[Inez] Cold press coffee

Let's talk about coffee. Mmm, coffee. Coffee that's cold. I like cold press coffee because a) it's delicious, b) it's cold, and c) it feels like a treat, but it's not loaded with sugar.

Cold press coffee is coffee that is brewed over the course of several hours without getting the coffee hot. This means that it has no bitterness. It's usually made pretty strong, so that it can be diluted with ice and milk. For a regular sized french press, you'll need 2/3-3/4 cup beans.

Grind those babies, throw them in your french press, fill it to the top with water and stir it up. Then just cover it and leave it on your counter or in your fridge for at least 4 hours, or do like I do and leave it overnight.

Now, a certain coffee snob I know says it's much better if you filter the coffee rather than just pushing the press part of the french press down, and it has something to do with not stirring it after it's brewed or something. For a fairly non-coffee snob like myself, I can't taste the difference, and the french press is so much quicker.

So basically, filter it as you see fit, and then pour it over lots of ice.

Some people think it's perfect just like this, and it's true that plain cold press coffee, if you use good coffee, is sweet and flavorful and delicious as is. But I say, what can't be improved with some whipping cream?

Very little, that's what.
(Or half and half, or milk. It's all good).

[Inez] Chocolate cupcakes with Greek yogurt frosting

In honor of June being brown month, I made some chocolate cupcakes. Life is tough.

I used my go-to Compost Cake recipe for the cupcakes, because it's delicious and it's easy and it's delicious. Did I mention it's really delicious? Also I don't really have enough muffin tins so I ended up with like a cupcake's worth of batter left in the bowl that didn't fit, which I was forced to eat. Did you know it's a crime in some countries to let cake batter go to waste? Like my house, for example.

Uh, and then I forgot to take any pictures of the frosting-making process, which was New and Different. I wanted something a little bit tangy, but not cream cheese because I always do cream cheese. So I decided to try making frosting out of yogurt! Here's what I did:

• 2 c Greek yogurt
• ~1 c powdered sugar
• 1 c whipping cream
• 2 t vanilla
• 1 1/2 oranges worth of zest
• a splash of orange extract
• a pinch of salt

Mix the yogurt, vanilla, sugar, orange zest, and orange extract in a large bowl. 

Whip the cream until stiff but not too stiff.

Fold the whipped cream into the yogurt mixture.

Some thoughts about the frosting: I don't know if it's because it didn't have as much fat as frosting usually does or what, but it tasted a little bit flat.  That's why I added the salt. I think it would have been good with a bit more salt, maybe 1/4 t or so, but since I added it at the very end it was kind of difficult to incorporate adequately, so I didn't add a second pinch. It was also a bit too tangy for the cake (made the cake taste really sweet! even though it's more of a bittersweet cake usually), but that flavor did mellow out after the first day. Overall, it was a fun experiment and I would do it again but I would probably pair it with something fruity (especially citrus), rather than chocolate.

Anyway, since the frosting was white, I was worried the cupcakes wouldn't be brown enough for Brown Month. Grated chocolate solves most problems, as it turns out.

June is Brown!

Now, I realize that may not sound very exciting, or very summery, but I promise you it will be. Just think coffee and chocolate. Yum. Also, wood, but no promises there. 

Wood Ball courtesy of a gift shop in Annapolis [Inez]

[Inez] Mojitos

This is actually from last month, but I was slow in posting. Stephen had a craving for mojitos, so we made some. You probably know how to make mojitos, and if you don't it's probably because you don't drink so you can go ahead and just skip this post, except that the mint is kind of pretty.

Mojitos. Mint (lots) and sugar (a couple teaspoons, to taste), and muddle it up.

Oh wait! Don't forget the lime. Cut a lime into wedges and add one half to one lime per mojito (to taste), then muddle it up. Muddle, in case you don't know, means mush it up with something that looks sort of like a very small baseball bat. To get the juice and the mint flavor and everything.

Add some ice to your glass and top it off with seltzer (a.k.a. club soda, a.k.a. sparkling water... yes, we had this conversation while making mojitos).

Basically delicious. I would venture to guess that this would also be delish and refreshing as a nonalcoholic beverage - just the mint, lime, a little bit of sugar, and seltzer. 

