Day 216 – July 25

Today I decided to try out a white chocolate mocha recipe. I happened to find some white chocolate chips at Aldi’s, and had all of the other ingredients on hand. Plus, when I was at a conference a few weeks ago, someone highly recommended the Starbucks white chocolate mocha. I was pretty happy to find this recipe for a Starbucks knockoff drink.

I think maybe I shouldn’t have used the cheapy white chocolate chips . . . they didn’t melt all that well. Yes, they melted, but there were definitely little pieces that didn’t melt. I also used cheapy Taster’s Choice coffee. I really need to get some better coffee. But, it was really pretty yummy, despite the problems. Since it was 102 degrees today, hot coffee just wasn’t all that appealing, so I poured the coffee into ice cube trays and froze them. That was a mistake. Once I partly thawed them so that I could whiz them up in the blender, the texture was just weird and it didn’t taste as good.

I’ll likely make this again, I just won’t be freezing it. Maybe I’ll do it iced, but not frozen.

Day 214 – July 23

I have a love/hate relationship with Starbucks. Every time I pass by I think that a coffee beverage would be lovely. Then I go and spend $4 for a drink that ends up being highly mediocre. It just seems like it should taste WAAAYYYY better than it actually does. When I ran across this recipe for a frapuccino from the blog Chocolate covered Katie. When I realized that I had all of the ingredients on hand, I just had to make it, right then and there. Plus, I was intrigued by the option of having a drink that was actually yummy and not crazy expensive.

I used skim milk, cheapo instant coffee, white sugar, vanilla, homemade hot chocolate mix and salt. I waited somewhat impatiently for everything to freeze, and then whizzed up a batch. I ended up having to add milk so that the blender could actually blend, but, it was VERY yummy! I’m now dreaming up other flavors that I could make. I made a version for the babes today, caffeine free, of course: milk, chocolate syrup, leftover fresh blueberry syrup, chocolate chips . . . . it disappeared in a flash! I did take pics, but they didn’t turn out so great, so you’ll just have to imagine!

Day 206 – July 15

Pina colada, the non-alcoholic version, is one of my favorite drinks. So naturally, I was pretty pleased to find this Paula Deen recipe for a pina colada smoothie. Pineapples are usually pretty expensive, but they were on sale at Aldi’s last week, so I picked one up, along with a can of coconut milk. After working up a sweat raking leaves in the yard (yes, you read that right . . . our trees are ridiculous and shed leaves pretty much all year!), the babes and I came in and whipped up a giant pitcher of these.

The recipe says it makes 2 servings. I doubled the recipe and I ended up with about 8 servings. We all thought it was quite good. My personal preference would be to add more pineapple and reduce the amount of banana and coconut. I think our pineapple wasn’t super ripe, so that probably cut down on the sweetness, which is why I needed to use more. We also tried it over shaved ice . . . also very yummy. Due to the expense of pineapples and coconut milk, I probably won’t be making this often, but it sure is nice for a little treat!

Day 2 – January 2

It’s not even 9am and I’ve already accomplished my learning task for the day.  In fact, I’m enjoying it for breakfast.

Blackberry cream soda

It is deliciousness!  Meijer’s has blackberries on sale for 50 cents each container, which is VERY cheap!  I bought up 6 containers, and then thought, “Hmmm . . blackberry soda sounds good!”  (I was at the store to buy beverages since I was VERY thirsty.)  I picked up a bottle of carbonated water, headed home and hit the internet to find a recipe.

The first step was to make the blackberry syrup:

1.5 cups of sugar
2 cups of berries
1 cups of water

Place everything in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occassionally.
Once it boils, reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and let it steep for 15 minutes.
Push the mixture through a strainer (Make sure you have something underneath the strainer to catch the juice. Yep, I dumped part of the syrup down the drain!)
Place in a clean container and refrigerate.

The next step was to mix up the drink.

1/2 cup of berry syrup
1/4 cup cold heavy cream
1 cup club soda

Pour into a tall glass, stir and enjoy!

So my epiphany for today was that I should use my Pinterest boards for learning inspiration. I have gobs of things pinned, all things that are interesting to me . . .. recipes, clothing, kiddie projects . . . . might as well tap into that resource!

Here are the links for the blackberry goodness:

Cream soda

Source: chow.com via Judy on Pinterest

Syrup

Source: chow.com via Judy on Pinterest