iced coffee in bulk

Iced coffee is my jam. I love it all year, not just when it's warm. 

This is cold brew, so it's less acidic and stronger. This allows for further dilution with creamer and ice. I rely on Pioneer Woman's method with few changes. I make a vat at a time, but you always have the option to use one brick in a gallon pitcher. I like my coffee strong, so if this is too strong for you, dilute with more water and adjust your coffee next time. 

Option A: I get a big old restaurant type of quart storage, throw two 10 ounce bricks of Cafe La Llave or Cafe Bustelo in there, add cold water to the 10L line, stir very well, cover with saran wrap, and store in the fridge for at least eight hours. 

To process it, you set up a system of cheesecloth in a fine mesh strainer over a large vessel, and strain. Pour it off into various storage vessels and repeat until you're left with the dirty dregs of the coffee. 

Update - Option B: Instead of dumping coffee in, you can use bags found here. They are $14 for two and make it possible for me to take this show on the road and make one brick in a gallon pitcher if I choose. At home, I still start with my restaurant quart storage. Then I add one brick of Cafe Bustelo per bag, pour cold water over them, massage the water into the bags (clean hands please!) while being careful not to get water in the top or let much coffee spill out, then clip them to the side. After a minimum of eight hours I process the coffee, simply squeezing the bags to make sure I get it all. Turn the bags inside out over the trash can (or over a receptacle if you use the grounds to compost) then rinse well in the sink. Put your coffee in storage vessels (I use the gallon containers the water was in and pitchers) and you're done!

Update Option C: Basically the same as B, except these Ellie's Best nut milk bags are the vehicle. I put both bricks of coffee in one, cinch it up, and let it soak.

I've kept it in the fridge in the vessels you see in the first photo for over a month and it hasn't gone bad. It's just cold coffee at that point so there are no dregs to contend with.

I'm the person who...

I was going to be snarky today, but then I thought fuck it, it's Friday, ain't nobody got time for that. I've had the commute from hell all week, and I don't feel like it. I also don't feel like doing any actual writing because again, it's Friday. Instead I'll do a little about me like the one I did last July, and hope that you tell me some stuff about you in the comments. Because as my BFF Debbie says, sharing is caring. I'm the person who...

Is wary of women who have no girlfriends.

Takes photos of food. Unapologetically.

Will leave the ice cube on the floor if it drops in my house...but not in yours. 

Has to close the shower curtain if you leave it open.

Hates fake ass bitches.

Thinks heels feel like jail for my feet.

Has no problem saying no.

Dislikes perfectly choreographed photos. The current Instagram trend of posed photos on white backgrounds is not real life unless you live in Stepford. It looks the same as everyone else who's doing it...next!

Allows profanity to pepper my speech with no plans to correct it.

Always seems to be the one to replace the toilet paper roll. How does that happen?

When asked when I'm having kids, will ask an equally personal question in response. Loudly. Along the lines of how are you making out with your chlamydia? I'm not nice when I have to remind people of the boundaries. Don't poke the bear.

Feels the urge to laugh at inappropriate times, like during funerals. Nervous reflex.

Manages my expectations.

Loves birthdays - mine, yours. My BFF Jenn's today.

Has a definite opinion on most things and no problem letting you know what it is.

Goes to the tourist spots. They're popular for a reason.

Successfully grows flowers outside but kills every blessed house plant.

Embraces my inner Grimace for Put on Purple Day for Lupus Awareness in honor of my good friend Marla of Luck Fupus. It's today! Get your purple on, upload a photo of your gear, and tag @marlajan on Instagram or Twitter. Use the hashtags #luckfupus #knowlupus #POP

Marla at last year's Lupus Day in Love Park - we went yesterday too, along with her husband and sister Brie!

What about you? Tell me some tidbits.

Why We Travel

Via

Note: This is a bad day to have this scheduled with news of last night's Amtrak crash fresh on all feeds. My thoughts go out to passengers and crew on train 188 and my utmost respect and appreciation for Philadelphia's first responders who handled the scene efficiently, professionally, and with compassion as well as medical staff treating injuries on-site and in area hospitals. 

I love the Jersey shore. I always have and I always will. If I could choose to go anywhere for a weekend, it would be there. Owning a home there is a future goal of ours. I grew up going there, my memories are buried in that sand, and every year I look forward to eating my traditional boardwalk treats and sitting my ass in a beach chair looking out at the same ocean I've looked out on my entire life. I love how comfortable and at home I feel there.

For a long time, our week long vacations were spent at the Jersey Shore and I loved every second. If you would've asked me 10 years ago where my vacation spot would be, I would've confidently answered the shore - one week every summer. But it hasn't turned out like that. The last time we did it was for our wedding five years ago. We've spent weekends at the shore but reserved our weeks for expanding vacation horizons. 

Some of our 2014 adventures - long, weekend, and day trips included

If I had a dollar for every time someone said, "must be nice," to a vacation shot of us, I'd be able to fully fund all trips for eternity. Yes, it is nice. And we've worked quite hard for it. It's something we set money aside for and where we prefer to spend our extra. We often say it's what we do with the money we don't spend on the kids we don't have. What we're actually buying is experiences, and I feel like it's an investment - the return we get is so much more than the dollar amount we put out.

