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? ;-)