Hey there! If you’re just starting this How To with us – check out Day 1 for the beginning. It’s nice to have you, by the way.

Your coffee should have spent the night in the fridge. Maybe it spent 2 or 3. Which is fine. Mine spent 2 nights in the fridge the first time I did this.

Which means you should be starting with: A mason jar (or your French Press) full of dark, murky water and coffee beans … and your French Press if you went the mason jar route.

Here’s what my coffee looked like after 2 days in the fridge.

And the coffee grounds went from the top (from Day 1) to the bottom (now Day 2).

Pour the whole shebang into the French Press.

I tried to knock as many of the grounds into the French Press that I could.

I wanted all the available flavors and caffeine. ::wicked smile::

Your French Press is almost ready for the working magic of SQUEEZING the life out of the grounds for your coffee.

Grab the thinger. I don’t know the technical names. The top … with the mesh and the filter thing. Yeah, that one.

And push down, squeezing all the grounds to the bottom, leaving you with the filtered cold press coffee. It’s a beautiful thing.

Now grab a glass or mug. I chose something I could see through because I wanted to check out the color and I was taking photos so I thought it was appropriate to show you as well.

And then pour.

And ENJOY!

I hope I did this right, but the idea came from my former brother in law and he explained it to me something like this: It’s sweeter, less acidic.

He had my interest at sweeter.

This How To is the process for DAY ONE. Lets get started shall we?

You’ll need a mason jar with lid, grinder, coffee beans. (And water.)

If you don’t have a grinder – you need coarse ground beans. Maybe along the lines of something for a French Press.

Start by grabbing a handful of coffee beans to throw in the grinder.

Assess the situation and add more beans if needed. I’m pretty sure you need to end up with about a third of your mason jar as ground beans. Pretty sure because when I was getting the recipe we were at the closing of our former home and my mind was kinda of freaking out. But I was REALLY interested in the sweet coffee, so I focused. Kind of. (Rich, please feel free to correct this process!)

Now add the second handful.

And you’re ready for the grind!

I have a push grinder so all I need to do is apply pressure to the little white thing with my finger. Like this …

^^ Not applying pressure

^^ Applying pressure … See the difference? Yea, it’s slight. There are a couple different home grinders available, this is on the cheaper end of the ones out there. Right around ten bucks.

So any way – I counted to three and then checked my grind.

It was a little to coarse I thought so I put the lid back on, applied pressure for only a second more.

And then I was happy with the coarseness. There were less, if any, whole beans left.

Now for the mason jar.

Add the ground beans to the jar.

You’re going to need more coffee.

So grab another batch of the beans, grinder, pressure, DONE!

That looks better!

Now fill with water.

Get ready to shake it!

Place it in the fridge over night.

And DAY ONE is done. It looks like a ton of steps but the whole process will take less than 3 minutes if you have everything out and ready to go.

Tomorrow we’ll drink it together!

Skip ahead to see DAY 2

** Originally posted March 27, 2009

Healthy brownies. Really? That don’t taste like cardboard? Um, yes. These are rich and not entirely sweet (over the top), there’s also no flour so the light airy taste just isn’t there. That’s not a bad thing! They’re good, really. They’re not like fudge although in the photo they look very dense – I don’t know how to explain this, you’ll just have to try them. My kids loved them and they have no idea they’re healthy. All they saw was chocolate and heard me say brownies – done deal.

You’ll need: Eggs, garbanzo beans, mint (optional), agava nectar (or maple syrup, honey – some natural sweetener AND SPLENDA IS NOT THAT SWEETENER!), baking powder, chocolate chips.
I have a problem with splenda. Please forgive me.

Staty by melting your chocolate – you can do this however you normally would – I use a double boiler but I used this makeshift one because most people either don’t have a real one or don’t know what they are. All you need is a heavy sauce pan 1/2 full of water and a heat resistant bowl to set on top of that pot. The steam will do the work without burning the chocolate.

While those are working on melting – throw your beans, eggs and mint into a blender to mix up.

Check the chocolate – it should be well on it’s way to melting.

Then add your baking powder and agave nectar to the mix, blend it up.

Chocolate melted? Awesome, add that to the mix too!

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Put it in a greased 9X9 or 8X8 pan.

Bake and then let cool in fridge …

Cut and serve!

Then please ask a little taste tester to try them out.

