Yep, Still Alive

First, let me apologize for the extended hiatus. I've been concentrating on a few other projects and, while I keep saying to myself, "I should blog this," it has just taken a back seat lately.

I'm sitting here enjoying a really good cup of cappuccino or machiatto or one of those espresso and steamed milk drinks... and I made it!

I have a Mr. Coffee single-cup coffee maker. I don't do caffeine and I don't drink more than one or two cups a day so I bought it to have coffee at work when I want it.

We went out to brunch this weekend and I got a cup of coffee. The wife was so shocked when I asked for a cup to go that she asked what kind of coffee they served. Long story short, we bought a tin of Illy decaf coffee pods.

I tried the pods in my coffee maker but, being espresso pods, they're too small and too tightly packed to work. The coffee comes out looking like very weak tea.

Fast forward to our grocery outing. We went to Target and headed down the small appliances aisle where we found two different coffee makers. I've wanted the flexibility to use either pods or loose ground coffee so the first one we looked at was a Black & Decker that will do one or two cups. The intel I have says it will use pods or loose coffee. For $10 more, though, I found a Mr. Coffee espresso machine.

I had to do some experimentation to get it to come out right (hint: if you're using pods, take the filter basket out) but once I did... wow! I even got the milk frothing right on the first try. This is the best cup of coffee I've brewed at home in years.

One of the projects I'm working on is to revamp my celebrity photo site. I wanted to add some pictures but I upgraded my operating system and haven't been able to locate my FrontPage disc. Rather than dig through boxes, I decided to shift gears and use Coppermine Photo Gallery (the same I use on my photo site). Before I do that, though, I want to sort through the pictures and make sure they're all good pictures, I don't have seventeen similar photos/poses of one celebrity, and they're all color/contrast adjusted. I'm close to finishing that phase of the project so I hope to get back to blogging more soon.

There Is a Difference (read the instructions)

I was shopping for groceries not long ago and came across Coffee Mate Latte Creations. It's basically creamer with an attitude. I picked some up, tried it and liked it.

In true Wal-Mart fashion, it was very prominently displayed at the time and virtually impossible to find a month later. I did find it but the fact remained that it was kinda pricey.

Believing that somebody must have come up with a recipe for this powdered additive, I consulted the altar of Google... and found this. With the first batch, I nixed the vanilla and added about 3 tablespoons of chocolate milk powder and a couple of tablespoons of cocoa. It passed the wet finger taste test. For the second batch, according to recipe, I went into the other room - where I left the printout - and verified the amount of vanilla necesary. I blended my dry ingredients and added my two tablespoons of vanilla.

I very quickly realized something was very wrong. I consulted my recipe - which I should have taken into the kitchen with me - and discovered my error... it was 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

I think I managed to save the mix by dumping out the clumpy mixture I already had, which was the consistency of sugar cookie dough, into a bowl. I added more dry ingredients to the blender and then slowly added some clumps of the thick vanilla sludge. I'm still deciding what to do with the rest of the base material.