Tag Archives: coffee

I’m not a number

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Yesterday on twitter, I started seeing all of these tweets.

Hmmm Kred. I had been there at least once. I always go and check things out to see what they are about, if they are useful. I see people giving other people +Kred (whatever that is) but I don’t live in there and the number certainly doesn’t concern me.

Still, I was intrigued and clicked through to see my score. Hmm. It’s pretty high? Why am I not a 1% Elite Kredster? In the middle of a tornadic afternoon, I found myself starting to feel concerned, ripped off even, that I hadn’t made the cut.

Well, in my inbox this morning was the golden email. There it was:

Thank God they realized it! Ha!

In the light of day, well, it’s still dark but as I sit here with my new prize, I come back to the idea I’ve believed since Klout started messing around with their algorithms, I’m not a number!

I deactivated my Klout account several algorithm changes ago because, the way I read it, I was going to be penalized for interacting with “less influential” persons than myself. I call BS on that!

I love all of the people I meet on twitter. It’s such a rich and diverse group that you’d have a hard time assembling in real life on a daily basis. I learn and gain from ALL of them not just the top dog Klout wise.

When I started seeing articles that employers weren’t even looking at your resume’ if you didn’t have a certain Klout score, I thought, “now the world has really gone mad”.

I think that within my sphere I am influential to a certain degree. When I get excited, people get excited right along with me. I can see this with my own eyes and I don’t need a number to prove it.

I have gotten some very nice, real life, tokens of appreciation from various brands because of this quality. I haven’t even blogged about my trip to Washington DC as a guest of Eight O’Clock Coffee and I really should. It was a dream trip. Did they look at my Klout score to pick me? No, I don’t think so because when you go to Klout and look for me, you see this:

No, they saw me actually influencing others regarding their brand. I’ve been drinking their coffee since I was 15. It’s my favorite and it’s not a secret. I drink it, I hoard it, I tweet about it. This is real, not some put on. They noticed, called me a Super Fan, and flew me to DC for the experience of a lifetime.

I think the numbers are probably fun to a certain extent but should they mean anything in real life? I would give a hearty NO! to that.

So, if my klout score is the reason that someone will or won’t hire me, I guess I’m destined to be an unemployed trophy wife forever. Dang the bad luck! 😉

 

Macgyvering the coffee

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So I’m a coffee achiever. I’ve gotta have it. And I don’t take any chances when I travel.

If we travel by car, I have a small Mr. Coffee pot that I take, along with coffee and filters.

When we travel overseas, we have a small French press that we take since most hotels have kettles in the room to boil water. We got it in Fiji and it’s called Make Tea Device. 😉

I took the cheesy little cups out and threw them away which gives me room to put coffee in the box. The box fits perfectly inside my make up bag.

So we’re good with coffee. Well, sort of.

A few years ago, hotels started putting pod coffee makers in their rooms. I’m not a cup at a time gal and this did present a challenge to me since when you fly in the US, it’s a little harder to take the 4 cup pot and most rooms don’t have kettles for hot water.

So Macgyvering was born.

And it’s been mostly successful.

Here’s how you do it.

You’ll need to bring your filters and your coffee.

Take the filter and tear it so it will fit into the pod space.

Then fill the pod with your coffee.

Add your water to the machine and press the “go” button.

Hopefully, you’ll get a nice, delicious cup of coffee instead of nasty hotel pod coffee.

Now, I must caution you. The rectangular pod makers are easier for me to use since I like strong coffee. This was my first experience with a round pod and it just didn’t let me use as much coffee as I would have liked. Still it was a better cup of coffee.

If you overfill the coffee in this maker, you could be surprised early morning style by an explosion that will send you pushing your chair backwards but laughing nonetheless.

I used a lot of tissues that day. 😉

So there you have it. How to have great coffee while staying in a hotel. Macgyver it. 😉

 

Like white on rice

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Or white rice. As the case may be.

We stopped eating white rice (and all white things i.e. flour, sugar, etc.) a while ago so it seemed odd to put that bag of white rice into the shopping cart last week. But my coffee grider was dirty.

