Iced Coffee Invitation

There is a simple trick to iced coffee perfection: brew double strength.  To wit: if there is a 12 cup coffee maker, put 6 cups of water with and the normal amount of grinds.  One could just brew twice into same pot in order to have 12 cups of 2x strength coffee.

Simple, right?

Das likes iced coffee, double strength or no, in the afternoons.   If my mint plant had made it, i would have minty water or minty lemonade on hand, i’m sure, but the mint didn’t live, alas, and so for refreshing delicious, there’s a good chance you’ll be offered an iced coffee should you decide to drop by.  Please, do, by all means, drop by.

I remember iced coffee being very popular at starbucks when i worked there, especially in afternoons, especially in the summers.   I hadn’t thought i would like it all that much, but i gave it a try, of course with a little cream and sugar (sweet and creamy in our parlance), and discovered quite a treat.

(Psst: At Starbucks they make their Iced Coffee with Italian Roast, unless they’ve changed it– Italian is nearly as dark as French.)

I have thought about making Sun Tea but don’t have an appropriate vessel on hand so to steep, so haven’t quite jumped on that Southern refresher just yet.  I feel sure that before too long I’ll find something.

potato salad. really?

When i asked the moth (my mother, for future reference) what she would like to eat on Mother’s Day she thought about it for a while and finally said she wanted potato salad.

I was thinking of doing game hens and trappings of that ilk.

Potato salad never appealed that much to me, it was mushy and bland. But, lo, i went hunting up a recipe for potato salad, one i re-did last night to go along with grilled bratwurst and sausages.

Cube 1-2 lbs of potatoes (i use red skinned potatoes because they look better)

-i cut mine into easily bite size bits, not unwieldy chunks. the result is much nicer.

Boil for 13-15 minutes (so they are cooked but firm and not easily mashed)

in large bowl:

3 stalks of celery, very finely cut

3-5 green onions, including green bit

handful of chopped dill

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 c (or so) mayo

(careful not to overdo it on the mayo. it’s hard, i know.)

when potatoes are done, drain and blanch, mix all together

-mods

adding bacon crumbles. by this i mean not those processed bacon bits, but go through the trouble of making it and crumbling it. Why? because you can then add the fat to the mix, of course.

It occurs to me when i made this the first time, and again last night, that pride can get in the way of a really good dish. Potato salad isn’t fancy, it isn’t showy, but the people around me wanted it, and it was easy enough to make. Being able to create something lovely from what my judgment held to be kind of “beneath” me to make is an exercise in humility, even if it’s just the revelation itself teaching me.

formal variation on informal theme

I don’t have a picture of this.   We were all going to a MAsT meeting and i wanted to take something good for canapes.  One of my biggest downfalls is my pride in my cookery.  That’s a different discussion.
Das and i had found a recipe for “Bacon roll-ups” which involved white bread, cream cheese, garlic powder and, of all things, bacon.

Sort of went like this:

Cut white bread into squares, smear garlicky cream cheese on them, roll a strip of bacon around, stick toothpick through, bake 10 minutes to crisp bacon.

It sounded good in theory, but we thought to dress it up some.  Here’s what we ideated and i eventually prepared:

1 loaf english toasting bread

2 10 oz packages Dry Coppa

2 cubey things of Chavrie (one herby one, one mild)

capers

cut crusts off bread, cut into 2” squares (like a one-bite appetizer).

mix up chavries and smear a bit onto each square

pinch a bit of coppa over the chavrie, so it sticks.  mine were like little bridges

under each bridge of coppa, place a caper

i tried it with 2-3 capers, but they were too strong.  One each was better.

-mods:

you could use prosciutto.  a pitted olive (kalamata, i’d guess).

*

Berries and Brie

I found a recipe using puff pastry to make something like these, but phyllo is sold in already-baked shells!!  i currently suck at manipulating phyllo, so i was quite relieved to see this.  i am told the key to handling phyllo sheets is a whole lot of butter.   no, more than that.

The recipe from which this was derived involved hot pepper jelly.  I don’t know what that is or what it tastes like, but i like berries, so i came up with this.

30 pre-made phyllo shells

raspberry preserves

raspberries

brie (with rind!)

in each shell spoon a bit of preserves, place a small square of brie, top with berry.   This is a very labor intensive bit of appetizing, even with pre-done shells, but it’s really worth it.   i would’ve added a bit of pepper over all of it if i had thought about it.  pepper really makes berry flavor pop.

bake 5-8 minutes.

serve warm.

i took a bunch of these to a small gathering of lifestyle women, in which there was much good conversation and a whole night was talked away.  we didn’t really eat that many, but there was also pizza and cake and cupcakes.

it occurred to me that i’ve always had the kinky bend, since sexuality meant anything to me, as well as a bottomy, if not totally submissive kind of being to the expression of that sexuality.  I was always with men and women who were older and taller, for instance.

In making tiny appetizers which use both hands to create, i find that i am expressing my desire to serve those i love with the very best i have to offer.  Even when not serving Das directly, i indirectly do him honor by presenting a lovely little dish that wasn’t put together begrudgingly.

I like to say that dishes come out better when you add extra love to them.  Even cheese sandwiches.  (Sometimes mayo=love, you see   )

love, mitda