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Posts Tagged ‘Coffee’

There are many people who have for long considered themselves purists in the world of coffee, and wouldn’t dream of touching this sacred brew. But all of this is changing now, coffee is being flavored and you can have any one of hundreds of kinds now.

Blenders are practically artists now, with exotic blends being designed all the time. There is an Indonesian blend which is a mix of Sumatran and Papua New Guinea beans that yields a flavorful full bodied brews. Newer regions such as Papua New Guinea and Sumatra are being scoured for new kinds of beans for these blends. Sumatra beans mixed with Colombian Patron gives a smoky, dark taste to the blend.

In addition to blending different beans, adding flavorings to coffee adds a new element. Many flavors, such as cherry, almond or vanilla, can soften the acidity of some blends. Add a banana hazelnut syrup to a plain robusta blend, and you have a whole new experience. Try a Tahitian vanilla latte for a real taste experience.
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The days when we used to wake up in the morning, grab the morning newspaper, and brew up a wonderful cup of coffee, have started to disappear. Unless you’re a morning person who can get out of bed hours before anyone else and somehow start the day without the typical morning rush then consider yourself one of the lucky one’s. If anything, people are usually running around the house, getting the kids ready, getting themselves ready, and running out the door. Some days they manage to squeeze some time into the morning routine to roll through a drive-thru coffee stand or even worse, a fast-food restaurant, to pick up a cup of java. Or they can wait to get to the office where they brew up the cheapest stuff that their employer can get, as you load it down with cream and sugar. How can this be? How does what’s supposed to be one of the most relaxing and satisfying routines of the day become part of the rat race.
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Legend has it that a hardy Colonel named Robert Gibbon Johnson, tired of his superstitious and uninformed countrymen’s refusal to touch or eat tomatoes, sat in front of the Salem, New Jersey Courthouse with a basket full of the little red fruits. To the shock, horror, and eventual awe of the 2,000 person crowd, he consumed every last tomato without dropping dead.

Of course this isn’t true, nor are any other claims of American leeriness of tomato consumption. But there are plenty of foods we don’t eat because we think they’re bad for us when in reality they’re not. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at some misunderstood foods!

The Egg: harbinger of doom?

The humble egg, a baking and dietary staple nearly everywhere on earth, has hit its share of rough times. Though it’s an incredible source of protein and choline, an egg’s yolk also contains a large amount of cholesterol—cholesterol which was thought to be utterly terrible for the body. However, there’s endless dissent, with some researchers claiming that an egg’s cholesterol actually lowers “bad” cholesterol and raises “good” cholesterol, with other scientists claiming the opposite. Combine this hotly-contested nutritional value with the salmonella scare (how many times did mom tell you not to eat cookie dough?) and you get one woeful reputation for such a delicious and useful food.

Sure, you shouldn’t pig out on eggs every day, but by using them properly you can enjoy the taste—and the protein—without having to resort to egg whites in a carton!

Some good egg recipes include:

Scrambled Eggs in Baby Brioches with Smoked Salmon and Asparagus
Eggs Sardou
Egg Puff-Muffins
Old-Fashioned Egg Noodles

Coffee: those jitters are just the caffeine.

You remember the turning point. Suddenly health experts everywhere started talking about the perils of coffee and the dangers of caffeine. Gloomily, coffee drinkers everywhere switched to decaf or learned to get more sleep at night (God forbid). But while too much coffee is certainly bad for your health (go here to see some alternatives), drinking a moderate amount actually helps with more than your fatigue!

Coffee is rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and other important nutritional components. Drinking three to five cups daily, researchers say, can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s, kidney stones, Parkinson’s, depression, and suicide. And to think, it keeps you awake, too!
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People drink coffee to stay awake and get more things done. But how can you get more things done if you’re waiting around for your coffee to brew. Oh sure you can go buy a cup of coffee but at some point you going to want a cup at home. With a coffee pod maker you’re only 30 seconds away from an excellent cup of coffee.

Senseo was one of the first coffee pod makers available. And having sold more than 10 million units in four years Senseo is definitely here to stay. A coffee pod looks just like a round tea bag. It works like this. You fill the coffee maker with water, place a coffee pod in the receptacle, hit the button and thirty seconds later you have a great cup of coffee. A patented method that uses a special spray head and mild pressure to balance the ratio of coffee to water while brewing creates a rich frothy cup of coffee.
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