Huh?

Yep, we grind our coffee (or whack our beans as we lovingly refer to it :-)) every morning. After a while there is a quite a build up in the grinder. This build up can cause the beans not to grind evenly and even make the coffee not taste as good as it previously did.

Using white rice is the simplest way I know of to clean the blade coffee grinder.

Exhibit A: Here’s the grinder after a week or so of whacking beans.

Gross, yes?

So to clean it, add white rice

and process like you are grinding coffee.  You will notice that all of the caked on coffee and oils will become mixed up with the ground rice. Empty it out and…..

Voila!

Shiny as new.

Super simple, super cheap, and hopefully, bringing you some great coffee! 🙂

Coffee Chicken

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You know I’m a coffee achiever. So when I see recipes that contain coffee, I make plans to make them. I got this recipe for Coffee Chicken the other day and I knew, with some minor modifcations, I could make it paleo friendly.

I know that the one thing that will derail the Paleo Train here is if David has to come up with his own meals. I can eat the same thing over and over again, but it’s not so easy with him.

Consequently, we’ve had some terrific meals over the past week even though it’s created an unbelievable amount of dirty dishes! I just can’t seem to cook without using every pot and spatula in the kitchen. Thank goodness for the dishwasher which is now running about three times a day.

So the coffee chicken was terrific. Kind of a coffee flavored barbeque sauce. It was easy but be sure to plan for the one hour baking time. The recipe said to baste it every 15 minutes and I did it the first couple of times but the sauce stayed on the chicken pretty well.

Coffee Chicken

2-3 pounds of chicken or turkey, cut up*
3/4 cup brewed coffee
2 heaping tablespoons of tomato paste
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon stevia

*You can easily use 2-3 pounds of thighs or breasts cut into large chunks, or a whole chicken

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a one-quart saucepan, mix together the coffee, tomato paste, soy sauce, lemon juice and olive oil.

Stir in the sugar and heat the mixture to boiling then reduce the heat to a simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes or until the mixture has reduced.

Place the chicken pieces in a large shallow pan then pour the reduced mixture over all the chicken covering every piece well.

Bake (uncovered) for about an hour taking care to baste often, at least once every 15 minutes.

Serve with a green veggie and call it lunch. Or dinner. It’s fabu! 🙂

Coffee on the rocks

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I love iced coffee. When it’s 106 degrees outside, as it has been in Oklahoma the past few days, there is nothing more refreshing.

When I say iced coffee, I mean just that: coffee over ice. That’s all. Coffee on the rocks.
You can’t imagine how hard it is to order this in a restaurant. It seems so easy to me. When you order iced tea, what do they bring you? A nice tall glass of tea over ice. Right?
So why is iced coffee so hard to understand?
When I’ve ordered iced coffee, I’ve gotten coffee, in a cup, with a few tiny, almost melted ice cubes remaining on top. Eeeuuuww, really? Lukewarm coffee is disgusting.
I’ve been asked “What flavor?” What flavor? Umm, coffee would be the flavor.
I usually find that I have to give detailed instructions: please put ice in a tall glass like the one you put Coke in, then pour the coffee over it. Maybe bring me an extra glass of ice in case it’s not iced by the time you bring it to my table.
I’m always so excited to actually get my iced coffee even if I have to give directions. I am very encouraging to the server as I give them the directions just knowing they will be able to get it right.
I’m even more excited when the server already knows how to make me iced coffee. And the ultimate? When the server brings me the iced coffee AND the extra glass of ice and I never told them how to do it. Yay! Bonus points. 🙂

Coffee 911 Oklahoma style

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We ran out of coffee yesterday. Really. It was like a state of emergency around here. We’ve been gone for a month and just didn’t realize how precariously low our coffee supply had become. We had to go to the City and we didn’t get a chance to get any groceries when we got home on Tuesday night.

Between appointments in the City, we were at Walgreen’s because David needed to get new passport photos taken. I thought I’d grab some coffee there because I knew that we wouldn’t feel like stopping at a grocery store on the way home. They had the usual suspects: Folgers, Maxwell House, Chase and Sanborn. Nothing I like.

