it
This is an extremely delicate matter, because one wrong move and the whole thing falls apart. It’s heavy and dense, so you have to have a big spatula or two to move the bottom over to the cake plate.
A trick I learned from the Barefoot Contessa recently is to put a small dollop of buttercream under the bottom layer so the cake sticks to the cake plate. I did that, and later regretted it when I put squares of wax paper underneath so I could make it without a mess. Uh, right. . .
So, I grabbed my offset spatula and got busy with it:
Filling the first layer
Filling, or repairing, the top layer
Starting the ganache process. It didn’t go well
See the wax paper squares? That was intended to keep the ganache from dripping all down the shelves of my fridge. Unfortunately, it not only facilitated dripping chocolate, it made the ganache drip outside the confines of the baking pan I put the cake plate to to contain the mess. So it made a bigger mess than it was designed to contain. It figures.
That’s what’s known as irony, if you didn’t know that before.
After that last picture, I stuck the whole thing, plus the dishes of buttercream and ganache, in the fridge to chill and thicken up a bit, hence the drips on the top shelf.
This cake recipe includes a rich chocolate buttercream filling and a very nice ganache that is poured over the whole cake. Trust me when I tell you that I do not waste a drop of it. One of the benefits of being in your own kitchen is that YOU get to lick the beaters. If you have kids around, then you have to bake when they’re not around or are otherwise occupied.
Simple chocolate ganache. Yes, thank you.
Chocolate Buttercream. Is there anything more perfect?
The finished product, ready to eat
In the end, it all worked, and while it doesn’t look quite the same as the picture in the book, it’s pretty tasty looking.
I picked up some raspberries at Kroger, and decided to up the ante a bit, because, well, I love raspberries with chocolate to begin with.
Just a little something extra to make it all mine!
Four years ago I also bought that ceramic cake plate because putting it on a dinner plate wasn’t working. Of course, on this one it’s a bit, um, earthy, so the chocolate doesn’t exactly stand out. DUH. But that’s what was available at Hobby Lobby the day I went over there. It has been collecting dust, because I’ve gone to Bootcamp the last three years and didn’t bake my own cake.
Of course, the kitchen suffered and boy did I work to get that taken care of:
The remains of the cake (after filling and frosting)
Chocolate ganache everywhere!
So, here’s what my favorite gluten free, sugar free, low-carb Somersweet chocolate birthday cake looks like when you cut a slice:
Rich. Thick. Chocolate. Any questions?
And to serve it:
OK, OK, so I flopped it on its side. It’s edible.
I did share with one of my neighbors and one of my Buddhist friends I visited the next morning. I would have shared with two of my neighbors, but the other one had surgery around her mouth and can’t chew. She got some delicious Tuscan White Bean and Garlic Soup. She didn’t want all of it, so naturally, I ate the rest this week. I gotta make me some more of that soup soon–it’s so good, and takes just about 20 minutes.
Now, it was indeed my birthday, so I headed out first to Starbucks for my free birthday drink. Want to guess what that was? Well, if you read my blog earlier this year, you’ll probably figure it was a Hazelnut Macchiato, and you’d be right. And because it was a splurge, it was my free one, and it was my birthday, I got a big one, and it went on my Starbucks card. I watched someone ring up a $4.65 cup of coffee and it went to “no charge.” However, I only do that once a year, when it’s offered. And check out the artwork on my coffee cup:
Isn’t that cool?
I then went to Denny’s for a free gluten-free Grand Slam. Well, almost free:
![IMG_0028[1]](http://heatcagekitchen.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/img_00281.jpg)
OK, so there’s the seasonal fruit cup off-camera that was 49 cents, and then the blueberries for the oatmeal was another 49 cents, and one more thing, I think, for a total of $1.61. Maybe it was the milk for the oatmeal; but still, it was pretty darn good.
Now for dinner, I decided on pizza–home made, gluten free pizza. I took out the Wheat Belly Cookbook and got to work. However, I also used a canned pizza sauce without sugar in it, as well as some delish sausages bought on sale at Cost Plus World Market. (Because it was my birthday, I had a $10 off coupon, plus they allowed me to use a 10% off purchase coupon I got in the mail. Cool!) Not bad, not bad, and I had plenty left for breakfast.
Pizza! (And half the Mango Mojito with Somersweet)
Overall, it was a pretty good day, and I even got a new shirt nearly completed too. The weather was good, the sun was out, the sky was a beautiful blue, and fortunately, everything was pretty good.
Sunday brought an old friend for dinner, and he was wowed with not only the cake but a delicious salad from Giada de Laurentiis and one of Nigella’s delicious dishes from her last book. More on that later.
Of course Monday came along, and I now live for next weekend, where I am promising myself I will not drive anywhere for anything and stay home for 48 hours. I hope so.
Enjoy!
Happy Thursday, Dear Readers:
Well, it’s a bit premature, but here is my first tomato, picked fresh from the HeatCageKitchen garden tonight:
Isn’t it a cutie?