ENJOY!
Recipe:
Prep Time: 10 minutes            Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Yields: 8-12 brownies
 
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups dark chocolate chips or carob semisweet chips (I use Ghiradelli’s 60% cocoa)
2 cups garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
4 eggs
2/3 cup agave nectar or ¾ cup brown rice syrup
½ teaspoon baking powder
Optional, blend in some mint leaves
 
Directions:
1. Melt chips slightly.  You can place them in a heat resistant bowl on top of a boiling pot of water until melted.
2. In blender or food processor, combine beans and eggs. (and mint!)
3. Add sweetener, baking powder, and chips. Process until smooth.
4. Pour batter into 8×8 or 9×9 inch pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
6. Allow to cool in fridge, cut and serve.

I have days where I need to create something. Anything. Most of the time that means writing, and right here. The other times it generally means in the kitchen.

I used this recipe and went from the hip as follows:

1 and 1/4 cups Amaranth
1 cup uncooked quick-cooking oats
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed (flaxseed meal)
1/4 cup finely chopped dried apples
1/4 cup finely chopped pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup almond butter (which I made on my own!!!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Once everything was blended well I transfered to a pan, any size you pick, that was oiled and used wax paper to smoosh it evenly.

Then stuck the pan in the freezer for about 30 min to harden everything together so I could cut it up, photograph it and then eat them! YUM!

The pan I used, for the shape of a “granola bar”, yielded 6 bars.

I tried making my own fruit roll ups last week after reading about it here and here. There were some REALLY good deals on strawberries last week so I went out and bought 8 pounds.

Oh yes.

I found out that my oven turns itself off after being on for 12 consecutive hours. I had a batch of just strawberry and a batch of strawberry/kiwi. I had 3 pans in the oven over night and the strawberry batch was ready in about 10 maybe 11 hours. The strawberry/kiwi batch (2 pans) took more like 15.

Then I still had some left over so yesterday I made another batch of the strawberry/kiwi and it was ready in about 5 hours, on it’s own in the oven.

Here’s what I think:

After you’ve done your reducing of the puree – stick it in the fridge overnight. The next morning, preheat your oven to 170 or 200 – something low near there and dehydrate your cooled puree. It goes faster, or it did for me. About half the time.

Enjoy!

** I modified the linked recipe – I only used berries, applesauce and agave nectar. Use what you have, what works for you. Have fun!

Last time I left you with my daughters bedroom redo/update it looked like this:

And now, half way through the process of growing her room all up, it looks like this:

With this on her wall – nearest her bed.

I know the walls are bare otherwise. I have plans for them, but after Aaron got home from SXSW I needed a break from running around like a madwoman.

I’m refinishing 2 dressers (one for her room, one for her brothers) like this and when those are complete I’ll reveal the other views of her bedroom thus far.

There’s been lots of talk of a decal on the facebook page and YES! there will be a decal, above the dresser – but above the bed, I’ll be doing espresso cork board in a funky frame and changing the art as she grows.

Where did I see those squares of dark cork board? I saw them, I know I did. But google isn’t helping me remember where.

The headboard was SOOOOO easy.

I did, at one time, have photos of the process, but then my camera ate them. So. No photos. BUT! I found the frame to use for the project in our attic – so … free! I borrowed a staple gun from friends (Thanks Dave and Tracy!) and bought the batting and fabric needed to make the headboard.

Pretty much you just lay out the batting, staple on, then lay out the fabric and staple it on the frame as well. Make sure you tug on the fabric so it’s taught.

And there you have it! Easy peasy fabric head board.

Here’s the inspiration for her room, once again:

And our version of that is:

How are we doing?

It’s easy! And super cheap.

You’ll need:

2 pieces of wood – Use what you’ve got or buy some rods like this from your local hobby store. These cost me $2.49 each. Cheaper, I’m sure, from a hardware store … or you could cut your own. You could. Yes, you could. Also, some clothespin hangers.

And paint. I chose spray paint because I like it. You can use left over paint – in any color you’d like. I have a small store of paint in my basement.

Then I just laid out my wood on some cardboard in a well ventelated area (my garage) and went to town with the spray paint.

I put a couple coats of paint on it – over a day or so … and then brought them inside and powered up the glue gun.

This is me planning ahead. I measured out and marked where I was going to put the clothespins so I didn’t have two very different looking Art Hangers on my daughters wall. Originally I was going to put them both in her bedroom. (Those plans changed though.)

Glue on your clothespins … I did every other one facing up and then down.

Repeat a bunch, until both rods are full of clothespins and wait for them to dry.

This next step is elective depending on your hanging method – I wanted to nail the Art Hanger into the wall so my daughter couldn’t potentially take it down and use it as a princess sword. You think I’m kidding.