Why do we like to travel? It feeds our desire to see places we've only read about or seen on TV. It gives us feelings and beauty and memories and stories and it pushes us outside of our comfort zones. Even planning the adventure can be fun, from deciding where to go and what to do, where to eat and what to visit. When you’re traveling overseas you do have some paperwork to deal with, visas and things from usa-esta.com and you might need travel jabs too which aren’t the most fun. But overall, travel is SO worth the time and money spent and creates memories to last a lifetime. 

MFD does well outside of his comfort zone - he has a wonderful sense of adventure and is spontaneous and very YOLO in nature. Me, as a person who lives inside of a routine and comfort zone to the extreme...I need that push. It's good to operate in places you're unfamiliar with sometimes. I think it can show you a lot about who you are as a person and how you function. 

Is travel a high priority for you?

Show Us Your Books - What I Read in April

It's that time again, book nerds! My favorite day of the month, the Show Us Your Books linkup with me Jana of Jana Says!

Here's what I've read since the linkup on April 14:

Euphoria by Lily King - I'm a fan of anthropology - I find it fascinating in its heydey, which is when this novel takes place. Not a ton of in depth characterization and some starts and stops in the plot made it a motley little book, but one that I found to be intelligent and worth it despite its faults. I flew through the 250 pages in less than two nights and enjoyed it.

Dark of the Moon by John Sandford - This is the first in a series with the character Virgil Flowers. I like John Sandford books - I can depend on him to provide a good story and keep me entertained without a ton of brain output. I'm going to continue on the Virgil Flowers path.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven - My heart swelled with joy and withered and broke about 10 different times reading this book. Young adult with some very heavy and adult themes. This was an excellent read.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin - A lot of times throughout this book, I was like where is this going? and each time realized that I really didn't care. I like books about quirky characters, readers, small towns, and improbable circumstances. This book had them all.

Last Train to Babylon by Charlee Fam - I don't see a ton of books about people wading through their early to mid twenties all fucked up knowing so much less than they thought they would about the world even though that's how many people FEEL at that time. This book was a glimpse into that and also dealt with some heavy women's issues. I liked it and thought it was well written.

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover - This was basically a book about attraction and sex with a cloak of love and pain thrown over it to make it marketable to the masses. There was a lot of sappy and ridiculous but I was sad as hell about some of the chapters that took place in the past. If you don't like sex in your novels, don't read this book. Otherwise, it was a quick and mindless read which I like sometimes especially after reading heavy shit like All the Bright Places and Babylon above.

Stolen by Christopher Lucy - Reading this really let me visualize how Stockholm Syndrome works. I know about it and have read about it before, but this made it click. Even as a reader I knew I should be more pissed off and repulsed by Ty than I was. This is a story built on writing and two characters with the land itself playing the third, most important character. This is not an action novel but it's a worthy read.

Two books I started and couldn't finish:
The Girls of Mischief Bay by Susan Mallery - If you need to hammer the issues of each character home so much that I'm struggling with the repetition by page 30, I'm not going to enjoy the rest of the book. I can typically overlook that to a degree but this was relentless and didn't allow me to pick up any thread of a plot in between.

The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence - I might have tried reading this book at the incorrect time. I truly believe we need to be in the right frame of mind to receive some books. This might be one of those, so I might give it a go in the future. I was not in the mood for the crazy level of detail the narrator went into about everything. But I might be in the mood in the future.

This link up happens the second Tuesday of every month. The next one is Tuesday, June 9. 

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Non-bloggers, what have you read recently? Let me know what you recommend and what to stay away from. Bloggers, link up your posts below.

An InLinkz Link-up

TWTW - the one with the mothers

Friday afternoon was warm and gorgeous. I popped into LOVE Park to try and spot Philly Jesus when I made my afternoon DD run but no dice. I wore my new Keep Collective bracelet and MFD hung new curtains in our room. My younger self weeps at how excited I was over them.

I planted at 6 p.m. Friday and MFD mulched Saturday. I always have the urge to over plant but these things grow and I need to give them space to do so. Omm.

Evening birthday celebrations for Geege included chicken, bananas, tons of treats, and a long walk where he could run the fields and roll around. Someone is excited about the carnival descending on the neighborhood this week and it's not me. Thanks to Mae for the gross photo bomb. Chinese for dinner because we're lazy, YOLO, etc.

Saturday laundry, weights, and weekly food prep: two batches of power breakfast muffins, some to freeze and some for this week's breakfasts; HBE for breakfasts; and cold taco dip for Sunday. Lunches are PBJ, snap peas, and carrots. Dinners are tacos, salads, baked chicken and steamed vegetables.

Amanda and I took at 3:30 train up to NYC to meet up with Michele, have dinner al fresco at DBGB Kitchen in the Bowery, then see Amanda's #1 Peter Sarsgaard play Hamlet at the Classic Stage Company. It was over three hours long! The theater was very intimate, and it was really good. Peter was amazing and really gracious after the play, as were his wife and daughter when we saw them in front of the theater after. It was a great day. I got home at 2:30 and didn't go to sleep until 3:30. Hashtag old lady hated that.

Mother's Day rounds - breakfast at my dad & Carol's, lunch at MFD's parents', and dinner at my Mom's all on four hours of sleep and no makeup. We got to see our nephews, Debbie, Aubrey's parents and brother and niece and nephew in our travels and celebrate my stepdad's birthday. It was a nice day. Aubrey killed it with an egg casserole at breakfast and two dessert dips at dinner. Cheers Mothers!

Show Us Your Books link up tomorrow! I can't wait to geek out over books and add to my To Read list on Goodreads.

Linking up with Biana at B Loved Boston for Weekending