Granted, it’s not a BIG tomato, about 2″ across, 6″ around,but that’s OK–it’s mine!! Of course, if I hadn’t been so impatient I could have let it ripen a day or two more. But I wanted to get it before any outside creatures did. (Snails are so gross!) There are two more tomatoes growing on that plant; I haven’t seen any flowers on the second tomato plant yet.
The first of five bell peppers are growing well, as are the mint, green onions and rosemary. Rosemary grows in a drought–but we’ve had some good rain this week, and the parsley has started to sprout leaves again. Heck, the basil I chopped down to the nub is already sprouting leaves. I even found a flower growing on it already–and I harvested for pesto last weekend. Hmmm. . .how much more pesto can I make this year before winter?
I suddenly found myself with a painful throat infection on Monday night that causes a swollen gland, then two painful swollen glands with throat constriction and severe pain when swallowing. Tuesday I made it to a local walk-in clinic in the Friendswood HEB Grocery, and I walked out with yet another prescription for antibiotics. You bless these things when you can swallow again, but if I find myself with heartburn, I’ll be back on yeast-free and either the stuff I bought last time or another round of Nystatin and Fluconazole from my regular doctor. Oh, boy.
Since I’m no longer one of those folks with health insurance and paid sick time, I went to work, weak and barely able to talk or swallow. No sneezing or coughing or anything like that, just feeling like I needed to stay home. Fortunately, it was a slow day with many folks on travel, and while I didn’t do my usual 30 minute walk in the tunnel, I did go down there for something else, but I didn’t know what.
I wandered through Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and a couple of the upscale convenience-store style shops down there, but didn’t find what I wanted. No coffee or chocolate for me, thanks. Then I went somewhere I generally don’t go, and found the very thing. Cold, sweet, and pretty healthy, in the last place you’d expect to find such a thing.
I went to McDonald’s. No kidding.
Now, I’ve been to McDonald’s on many occasions, just not very often. Sometimes it’s the only thing in proximity. Sometimes it’s convenient and right there. My biggest issue with MickeyD’s is that while their coffee is pretty good, they only offer Equal and sugar to sweeten it. No Splenda or Sweet ‘N Low anywhere. I have to make sure I have some pink stuff on me in case I end up somewhere that saccharin is not available, and that’s one of them. At least Starbucks has Sweet ‘N Low, and even honey in packets.
The McDonald’s in the Houston Downtown Tunnel is usually quite busy when I pass by during the crowded lunch hour, but yesterday it wasn’t crowded since it was about 2 when I went. I knew they had some new stuff on their McCafe menu, so I decided to walk over and take a look. Then I spotted it on the wall, and I wanted some.
The McCafe Blueberry Pomegranate Smoothie.
With a throat infection, after drinking hot tea all morning, you understand why this hit the spot. But it’s also incredibly delicious! It’s gonna be all I can do not to have two of these a day:
I actually went back for another round today, and got a large. I’ll be spending money on this one for quite a while.
Holy Shish Kebab.
I did ask the clerk about what was in it–last thing I need is to ingest a lot of sugar, or, heaven help me, find out it has gluten as a thickener. You never know. She said, “it has just pomegranate and blueberries.” I also think she didn’t speak enough English to understand my question, because I found out when I got back to my desk that it has some fat-free yogurt in it. That’s fine, unless you have a dairy allergy. Thankfully, I don’t, but there are folks who read this humble blog who are allergic to dairy, hence the warning.
MAN this is a good find. I had to get sick to find this out? Move over Starbucks–this smoothie’s my new favorite!!
Starbucks and Seattle’s Best actually do have smoothies, but the berry smoothies are lower in carbs than ones with banana, pineapple and other fruits. Bananas are particularly high in starch, that’s why I avoid them–and if you’re diabetic, you should too. I might try the strawberry smoothie at Seattle’s Best one of these days, but McDonald’s definitely has a winning formula with this one.
Sometimes you just find things along the way. This delicious smoothie will keep me going back to McDonald’s, especially this hot summer in Houston.
I did discover that New York City had a high of 65F today, with a 100% chance of rain, and a low of 55F tonight, as a result of the storm that passed through Chicago and other areas last night. Heck, here in Houston, that’s a perfect fall day!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch a little comedy DVD and hit the Nordic Track. Rupert Murdoch is going to be a free man soon, and I need to be ready when he comes a-callin’!
Just kidding–I’m going to make up the exercise I missed today by not walking the tunnel. I wasn’t up to it, but the antibiotics are killing the infection and I’m feeling better.
Happy Dining!
Happy Saturday Night, Dear Readers:
Well, as I described in my last post, I have fallen in love with Starbucks’ Hazelnut Macchiato, a drink best described as a liquid hazelnut-flavored candy bar. Much as I enjoyed it and want more, but am not paying $3.50 for a 200-calorie sugary coffee drink. Not for a while yet. (No, I don’t want YOU to buy me one, either.) And besides, I’m still reading Wheat Belly, and want to avoid sugar as much as I can. . .sometimes I don’t. After seeing the term “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” or NAFLD, and its graphic description, I figure backing off sugar and being a bit paranoid about it (as well as wheat and soy) is probably a good course of action.This drink is made with a syrup as well as plenty of sugar, so, that’s for a special occasion, just like wedding cake is.