I got out my drill. I own one. I bought it for myself all by myself. The folks at Lowes kept saying things like “What does your husband want in a drill?” and I kept on saying … A vagina. It’s for ME.

I digress.

So I got that bad cord-powered baby out of it’s little case, it’s adorable. All tools are adorable. Like little muffin clouds with rainbows and bows. THEY DON’T SCARE ME … any more. How many men did I just assault? Like naming your member Princess Sophia. We all learned that lesson from How To Lose A Guy In 10 Tens, no?

I continue to digress. Any way … I pre-drilled the holes for the nails and then hung it on the wall without breaking anything or ruining the plaster beneath.

And Viola!

I would use super glue instead of a hot glue gun if you have it – one of the clothespins fell off right away and I’ve re-hot-glued it on more than once. And then I decided to only hang one in my daughters bedroom because it was pretty busy with her art on the wall, so the other one proudly hangs above the shelves I built in our basement … ready for all the art projects and proudly displaying a few already.

The cookie monster was in our house recently.

These peanut butter cookies are gluten free. And there are only 3 ingredients. Oh, oh yes you can.

1 egg
1 C. Peanut Butter
1 C. Sugar

Mix well, plop by spoonfuls on baking sheet and bake in oven at 350 for 8 min, cool on wire rack.

Here’s the play by play on twitter, I only annoyed a few people with my rapid tweets … I think.

Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5, 6
Step 7
Step 8

I used this recipe from Gluten Free Goddess, if you haven’t already been to her site in search of answers about becoming gluten free or how to bake some cookies – you totally should. She is my mecca right now.

Also? Let’s be honest, here. This, first try, loaf didn’t look as pretty as I was envisioning.

But it tasted just fine. I think my issue was the size of pan I used. Her recipe calls for a 1.5 pound loaf pan, and really? I have no idea what that means. I just grabbed one of the 3 (two of which are Ikea pans … and probably weird 8 oz pan sizes or something) loaf pans I own and went for it.

I have a Fearless Kitchen. It’s liberating. I encourage you to forget the rules and add some cinnamon. You’re SO allowed.

Now. Baking gluten free is scary if you’re new to it. There isn’t one flour you can frivolously throw into the mix and get something to rise or not taste like stone. So get to know your GF flour mixes first.

I’ve used Pamela’s Baking Mix with wonderful results. We make our pancakes and waffles with this religiously and LOVE it. Pretty sure you can use it to make breads, scones, cupcakes, birthday cakes, muffins etc etc as well.

I just bought some Red Mill All Purpose GF flour to try out – a trusty GF friend said she felt this mix held up better to an egg replacer.

That’s as technical as I’m getting. If you have questions as to what the heck I’m talking about, leave them in the comments, I will respond to them all.

So – let’s make some bread. For this Tutorial I followed the recipe to a T, I do not have a bread machine so I used her instructions farther down on the page to tell me how to prepare the dough manually. But because those instructions were farther down on the page then the actual recipe, I compromised and came up with this so I wouldn’t get lost:

These are the “wet ingredients” you’ll need:

And the “dry”:

I started by proofing my yeast like so:

Add 2 TBSP Honey to 1 1/4 C warm water …

I missed, oops! But once it’s in the water you’ll have this.

Now stir to dissolve the honey:

Add 1 TBSP Yeast to Honey/Water mixture and stir it up, then forget about it …

Now in a clean bowl we’re going to mix the dry ingredients together – we’ll start with the Sorghum Flour:

You need 1 Cup of this bad boy.

Now we’ll add the Potato Starch, not to be confused with Potato flour.

1 Cup of him, too.

Check your yeast at some point, it’s starting to get happy.

Next, to your dry ingredients, you’ll add the Xanthan Gum. Weird.

2 tsp of it.

Then the Millet Flour:

1/2 cup of his badself

Aaaand the sea salt. Her recipe says “fine sea salt” but I had coarse – throw caution to the wind people! DARE YOURSELF TO UNFOLLOW RULES. Sorry, something came over me.

About this much is fine. The recipe calls for 1 1/4 tsp.

Stir up the Dry Guys

How’s the yeast?

Vondervil!!! Now add the proofed yeast to the dry ingredients

Add 3 to 4 TBSP EVOO

Then the 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar.

In another clean, small bowl quick whip up your egg replacer – 1 TBSP Egg replacer with 4 TBSP warm water until frothy.

