December 2009

  • Making Real Hot Chocolate

    By sarajean on 12/17/09 12:14am
    Add Comment

    If you love hot cocoa but you’d really like to try some hot chocolate this season, it’s the perfect time to make some! It’s surprisingly easy to make if you want to make it at home; of course, you can order it at your favorite restaurant if they serve it as well.

    To make a big pot of hot chocolate to share with your friends and family (feel free to adjust if it’s just for the two of you), gather together a cup of sugar, 8 cups of milk, 6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

    Using a good knife, place the chocolate (squares or a bar form work well) on a cutting board or other safe surface and chop it up into fine pieces. The finer the better—it will melt faster that way—but don’t stress over getting the tiniest pieces possible. Scrape them up and put them into a mixing bowl.

    Read more >

  • Coffee Pods

    By erika on 12/3/09 5:56pm
    Add Comment

    Ditch The Pods!Ditch The Pods!I keep seeing these coffee pod espresso maker systems, and frankly, they mystify me.   I have a "regular" espresso maker, and it is barely any mess or trouble at all.  Why pay a thousand times more for your coffee, just for the convenience (and extra waste, and packaging) of pods?

    The only possible application I can see for a pod system is in an office environment.  In fact I once worked at an office that had a pod style espresso maker.  It was great for a few weeks, but then we ran out of pods, and the company we originally contracted with to deliver fresh pods every week went out of business.  So we were stuck with a proprietary system (I forget which one) which would not take any other kind of pods.  Not that we didn't try.


    Read more >