So in my quest for replacing the sugar-laden coffee drink I crave with something less sugary, caloric and less expensive, I put my thinking cap on.
Sometimes that cap is on too tight, but that’s another blog post.
I’ve been using my 12-year-old cappuccino machine a little more lately, and while it doesn’t froth quite the way it used to, I think, it certainly works for my purposes. Besides, when I went looking at new, more modern cappuccino machines, I decided the one I have works just fine.
Why do I have a 12-year-old cappuccino machine? When I was married to what’s-his-name (1996-2001), he got it in his furry little head that we “needed” one. (Where he got ideas like this is beyond me, but it wasn’t the first time, or the last.) I think I bought the first one, but it may have been one of our lovely wedding gifts. He knew how to use the metal kind you put on the stove, but not the electric kind. It fell to me to learn how to use it, and so, I did.
Then one early morning I made a cappuccino to hold me over until the regular coffeepot was finished. It was then that I knew I was truly addicted to caffeine. I’ve been on and off caffeine in the years since, but after my doctor told me to quit last year, I did, because one cup of regular tea in the morning was causing way too many problems.
The original machine was white, and when it finally gave out, I got us another one. Right before we called it quits. So I’ve had it ever since. I use it occasionally, not every day, and only when I have fresh milk. Dunno if almond milk would work, but maybe I’ll try it.
Anyway. . . .
What I came up with was to get some sugar-free hazelnut flavored syrup and see how well it would work. I’ll tell you about that shortly. Really, macchiato means “marked” in Italian, and the drink is simply a shot of espresso with some frothy milk on it, and some syrup or something on top. I got the definition here--it was the first thing that came up when I did a search. So my version is really more of a cappuccino, not so much a macchiato.
So here we go–this is the equipment:
Ready to brew!
Alessi is the only decaf espresso I can find in Houston, and it seems like Central Market is the only place I can find it now. Darnit. The small Torani syrup cam from Cost Plus World Market, so that if didn’t like it, I won’t be stuck with a huge bottle of something I just wanna throw out.
The latte mug is filled with hot water so the coffee and steamed milk stay warm. (I learned THAT the hard way and now do it anytime I make coffee.) The milk pitcher was taken out of the freezer just for this picture and went back in when I was finished shooting it. So while the milk is getting really chilled, I turned on the machine (that knob on the upper left.) And so after a few minutes of listening to some really weird noises, the brew process started:
As you can see, there is a third mark in the middle that indicates when to flip the knob around so that you can froth milk. Once the dark brew starts going down into the pot, it happens pretty fast. When the pot fills up to that point (just over 2 cups), it’s time to froth milk:
Please pardon my hard-workin’ dishpan hands. Like the very nice Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, I am always in need of hand cream. Remember, idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.
Mine froths milk pretty good, but it doesn’t seem to be as frothy as it used to. Of course, you could have other problems more important than this one. (Yes, I do.) Up until recently if you put your hand under there instead of milk, it would not only blow very hot air very hard, you would move your hand because it would get burned. Now, not so much. But it still froths milk pretty good.
Yeah, I worry about this kind of thing from time to time. Keeps me from worrying about bigger, scarier stuff.
So when the milk is frothed to perfection, I dump out the hot water (usually back in the kettle for tea later) and then pour the steamed milk into the cup, holding back the foamy part with a big soup spoon. Just like they do in Starbucks, except I’ve never worked there. Usually I do that and put in my accoutrements (3 packets of pink stuff and frequently a drop of vanilla extract) first, but if not, I add it at this stage. In this case, I added two tablespoons of the hazelnut syrup, but I think three would have been perfect. When the espresso is finished brewing, I dump that in, then put the frothy milk on top, using a rubber spatula to get all of it out of the pitcher.
Have you ever tasted frothed milk? Then you’ll know why.
Now, most cappuccino aficionados sprinkle ground cinnamon or ground nutmeg on top of the frothy milk. Not me. Used to do that and one day decided to go all Giada and sprinkle cocoa powder on top. So Drs. Frasier and Niles Crane can fuss all they like at the Cafe Nervosa. . .me and Giada will be chillin’ with chocolate.
What you get looks like this:
Yes, that cup describes one of my philosophies. It also makes me a hypocrite because I have an unfinished fall/winter suit hanging up, and another one to make. I should have finished those by now and working on the “some other time” small projects. It’s March, I should be making spring stuff. Stitch ’em up, move ’em out, you know? I have a Donna Karan suit that’s been waiting to be made for three years now. But at least the cup reminds me I can go back to it any time I want.
Anyway. . .
How does it taste? Well, not EXACTLY like the one from Starbucks, but it’s a pretty good substitute that I can be happy with. The Torani syrup contains Splenda, which is something I normally avoid because of its chemical composition, and I’ll try another hazelnut flavoring without sugar, sucralose or aspartame in it.
So if you’re considering having something a little different, you are welcome to use my example and follow my blazed trail. Cappuccino really is good, and so I’m glad I have a machine to make it with, and I’ll consider adding different flavorings if I can find them easily.
Meantime, I’ve got to go wash up my cappuccino machine.
Happy Dining!