[Inez] Yellow flowers

Can we pretend for a second that it's still yesterday? Because May was Yellow Month and I've got yellow flowers to show you!

#1: These things whose name does not stick in my head, and Elise, I could go look at your comment on that other post but I don't feel like it.

#2: Our wildflowers are EXPLODING! I'll take more pictures when I'm not running late for work as I photograph (right now it's rainy so not good light for picture taking, either).

[Becca] Yellow!

Hello again! It's been a year since I last contributed anything, so I decided it was time to share. It's not that I haven't been making anything beautiful/delicious, it's more that I never remember to take pictures. So, when Elise came over so we could make cookies (about which she will most likely be posting soon), I used the opportunity to take pictures of my preserved lemons.

I hadn't realized that there was such a thing as preserved lemons until recently, though I guess if I'd ever put much thought into it I would have assumed they existed in some fashion, but I'd just never thought to think about it before. That is until my friend started raving about the preserved lemons she made, and how delicious they were, and how easy they were to make. So I asked her for the recipe and she sent me this blog post.

I stuck close to the recipe, using larger lemons, because that's what I found, and skipping the embellishments, mostly because I took too long making up my mind as to which ones I wanted, and then forgot all together at what would have been the appropriate time to have made a decision. The jar I used didn't have an opening quite wide enough, so I struggled a bit getting the lemons in, but figured I was going to squash them anyway, so it wasn't a problem that they got squashed on their way in. Then when I went to squish them down the second day I decided there was enough space to add another lemon, and really, if they are going to sit for a month, will one day fewer make that much of a difference?

So now I am waiting. And dreaming of couscous and lemon ice cream.

Usually the lemons sit above the sink, adding cheery color to the kitchen. But for the purpose of my lemon photo shoot, I decided to move them to the mantel in the living room. Next to the yellow flowers picked at my uncle's farm and put into the yellow vase that my dad made.

[Inez] Things maybe only Elise cares about

You know we love you, gentle readers, but this was originally a blog for Elise and I to share with each other, so I'm going to use this post to show Elise some of the home/garden improvements we've done since she moved back to Minnesota. Elise, I think you'd be proud of us. I'm going to start in the front and work my way back.

Yesterday I went to Ginkgo Gardens with Colin so he could get some mulch and pepper plants, and I ended up getting stuff to line the front sidewalk.

I got Cheddar Pinks (the pink flowery things), Stonecrop (the low spready thing, which will apparently have flowers later in the summer, too), and these orange and red things that I absolutely love and whose name I don't know. These:

We also planted along the front walk with bulbs (which sort of did okay), and with wildflowers. Right now it just looks kind of weedy, but there are these little white things that have started blooming within the past couple days:

The flowers are probably .5-1 cm across, and low to the ground (6 in high or so). These are from the low wildflower mix you left.

Along the back of the front yard (against the front porch), we planted two little rose bushes from Home Depot, and the yellow sunflowers you left. I also planted two canna lily bulbs I got from Fragers, and in front of all that we planted some of your tall wildflower mix.

This is the left side of the porch. We've got a potted rosemary, a bitty rose bush, some thriving sunflowers, and if you look closely on the lower right you'll see my bitty canna lily (hiding between the sunflowers), doing quite well in spite of its large neighbors. I thinned the sunflowers out around the lilies so that they will still get light.

The rose bush on the right (by the stairs) is doing really well, and already has buds! (We were worried they wouldn't bloom at all this year.)

Look, I worked something beautiful and yellow into this post!

For inside we got a new hanging plant for the other living room doorway, and a little begonia which lives next to the TV, where it has a chance of getting some light. It goes really nicely with the curtains (that sounds dumb, but it really does).

Last Saturday was the big Brookland yard sale day, and I got this pretty photograph.

I hung it on the little bit of wall above my vintage blue chair (looking from the living room to the dining room).

In the back, the boys planted 8 (!) tomato plants, and four little strawberry plants in a big pot. Also some lettuce. The tomato plants are doing really well and getting quite big! I guess we should get some cages...

The lettuce looks like an alien life form right now, to me.

And the strawberries are doing so well that I think we might need to build them a trough so they have room to spread out.