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{Hubz Post} Iced Coffee: Doing it Japanese

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I had spent the first 28 or so years of my life absolutely certain that I was not a coffee drinker and that I would never be a coffee drinker.  I didn’t like hot drinks and I had never had a pleasant tasting coffee.  It was odd, because I did like chocolate covered coffee beans, coffee ice cream and other things with coffee flavour, but could never bring myself to like coffee.  That is, until I attended a Green Mountain Coffee tasting event with Lindsay.  It turns out, I had just never had a good cup of coffee in my life.  Apparently, Tim Hortons and Irving convenience store coffees and coffee drinks were not the best that coffee had to offer.  Now, at 30, I find myself to have become a coffee snob and somewhat of a connoisseur.

There’s nothing I love better in the morning than a nice cup of coffee  ( the darker the better! ).  With this hot summer though, hot coffee isn’t always going to hit the spot and that’s where iced coffee comes into play.  Having grown tired of over-spending on iced coffee that I could never guarantee wasn’t just yesterday’s leftovers thrown in the fridge or something entirely overcooked and done too strong, I needed to find out how to make a good cup of iced coffee on the cheap.  I had made cold pressed iced coffee before with a french press, but we are without a french press and that is an overnight/all day process as it is.  After reading some articles and blogs online, I stumbled across the Japanese method of brewing iced coffee.  This method was done in minutes, doesn’t require any fancy equipment and – most importantly – makes a delicious cup of iced coffee.  It’s been a go to of mine as of late and I decided to document the process one night while I was brewing my latest batch of home brewed beer.  Lindsay asked me to share with you, so here is the process in words and pictures.

What You’ll Need

  • A suitable glass container ( I’ve used a wine carafe and water pitcher, but the Chemex seems to be the most popular choice amongst coffee bloggers)
  • A metal conical coffee filter
  • Equal amount ice to boiling water (1 oz weight of ice is equal to 1 fl oz of water)
  • 1.5-1.8 grams of coarse ground coffee to total fluid oz of water (depending on how strong you like it!)

How You Make It

  1. If you have a grinder, grind your beans on the coarse setting.
  2. Boil some water for the coffee
  3. Weigh out your ice and place it in the glass container.
  4. Measure the water.
  5. Place the filter with the ground coffee on the top of the container.
  6. Slowly pour the boiling water through the grinds in the container.
  7. Make your favourite additions to the iced coffee and enjoy! (I love mine black)

When you are done you will have a great iced coffee with a delicious rich and smooth flavour.  Melting the ice with the coffee allows for the iced coffee to be cooled immediately and without weakening or diluting the brew.  Also, with the coffee being cooled immediately, it prevents the oxidization and loss of flavour that you would have if you allowed a normally brewed pot of coffee to chill over a couple of hours.  The coffee should keep a good flavour for a day or so after you brew it, if you decide to brew a bigger batch.

Weekend Wrap Up: Art Shows, Cooking and Movies

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The Hubz and I started off our weekend with a bagel and coffee from City Market and then headed to my G-Ma’s to visit, have lunch and then we headed to her art show.  Over the past 10 or so years my G-Ma has taken up painting and each year there is a seniors art show where she features her art work- check it out:

G-Ma's Art

G-Ma and Aunt Carol with G-Ma's Art

'rents and G-Ma art the art show

After spending the afternoon at G-Ma’s art show we headed to my parents house to visit with them before they head to warm, sunny Florida for 6 weeks *colour me jealous*. When we arrived we were greeted by this site:

The roof on the old barn at my parents house caved in last week due to the heavy, wet snow causing the entire barn to crumble.  It is a huge loss for them and sad to see.

We spent the remainder on the night relaxing, looking over old photos:

My G-Ma and Grandpa (Dad's parents)

I love looking back at old photos and checking out the fashion back then- don’t they look so classy? Whatever happened to nice dresses and suits?