Add your “eggs” to the rest of the dough batter

And mix it up, stir stir stir

Until it looks like this

Find yourself a 1.5 pound loaf pan then oil it, WELL. I must have skimmed on the oil part because that’s half the reason my loaf fell apart – I couldn’t get it out of the pan. So … Liberal use of oil.

Plop the batter into your loaf pan

Use a wet finger to smooth out the top of the dough before you set it in a warm place to rise for one hour.

Ready to rise!

I put my loaf to rise underneath a towel on the preheated stove since my kitchen is uber drafty. No chances here folks. I need a warm nest for that bread.

An hour later – here’s the difference:

Bake at 350 for 45 min to an hour. Just knock on the bread, if it’s hollow, it’s done. Cool on a wire rack.

We had BLTs for dinner that night. YUM!

Last night I spent some time clicking around from site to site and I found some gems. Some days I totally “get” the internet and have a blast wondering down the so-called-aisles of spectacular and some days I wonder why I even bother.

Yesterday was not the ladder.

Printable Easter cards for kids, adorable. You have to create an account with Scribd in order to download them, but I have already linked to some sites where you need this same ability. It’s a straight up link, I’m not getting a referral or a kickback for saying that. FCC, how am I doin?

Fluffy fun Easter bouquet – Oh my goodness I have so much yarn as I used to crochet like a madwoman … so I’m doing this. Can’t wait to have my daughter in on this fun.

Feed Your Soul, free downloaded art – so I want to share this with you because FREE ART is amazing and these artists are even better … but I also don’t want to share this with you because it’s so amazing. I want to keep it for myself and decorate my walls with splendor and pretend I spent a fortune on amazing original art. I digress. Check it out, you will not be disappointed.

Gift bags from envelopes – A) This is genius. B) Who doesn’t have a drawer full of misc. office supplies that makes you cringe but not clean out because it’ll one day be useful? Now it is. You’re welcome.

Eggcelent Eggs – decorating Easter eggs with the kids is messy, but very fun. Except your left with brown eggs because they didn’t understand that using ALL the colors at once doesn’t automatically guarantee them a rainbow egg. Also? You can buy brown eggs, so thanks kids. Now you can “pre decorate” the eggs with Awesome and let them dip to their hearts desire. At least now you’ll have brown eggs that kick ass.

Make your own gallery, template – Wow. I plan to use this template on my kids’ art. So so so much finger painting and coloring and writing of their names for the first time … I want to keep it all but it doesn’t feel right sticking it all in a box to hand to them once they’ve graduated college. Now I can enjoy it too.

Se7en – this is just a cool website I stumbled on … we have a very eager 5 year old who wants to know/learn everything and this site seems to (at first glance) do quite a bit of sharing in those terms. She’s a homeschooler mom of seven + 1 … I’m excited to dig in the archives and figure out some experiments we can do together.

Make your own Ampersand (&) – I’ve already emailed this link to half my family and they’re all planning on making it soon. My mom will be making one to put in there soon to be brand new bathroom at the cottage. This is the new shower curtain for said new bathroom, so the Ampersand will go swimingly with it.

Mini-wreaths – Ok, so I would need to spend some money for this one, but the butterflies wreath is just adorable. And if you’re into Dumpster Diving I’ve known people who can find AMAZING stuff in the dumpsters of Michael’s, Hobby Lobby etc … stickers like this even. So if you wait for it, you might be able to pull this one off for free. I’m just saying.

Easy felted flower – I have buttons and some felt that I bought while I was pregnant with my son to make booties that I never, ever used. Huh. 2+2=ACCESSORIES! So excited to try this one. I might make some small add on’s for hair clips for my daughter. She’s kind of fancy like that.

Headband tutorial, bows – Awesome. I’ll try this for the little fashionista in my life as well.

There you have it for today. Get inspired, people. Start trying something, then come back here and tell me about it – I want to hear about your adventures.

I’m working on an Easter Round Up as well – I’ll be going off of what I plan to do for the dinner we’re hosting, but it’ll be difficult to divulge all the information because I have some surprises up my sleeve and my guests read this site (Molly! Mom! Erin! Jill! Hi Sisterlie’s and Mom!) so I’ll have to be stealth about it. However, if you have some Easter ideas – please let me know and I’ll add them to the list. Or an etsy shop you want me to link to, maybe your’s or your mom’s, bestfriend’s, boyfriends’ sister’s?? I’m all over it.

In the meantime – you can stock up on your Easter candy now thanks to Savvy Chic Savings for the heads up on coupons this week/month.

I think Easter is my Christmas. That’s fair warning, right?