I picked up the most recent copy of Craft magazine late last week after resisting for a while. It's got a lot of good information for a beginner at weaving, including making your own loom. Of course, while I want to try all of the fiber crafts, the thing I gravitated towards first was cold brewed coffee. I'm still packing lots of stuff up, so I'm trying to figure out what appliances I really need to keep. I love kitchen gadgets, so there is a fair amount of stuff that can go into storage for a few months and not be too terribly missed. One of those is the espresso machine, which really doesn't get enough usage.
The idea of cold brewed coffee is pretty simple. Like making ice tea, you mix your grounds with water and just let it sit. I have a French press, so I ground my coffee to a medium-course grind (I might have gotten more coffee flavor if I had ground it a bit finer), put it in the bottom of the press, added water and swirled it around a bit. I let it sit for almost 24 hours (mostly because I didn't need to drink any coffee last night at 7 p.m.) and then I used the press to separate the grounds and the water. I had some this morning, diluted 1:1 with skim milk with a teaspoon of vanilla sugar blend. Because I used a half cup of coffee, one batch won't last quite as long, but I don't tend to make coffee at home very often. I always feel like it is a lot more watery than the stuff I buy when I'm out.
Particulars:
0.5 cup coffee beans, ground (medium-fine would be a bit better)
1.5 cup water
My vanilla sugar blend is about half granulated sugar and half Splenda with a third of a spent vanilla bean cut in the mix. I hardly ever have ice coffee, because I find that it always tastes watery. This wasn't watery at all, and had a decent coffee flavor. The rest of my coffee is in the fridge, and I'll probably set another batch to brew tonight.