For dinner I decided to try out some of the seitan that Upton’s Naturals sent me in one of the recipes from Appetite for Reduction for the Cookbook Club. I made the Caulipots and the Portabello Pepper Steak Stew – my first recipes from Appetite for Reduction and both I really liked and so did the ‘rents and Hubz.

The Portabello Pepper Steak Stew does not call for kale but my mom had some that needed to be used up so I added it to the stew and it was a great addition.  The stew was nice and peppery and the sauce was so tasty.  I have to say salt was the only thing that the recipe needed a little more of but that may have been do to the vegetable broth that I was using.  The Caulipots were good but I think I would try one of the variations that the cookbook includes because I really felt that there was a lack for flavor- again may have been partially due to the broth.  Overall though I liked both recipes an it is a good start to this months Cookbook Club.

Sunday we headed home early so that the Hubz and I could get some work done at home (on our computers).  We spent most of the day except when we headed out for groceries sitting on the couch enjoying leftover stew and caulipots as well as a few Oscar Best Picture nominated movies in preparation for our Oscar party next Sunday.  We watched:

Out of the four we watched Winter’s Bone was by far my favorite- the movie is not weighed down by A List celebrities and the acting and story is really amazing. I would recommend that everyone see this – it is really a powerful movie.  We still have to watch The King’s Speech, The Fighter, True Grit and Toy Story 3, however we are only planning to watch the first 3 and if we have time we will watch Toy Story 3 before Sunday.  So far my top three nominated films are Black Swan, Inception and Winter’s Bone. Which one is your favorite? Are you planning anything for the Oscars?

Running Away Part 2

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After a restless night at our less than desirable accommodations we were in need of a wonderful breakfast to start what we knew would be an amazing day. We headed to Woodstock, New York to eat breakfast at the Garden Cafe On The Green.

The completely vegan menu was filled with delicious sounding breakfast dishes that I wanted to order all of them from the Oatmeal “Crème Brule” to the scrambles and of course the French Toast.  However the Hubz and I finally made a decision and picked two amazing dishes, a side and coffee.

I had the Breakfast Burrito which was massive so I only ended up eating half and saved the other half for lunch.

It was really delicious.

Breakfast Burrito: black beans, tofu scramble, vegan cheddar, salsa and guacamole served with roasted potatoes

The Hubz had the Italian Scramble which was delicious as well and also a ton of food.  He took some of his with us as well and we shared our leftovers for lunch later in the day.

Italian Scramble: spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, herbs, served with grilled baguette & roasted potatoes

Oh yeah and we had some vegan sausages- had we known that the meals were going to be so huge we probably wouldn’t have ordered them but they sure were delicious!

After breakfast we wondered around town and visited the local flea market where I found a few pieces of costume jewelry and some beautiful figs.

I am sure that you have figured out our final destination by now however you will still have to wait until the next post to see all the fun.

Running Away

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Friday night I was ready to get out of the house and get on the road for a spontaneous weekend away.  My first thought was Montreal, one of our favorite destinations that we haven’t visited in quite some time.   I found my passport, our Canadian bank cards and even our opus metro cards…but, unfortunately, there was one thing missing… the Hubz’s passport. After searching high and low for it, it hit me…it was in our lock box and that some how got left behind at my parents house….an hour away.

We discussed going to their house for the night, getting the passport and then heading to Montreal first thing Saturday morning, but I wanted to do Montreal right and spend 2 nights there.  We then decided to jump in the car and hit the road to see where it would take us.  We debated New Hampshire and contemplated Maine and about 10 minutes down the road I said lets go to New York.  After picking up coffee and water we were on our way to the beautiful Catskills.  We enjoyed a few yummy snacks thanks to Rice Works who sent me a few samples to try out.

After 3 and half hours of driving we finally made it to our destination and then found a less than desirable hotel to stay in.

The Hubz showing how he felt about our accommodations

You may have been following my tweets on twitter, giving hints as to where we ran off to, and although there have been some great guesses only one or two people got it right.  This is just part one keep so reading to find out where we ended up.