Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts

Today seems like it's been all about food.

At 7am this morning, my neighbor R and I picked up our order from Bountiful Baskets. We both bought the organic fruit and veggie basket. We received: apples, pear, blueberries, strawberries, 2 heads of lettuce, avocados, celery, beets (yay!), rainbow chard and, gosh- just a whole bunch of fresh produce. I also bought the Asian pack, which had bok choy, napa cabbage, a coconut, cilantro... and yeah, a bunch of other stuff. I love when we get the co-op baskets; you never know what you're going to get, but you know it's going to be good so it's like the best kind of Christmas. When I got home, researched some recipes I wanted to use some of these items with (more on that below).

Around 10am, DH and I headed for the Downtown Phoenix Coffeebar Potluck which I had read about on Arizona Coffee yesterday. The event was only about 1/4 mile from my office and Daniel hasn't spent much time in downtown Phoenix, so this seemed like a great opportunity to show his the neighborhood where I work. I was surprised to see that the coffee shops were offering full-size "samples" of their desserts and treats. Here's a picture of some of things we got:

Now, I have to say I showed great restraint with these sweets- I only had a bite each of the oatmeal cookie sandwich and the Hostess-looking cupcake from Lux (the filling of the sandwich was similar to Cannoli filling) and a brownie from Lola. Three bites is pretty good considering what is sitting on that table. DH didn't each much of it either, so most of it is in our kitchen right now.

We went to Matt's Big Breakfast to have our "real" breakfast. This is a TINY building on 1st Street & McKinley downtown that either makes everything on site or buys it from local sellers, including the bacon and homemade preserves for the made-from-scratch sourdough bread. If you haven't been there, I recommend it although I can't say for sure why there is always such a long wait (we got ours to go and ate in my office a couple blocks away).

The Downtown Phoenix Public Market is within walking distance of Matt's Big Breakfast so we went there while the restaurant was making our order. We purchased some cheese and raw honey and plan to go back next week to check it out a little more thoroughly. I definitely will purchase some heirloom tomato seedlings for my garden!

Once home, I started making DH's favorite meal: Chicken Tikka Masala. I always make at least a quadruple recipe of this (once I octupled the recipe-never again, that was too much work at once!) and freeze the many leftovers in vacuum-seal bags for later. At the same time, I made Naan and two new dishes I've never tried (I'm trying to get a good stock of frozen lunches to take to work): Spicy Lentil & Chickpea Stew and Rainbow Chard & Roasted Beet Fettuccine.

Here is the Chicken Tikka Masala:So yummy! I didn't chop up cilantro for a topping this time like I usually do because I just got a quick small bowl for myself and DH hates cilantro. When you make this, definitely top with the cilantro!

And the Rainbow Chard & Roasted Beet Fettuccine:This was pretty good, though I think it would have been better with the red onion and Dijon mustard the recipe called for rather than the white onion and yellow mustard I substituted since that's what I had on hand. I think it's hilarious that it's pink because of the beets! I feel like I'm eating Barbie doll food, haha!

The Spicy Lentil & Chickpea Stew:This recipe was kind..eh. Really not spicy at all, so I'm going to add some jalapeno to it before I freeze it. Hmmm... maybe some of the jalapeno tomato salsa I made the other day, that'll spice things up!

DH has requested peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, so I'll be making that tomorrow.

I'm barefoot.

I'm in the kitchen a lot.

BUT I'm not pregnant, lol!

I am sitting in a restaurant in Eagar, waiting for one of my property managers to get to work so that I, too, can get to work. I drove around the town a little bit, trying to get a feel for the layout. It didn't take long! I pulled over a few times to investigate some interesting shops. Out of four stops, three businesses were closed until later and the other one closed for good. Not a good sign. I finally settled on what I thought was a coffee shop, Java Blues, but is actually a restaurant. I don't have anything better to do so I just irdered some of their house coffee while I wait for my coworker to make the trip here from Show Low. The coffee is.. so-so. Not disgusting but not worth coming back for. Next time I'll investigate the little esspresso shack I passed coming in to town.

There's a couple with two little children at the table across from me. I'm chuckling to myself because their parents keep repeating "we don't do that in restaurants. At home home it's ok, but not in front of other people.". I don't think they're misbehaving, just speaking a little louder than neccessary in an enclosed space. Oh well, kids will be kids, eh?

Well, it should be about time to head to the property. I'm definately going to take some pictures of the area, because it's so green- beautiful!

The other day I was browsing Savers when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this majestic masterpiece of fine craftmanship:

The price? $2.99! I love Savers. You should have heard me- I made this mix between a gasp and a low squeal of pleasure while I quickly grabbed it before anyone else could snatch it from me (um, yeah- there was no one near me but I couldn't be too careful!) I've been thinking about buying one of these after reading about it online quite a bit, but I hadn't quite committed myself to the purchase. I even pointed it out to my husband last week when we were getting some coffee in Scottsdale and told him he could buy me that for my birthday next month. This would have cost about $40 new, so good thing I spotted it at Savers!

After a thorough cleaning and carefully reading Chemex brewing instructions from Sweet Maria's, I commenced my first manual drip coffee making experience this morning. I ground the beans (Java Jampit Small Bean from Intatto Coffee, where I also obtained the filters) using my burr grinder set exactly in the middle, shooting for a medium grind. Here's a couple pictures of what the brew looks like:

I had my laptop open to the Sweet Maria's page for reference:

The resulting coffee was so smooth and tasty! Just like I've read on Coffeegeek, it was a very "clean" tasting cup of coffee, and the best part was no sediment like you get with a French Press. It took a longer to brew than it should have, so next time I'll adjust the grind a little coarser and see how that goes. I got about 12 minutes, and the sweet spot is between 5-8 minutes- even so, still a yummy cup of coffee. Of course a good part of that is because of the fresh roasted coffee from Intatto- if you're ever in the vicinity of Greenway and Tatum in Scottsdale, AZ, I highly recommend you stop there!