Salted Caramel Mocha Frappe: Pt I

Around the time the other half and I were jaunting around the Boston area for my aunt’s wedding, Starbucks did their thing and released their usual fall flavors: pumpkin spice and salted caramel mocha. Many factors, such as its revolting, distinctly un-vegan ingredients and the fact that the barista/snob in me generally hates the sort of individuals who come in frothing at the mouth over the flavor, abbreviating it to PSL as if pumpkin spice latte crosses some obscure threshold of tolerance is just too much of a mouthful to actually say, rabidly snapping celebratory iPhone pics of their decidedly run-of-the-mill beverages fated to be over-sentimentally hashtagged and posted and reposted to the point of exhaustion, have made me refuse to order the ever-popular pumpkin spice. This is pure pigheaded- and meanspiritedness, because I actually love it.

    My one choice when abroad, therefore, was to suck down as many salted caramel mochas as possible before returning home. This left me with such a spoilt, salted caramel lust that I actually drove to a Starbucks after leaving my job—again, at a coffee shop—to get one of said drinks. It was pathetic, and I was in my uniform still and the Starbucks and I kept exchanging knowing but confused looks. So I staged an intervention. For myself. 

And yes, I know I'm just the salty cousin of all those pumpkin spice hags.

Mint syrup + iced coffee

    I’ve been extremely busy the past few weeks, moving to a new apartment, trying to settle in, finishing up my summer class, working, and running countless errands, but there is always time for coffee. Always.

Cookie Crumble Frappe [vegan]

 

Oh, hello there, you gorgeous drinkable confection. Let me introduce you to my friends, Oreo cookies.

   Well, almost Oreo cookies. The cookies, like the drink, are really a one-off of someone else's brilliance (aren't we all), brilliance in this case being Starbucks' Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino.

Gingersnap Cold Press: thirsty + throwback Thursday

    Ready for things to get weirdly nostalgic and stuff?

   Okay, well first off, this rather innocuous-looking picture is almost all of what you will need to make this drink, which is, not surprisingly, both coffee and cold.

    This recipe was inspired by two things I thought I would never miss: Minnesota and my mom.

  
  I believe in most cases to miss something, you have to love it. I didn’t think I loved Minnesota, and maybe I don't, but once a place is a backdrop for  happy times and experiences the memories and the place become intertwined, and to desire one is to want the other as well. Or maybe I just don’t want to give Minnesota the satisfaction or the credit she deserves as a charming State.

Friday things

Time for the collective workingman sigh. It's Friday.

I am amazingly lucky this summer to have reduced hours at work. At least, I choose to look at it as luck. Now I can do class + house work on Fridays. Theoretically. Today, so far I have made good on a little cleaning, and re-potted a plant. Hooray for me.

Now if I could just finish my class assignments and find a new place for us to live for the next year. That would be great.

But who wants to think about commonplace things like that on a Friday, and a memorial day weekend Friday at that? Not I, good sir. It's been a moderately stressful week (aren't they all though), so I thought some happy thoughts were in order. This is what I'm dwelling on today:

Sunny-day, lounging-on-the-porch memories.

Cold press coffee + a needless ramble

   So, this blog is obviously in its inaugural days, and so far, the only thing we don’t seem to be running short on is chocolate recipes and  sub-par photographs, so, with these facts in mind, here’s my freshest contribution to the virtual culinary pool, a chocolate-free recipe depicted exclusively with shitty pictures.

    Lately I’ve been trying to be “healthier”, something I tend to do periodically. My current kick has manifested itself in the urge to reduce my weekly sugar intake, which has become astronomical in the past few weeks, as well as caffeine. Yes, caffeine. So, I haven’t had any coffee recently. 

Coffee grounds suggestion. And why, you ask, am I holding it over a pillow? Why not?

   I accidentally weaned off coffee a few months ago and was determined to keep my intake at a few cups a week after experiencing a euphoric increase in energy in the wake of my break up with caffeine. I’ve been drinking coffee twice a day since I was around twelve, and had indulged occasionally before that. All of my coffee-guzzling life I’ve heard about how reducing one’s caffeine intake does stupendous things, turning you into an angelic iron-pumping health crusader who leaps out bed in the morning like a jacked up frog on heroin. Naturally, I laughed in the face of such nonsense. Everyone knows nobody can wake up in the morning—or stay conscious through the afternoon—without coffee.

    Turns out I was wrong. Not only can you achieve somewhat better than zombiesque sentience without coffee, the whole healthy-heroin-frog thing is true. Or at least, for me it was. For several weeks I felt amazing. But suddenly, I began to have trouble sleeping and staying asleep, sluggish and a little angry when I woke up every morning, and persistently sleeping in before lurching through a half-hearted 18 minutes or so of exercise embarked upon with all the enthusiasm and grace of a heavily medicated Elvis Presley. (Have you seen that man in his later years? That’s not much grace. Less than none). Sadly, the only change I’d made preceding to this sudden plunge in my general quality of life was getting back on that go-juice again. Go figure.

Mocha Frappe

   It’s a cold, rainy Easter Sunday in our little Southern city here on the East Coast. Last year, we were spending Easter in Minnesota, and it was ever colder and more miserable. I think I thought then that moving closer to the ocean would solve all my problems, including weather-related ones. Well, it hasn't, though it has made most of them milder. 

    So what is one to do when you’re trapped indoors (and have been all weekend), and the afternoon needs a little sprucing up? My answer is usually the same: coffee.