Saturday, June 17, 2006

chilly beans & PIZZA

No, not chili beans . . .

Chilly Beans! I made my first batch of cold-pressed coffee last night, with no real instructions and after a brief amount of internet research.

I poured 8 cups of water into a pitcher and dumped in just under a cup of freshly ground coffee. (I would have liked to have used a whole cup, but that was all the beans I had left. Bummer.) I then stuck the pitcher into the fridge, and went to bed.

This morning, I noticed that some of the grounds were never "wet" -- I guess I should have stirred the coffee grounds into the water. Next time.

Then, I strained the coffee, using two different methods. Method 1: I put a coffee filter into a strainer, and set this over a bowl. This took far too long. Method 2: I poured batches of coffee into my French press and plunged out the grounds, rinsing in-between. This worked better, I think.

Somehow, I got a few loose grounds floating amongst the finished product. My only complaint, though -- otherwise, it's really, really, really good. Smooth, good coffee flavor, and without the "bite" of heat-brewed coffee. I once heard somewhere that cold pressed coffee has half the caffeine and a fourth of the acid of heat-brewed coffee. A good thing for those of us who love our morning coffee, but are trying to cut back on caffeine! (Or for those of us who have more sensitive tummies.)

What do you do if you want a hot cup of coffee? (Say, in January?) Warm up some cold-pressed, in either a small pan on the stove, or (gasp!) in the microwave. I will try this and let you know, too. Just as soon as we have a cooler morning here . . .

Man, global warming is for real. It's WAY too hot for June here! We had no spring this year -- the weather jumped from 50 degrees to 90 degrees in one week. I don't like that at all. We did have a couple of really cool storms yesterday, though -- that was fun. Pea-sized hail and everything! Wee!

Segue:

Michelle and I went out for pizza last night (I'm sure you've read my raves of Galactic Pizza before,) and had a wonderful time. We were there for over two hours, hanging out, eating pizza, talking, drinking water, splitting a hemp brownie (not vegan,) and meeting a little 16-month-old girl named Sylvia who was there with her family and very interested in sitting and "talking" with us. Could be because we sat at the table in the back corner that's low, with floor cushions. She loved sitting on the pillows, listening to us talk, and then jabbering in her own "two cents." Her parents were really worried for a while that she was bothering us, but it was so fun! She was a little sweetheart. Between Sylvia and the guys that the next table who were sort of talking to us every now and then, plus watching Captain Organica and Galactic Man go in and out with pizza boxes (and come back drenched from the rain storm,) plus laughing at our waiter when he accidentally stepped on our table to reach my water glass (the guys "next door" thought that was hilarious, and we were wary of the "foot spot" for the rest of the night,) plus laughing at Captain Organica when he tried valiantly to wear a raincoat that was just too small for him, (we all laughed, including him,) it was a really fun night. I love places like that, where everyone ends up kind of talking and eating together, where you can have your own conversation with the person you came with, but there's more of a community feel, too. It was lots of fun, don't you agree, Michelle? ;-)

9 comments:

MeloMeals said...

I've never heard of cold pressed coffee... I'll have to give that a try since it's hot now. I actually brewed two cups and saved one for tomorrow morning for iced coffee..

I had about a cup of your soup left, so I tried it cold and it was good! I wasn't sure if it would be, but it was. I was surprised I liked the soup because I'm not a fan of smooth, yammy or carrot type soups.. but we all really loved this! Even my husband, who is hard to please.

Would you mind if I passed the recipe on to one of my friends? (she's a new vegetarian and one of my closest friends in real life).. if you don't me to, I totally understand.

funwithyourfood said...

what a fun evening.
I think I need to let me BF know about cold pressed coffee. We don't have a coffee maker right now and he's missing coffee.. good post. I think I'll give it a shot

teddy

Anonymous said...

The atmosphere at Galactic was much more fun than at Big Bowl this afternoon... I have such a low tolerance for snobbery.

Anonymous said...

Ooops! I am such an airhead sometimes,I obviously can't talk and try to type at the same time. It was me, Michelle (in case you couldn't tell) who posted in the previous post.

The cold press coffee seems like a cool idea. I'll have to try it.

KleoPatra said...

So glad you had a good time. You work hard, you deserve to have a whole lotta fun with friends! Glad you did that and hope your weekend is funtastique!

Catherine Weber said...

Melody, I'm so glad you liked the soup so much! Amazing that you liked it, even though you don't like creamy yammy soups. :) Hooray! Feel free to pass it on -- and let her know that I hope to publish a cookbook someday!

Teddy, I was surprised at how easy it was to make the coffee. Just make sure you have something good to strain it through, like a double-thickness of cheesecloth or even a dishtowel or something.

Esglf, erm, Michelle, I'm sorry Big Bowl was atmosphere-lacking. At least the food was good, right? The cold press is AWESOME. So smooth . . . !

Kleopatra, thanks for the props! I have worked hard this week -- today was day 7 of a 7-day working in a row stretch. I have tomorrow off, then start back in on Monday like usual. Whew!

Anonymous said...

I am totally trying the cold press coffee--sounds great! As for the other recipe, I'm working on it. I didn't have the energy to do it before vacation (what, with all the 'itises), but I'll be obtaining the rest of the ingredients tomorrow and we'll let you know soon!

Love the LB/LG stories. They are fabulous. And the magic ipod game was hilarious!!! :D

Vaca pics are up! ;)

Anonymous said...

Googled Cold Pressed Coffee and found your blog. You've got a very fun site! I love cold pressed coffee at Sister Sludge at 46th and Bloomington. I discovered it when I asked for iced coffee, and they said, "We only have cold pressed." I said, whatever...just make it cold. Fantastic! It is much better than just iced coffee. I want to make my own, but it looks like I'll need a press or something.

Unknown said...

If you think Galactic Pizza is interesting, check out Pizza Fusion - www.pizzafusion.com. Pizza Fusion is a new organic, eco-friendly pizza franchise based out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Their motto is 'Saving the Earth, One Pizza at a Time' and they deliver their food in company owned hybrid vehicles, among many other environmental initiatives.