Garden Update - Thursday 7/22/10

Haven't had a garden update in awhile so. . .

So far we have pickled 17 Jars of Dill Pickles

Potato plants doing pretty well now that I stopped over-watering them. Two started to wither up and when I moved the straw away the stem down farther on one plant was very wet looking and broke completely off.

Pole beans growing nicely.

Flowering Pole Beans

If you look hit the picture and look at it larger you will see our Dill grew up very well, have medium sized flower heads right now.  Our first green pepper rotted up as seems to be the case with first fruits, but the other two seem to be ok so far. Cherry Tomato plant is loaded with little green tomatoes. And Jalapeños are just about to start producing.

What to do with your Homemade Iced Coffee - Iced Caramel Coffee

Step 1: Put some ice in glass.

Optional: Add just a bit of Simple Syrup to glass to sweeten (Caramel Syrup is usually sweet enough for me but you can buy sugar-free also)

Step 2: Shoot some Caramel Syrup into glass (3 pumps if you have one)

Step 3: Fill about 3/4 of glass with your Iced Coffee <--see how to make Iced Coffee

Step 4: Add Creamer, Half & Half till desired strength is reached and stir.

For a frappuccino sort of deal; make up the drink, freeze, then add more cream while blenderizing it!

Frapp recipe could use some change probably but worked for me so far

How I make Homemade Iced Coffee - Cold Brewed Coffee

Iced Coffee is Great! Why? Because it has Coffee in it!

I make it using the ' Cold Brewed ' method

I used this , this time.

But I really like this, Peets Coffee - Major Dickason's Blend.



You want to use a ratio of 4:1 - 4 Cups water to 1 Cup Coarsely ground coffee so make sure you have a big enough pitcher, jar, container of some kind to hold it all. (Although when I took these pictures I didn't have the right amount of water in yet, realized it after the second stirring.)

Stir it up good then let it sit awhile in the Fridge. When you come back you will likely see this. . .

Grounds mostly on top in some sort of crusty head.

So give it another good stir and after you do it should look more like this. . .

With more of a foamy head and all the grounds floating around in suspension or on the bottom, not the top.

I've heard that you should let it sit (in the Fridge) for a minimum of 3-4 hours.
I always seem to go at least 12 because I end up putting it together in the evening.
Also the STRONGER the better! :)

The next step is sort of trial and error just seeing what works best for what tools you have.

You can separate the grounds from the coffee with,

a mesh filter - 

a paper filter,

a paper towel?

your hands?

you get the idea

I haven't perfected this yet so I end up using a colander over a pan so I can set either my mesh filter, paper filter, paper towel, (not hands) into it to hold whichever in place while I pour the coffee into it.

You will have to change a few times whichever element you choose, this is why the mesh filter is kinda nice because you can just bang the grounds out in the trash, but on the other hand paper filters cost a couple bucks for about a million so. . .figure out whatever you like best.

After you have separated the coffee from the grounds filter it one more time through a clean filter to remove just that little bit more of "stuff".

Thats it!

Put it in fridge and enjoy your Homemade Iced Coffee!