And then I see the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. We don’t have Dunkin’ Donuts here so it’s been a while since I’ve gotten coffee there. I have heard people raving about their coffee and thought, okay, this will certainly be better.

Well guess what? It’s not. It’s more drinkable than the stuff we got in Fiji that is from Papau New Guinea but not something I would drink if I didn’t have to. It has that weird oily mouthfeel that coats the inside of your mouth. It reminds me of McDonalds coffee.

You know what we drink? We get the French Roast in the red and white can from Great Value at Walmart.

It’s the most awesome pre-ground coffee on the shelf and I’m picky. But I haven’t wanted to tell anyone about it. There are usually around six cans on the shelf and they have run out before. For some reason, the thought of having to buy three one pound cans puts me into survival mode when it’s really the same amount of coffee as one three pound can. The only reason I think it’s there all the time now is that my neighbor is a department head at Walmart and I think she keeps an eye on it for me. Either that or have to listen to me. LOL!

During Katrina, the shelves – all spaces – were filled with Maxwell House. That’s all that was available. It was a blue, blue section. I learned then that this coffee that I love is produced by Folgers in New Orleans. Somehow, though, it’s far superior to Folgers in taste. When they finally got it back on the shelf, I was coming in for a landing and there was another guy coming from the other direction and he said, “Ah you drink my brand”. Freaked me out. I would have fought him for it.

I’m taking a huge risk here now. I wanted to write this blog post but I don’t want everyone rushing to Walmart and taking all of MY coffee. So I hope you won’t believe me. 🙂

Coffee 911

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When we were last in Fiji, we stayed at JJ’s on the Park which is a boutique hotel in the heart of Suva. We quickly learned that coffee here is made from powder and water and is not real coffee as we know it. At JJ’s, there is a small French Press in the room so we knew that if we could snag some beans, we’d have the real deal.

In our explorations, we soon found Gloria Jean’s where we purchased enough coffee, ground coarsely, to keep us real.

This time after we landed, our first order of business was to assess the coffee situation at a different hotel. The hotel website said that they offer complimentary coffee so we had to see what exactly that meant.

Powder. No, thanks.

The room already had an electric kettle so we grabbed a cab, and went to Suva with the sole purpose of locating a French Press. After much searching we found this cute little set in the New World grocery store.

We purchased it and because my total was over $30 they gave me a free bag of okra! Wowza. Okra. My least favorite veggie in the world. (I was traumatized by it as a child but that’s a whole other post. )

I graciously accepted my okran gift and gave it to the cab driver who seemed thrilled to receive it. Kinda how I would react if someone gave me cookies. Seriously.

We then went to Gloria Jeans and got a bag of French Breakfast Blend and we were set.

After many hours of being awake drinking coffee and trying to get used to the radical time change, I was afraid that we would run out of coffee before Monday evening rolled around and we could get back to Suva. And I wasn’t sure what time Gloria Jean’s closed so wasn’t sure if we would make it there on time after David finished work.

The complimentary hotel coffee, comes in the form of these little packets that you are to add water to. But how much water? Would two packets work better than one? I’m pretty adventurous but not willing to try this form of “coffee”.

In the restaurant, there is a machine that puts the water and the powder together in the proper proportions. In a pinch, it might be drinkable but on a normal basis, I wouldn’t drink this either. Still, we might be headed for a coffee emergency and….

…the machine is broken. For real! Now everyone has to guess how much powder to add to their water, or how much water to add to their powder to make “coffee”. Ummm no.

I saw an espresso machine behind the bar. So I decided to order a cappuccino this morning. There ARE coffee beans in this hotel! I heard them being poured into the machine and I tasted them in my cappuccino which was mostly foam but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers.

After breakfast, I caught a cab to Suva, hustled into Gloria Jeans and loaded up on real coffee. I also learned that they are open until 9 p.m. each night so we shouldn’t have any more close calls in the future. Whew!

Crisis averted! 🙂

Note: It is Monday, May 3rd here in Fiji.