Fiber Fool

Coffee is a huge “thing” where I come from, though my immediate family does not drink it. Somewhere along the line though I started to develop a taste for it. I thank my Swedish grandmother for the joy I find in savoring a cup of coffee. Sweden is among the top ten countries in consumption of coffee per capita (I once read they were second, but Wikipedia says 6th)? See, it really is in my blood to love coffee.

I have become a bit of a coffee snob and I much prefer my beans and my prepared coffee drinks to come from The Bean Cycle, a local place that roasts fresh and buys fair trade and organic beans. My favorite drink from them is the Ella Vanilla - it is a honey and vanilla latte. I find the balance of honey and vanilla to vary greatly though depending upon the barista so I’ve taken to making it myself. I’ve been able to reduce the calories a bit too by using vanilla extract rather than vanilla syrup.

Another component in my Swedish blood besides coffee is cardamom. This sweet spice with floral notes to it appears frequently in Swedish baked goods like my favorites - bullar and semla. I’ve from time to time cracked some cardamom pods into my grounds before filling my French Press. It seemed only natural to add it to my homemade Ella Vanilla Lattes and thus the Svea (pronounced s-VEE-ah in legit Swedish according to a woman I met with that name, though I grew up pronouncing it sa-VEH-ah) Latte was born.

For the next several weeks I’m hosting my Monday night knitting group. We only started meeting at homes in the last 18 months or so if I recall correctly and prior to that we met at a couple different coffee shops. While overall we’re much happier meeting in homes, a few of our members miss the lattes so I thought it would be nice to have lattes to drink on Monday evening - decaf of course. But I didn’t want to man the espresso machine all night, pulling shots and steaming milk for each drink. I originally thought I’d make this Pumpkin Maple Latte recipe, but my cut down version of it for DH and I over the weekend was not a pleasant experience. I am unsure if it was due to our little slow cooker not having temp settings or that we did not let the pumpkin settle enough between the last stir and serving, but it was gloopy and a stomach turning texture. I was pretty certain the pumpkin was the entire culprit and took a chance and made my Svea Latte instead. It was met with several thumbs up besides myself. I’ve also noticed others have recently become obsessed with cardamom and thought I’d share my method for slow cooker Svea Lattes.

Slow Cooker Svea Lattes or Honey, Vanilla & Cardamom Lattes

Serves 8 with generous mugs, 12 with standard cups

Ingredients

• 1/2 C Coarse Ground Coffee (French Press Grind)
• 3 C Hot Water, off the boil for 1 minute
• 6 C Milk, I used 1%
• 3/4 C Honey, locally sourced if possible
• 1/2 Vanilla Bean, scraped seeds only
• 20 Green Cardamom Pods, lightly cracked open
• 1 Tbs Pure Vanilla Extract
• Whipped Cream, optional
• Nutmeg, freshly ground, optional

Directions

1. Place grounds in a large French Press, pour a little bit of the hot water over the grounds and swirl to make sure all the grounds get wet. Fill with remaining hot water. Push plunger to level of liquid to ensure all grounds are submerged and brew for 4 minutes. Slowly push plunger down and add the strong brewed coffee to the slow cooker.
2. Add milk, honey and vanilla bean seeds and whisk together.
3. Lightly crack open the cardamom pods in a mortar and pestle, place in a tea ball and add to slow cooker.
4. Let cook on low for 2-3 hours. About 30 minutes before first serving add the vanilla extract. Turn slow cooker to warm if that mode is available.
5. Ladle into mugs or cups. If desired you can top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of freshly ground nutmeg.

If you have leftovers it does reheat nicely either on the stove top or in the microwave.

You can reduce the honey to 1/2 C and let everyone add more to taste if desired too, though honey should be an identifiable flavor of the drink. I suspect you could omit the vanilla bean if needed, as they can be costly and some don’t like the black flecks floating around. You will want to up the vanilla extract in that case, probably doubling it will do.

If you do not wish to make one for a crowd but just for yourself, make your latte as you normally do, but add 4-5 cracked cardamom pods to your 8-12 oz of milk as you steam or heat it, add a double shot of espresso, 1 tablespoon of honey and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Enjoy!

Halloween is often a pretty big deal around here. DH has been talking about it and the lack of haunted houses the way he’d like haunted houses done since last year’s Day of the Dead. Okay, but he isn’t *quite* that obsessed, but it is a holiday that is very much anticipated in our household.

1. Make some decorations for you home. I love these creepy ghost things some friends of ours had up at a party a few years ago. They’re decor gets better every year!

2. Watch scary movies. We tend more towards psychological thrills most of the time and we start ramping up and putting them in more frequent rotation once school is in full swing. Last year we watched the original Let the Right One In while we waited for the couple trick or treaters we get. That was a *very* good choice. So far this year we’ve watched some classics, including the more funny than scary The Frighteners, the classic Bruce Cambell flick The Evil Dead and the really creepy The Skeleton Key to name a few.

3. Make part of your costume, like this tooth necklace I made to accompany my costume for a murder mystery party where I played Dr. Angel Death, DDS! I actually wear it on Halloween day most years since I made it. Just a touch of Halloween without being either cutesy or over the top.

4. Eat some candy you don’t normally have. This year we picked some candy that neither of us has had in quite some time. It was kind of fun to revisit them.

5. Of course, carving a pumpkin is a fantastic activity for getting into the Halloween frame of mind. DH & I are going to carve one each later this week. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with mine yet. One year I did an intricate carving of a woman screaming. I’ll have to try locate the photo and share it with you guys. This one was at a friends’ annual Halloween party.

6. Eat pumpkin things in the form of muffins, scones, oatmeal bars and more! The pumpkin pie-like spices in general works as well.

7. Make some creepy, gory food to share with everyone! The master of the above ghoulish creation, Gene, (which sadly never got eaten as people didn’t want to mess it up) is working on a bleeding anatomical heart for this year. I got to observe some of the initial trial run on Sunday. It is going to be awesome!

8. Eating something round, sticky and nearly impossibly to eat is a good idea. I keep wanting to make popcorn balls again like we did when I was kid. Caramel apples fit the prescription as well (though an odd fact - I’ve never had an honest to goodness one, we always dipped our cut apples into Mrs. Richardson’s caramel sauce).

9. Go to a haunted house. Though I have to confess, the usual loud noises and invasion of personal space as they run you through on warp speed for the haunted houses around here isn’t as satisfying as a more all-encompassing immersion into a scene/storyline would.

10. If none of the above work, you could always go green!

I’m very late in posting today because I had an early morning photoshoot. As luck would have it, it was very dark and overcast this morning and now the light in the living room is FANTASTIC! When I don’t have a model available :-(

I did come to one conclusion - I need better trained dogs, LOL! Above is an “outtake” from this morning. Of course the poor lighting conditions required a 1/15 sec shutter speed (that is very slow and requires a tripod) doesn’t help with a couple hyper dogs. Probably 80% of the shots with either Brandon or Emma look like a streak of black or brown.

Halloween:

• Here is a great yarn ball Halloween wreath. No directions, but a inspiration idea. I’m sure you could use scraps and styrofoam balls to make it.
• While we have no shortage of pumpkins here, I understand other parts of the country do (and our prices are not nearly as low) here are 5 ideas to do instead of carving pumpkins.
• I love these adorable mummies made from food boxes! It sounds easy too!
• This is a great idea for a spooky mirror to decorate your house with.
• Can’t decide how to decorate your pumpkin? How about turn it into a chalkboard so you can put new faces on it over and over?
• If you want some tips for better capturing your trick or treaters on Halloween, Adorama made a nice video this week to help you out.

Crafty:

• I am *loving* this jersey knit cardigan and am thinking my sewing machine is going to *have* to be dusted off to make one of these!
• This ruffled skirt is really cute too!
• If only we had more places that carried cute placemats I’d have to make this great grometted tote bag!

Yummy:

• This s’More birthday cake looks scrumptious!
• I keep wanting to try steel cut oats. This recipe with apples might be the winner for my first go.
• The photos in this post on pears, hazlenuts and honey are so drool worthy. I must buy more pears…She also had a recent post on Gluten Free Maple Glazed Donuts that have me intrigued.
• Along with pumpkin, one of my other favorite fall flavors is molasses and Rodale shared 5 recipes featuring the dark syrup.

Funny:

• The Panopticon made me laugh again this week with his public service announcement.
• The difference between Facebook and Twitter gave me a great chuckle too. (Thanks Chris!)

This was as close as we got to a usable shot with a dog in it… *sigh*

At the beginning of the month Amanda and her two boys and I headed for the south east part of Loveland to attend Osborn Farm’s Market Days event. This was our third year in a row of attending and I think it just gets better each year!

Our first priority was to choose our pumpkins while there were still plenty of choices. I think Jacob enjoyed his first year of getting to take part in the choosing process :-) Because it is too darn cute, here he is a little larger…

And no, your eyes didn’t deceive you. I brought home over 40 pounds of pumpkin! (Plus some gourds not pictured there.) It was only $16! That was mostly pie pumpkin that I’ll be roasting and making puree to freeze and pumpkin butter. We also got two carving pumpkins which DH and I will be carving the middle of next week. I still am not solid on what I’m going to do on mine…

After we secured our pumpkins and stashed them in the car it was petting zoo time! There were the usual suspects - goats (a favorite as they are so friendly), a donkey, ducks, kittens, a turkey and chickens. There were probably a couple more animals I’m forgetting since it was nearly a month ago now that we went.

There was more fun, but you’ll have to wait. See, I’ve learned a bunch more about post-processing my photos. Especially for the web so they don’t appear so washed out. But, it makes the process take much longer than my previous method… So you’ll have to wait for more Market Day photos, but they will be coming.

It totally sounds like the title to some fantastic fable, doesn’t it?

We have a seemingly happy, yet tender under her right leg and non-drinking dog in the household that is kind of sucking up all my mental energy right now. Spent a couple hours at the vet yesterday for no answers, some special dog food and GI antibiotics with discussion of xrays tomorrow if no improvement has been seen. She is also having to be taken on walks rather than let out into the yard so that we may monitor her bodily functions and that is eating up some time (though no doubt is good for the both of us, but doing so 5-6 times a day is a little tiresome). Brandon is not liking all this attention being paid to Emma and thus is also taking up more time and energy.