Spring Miscellany

Spring is upon us! How do I know? I walked around my soggy, melting backyard today and picked up six (6) gallon-sized buckets of dog poop! Next lifetime, I get goldfish. And a mansion. And staff.

Rosemary's Baby has discovered a fun new game. He sneaks into the boiler room in the basement, climbs up onto the water heater and turns off the tap. When I go to turn on the hot water in the kitchen and nothing comes out, I panic for a few seconds, thinking the well's dried up. Then I trudge down to the basement to turn it back on again for the umpteenth time. Honestly, it's like living with Curious George. It's no wonder that monkey's roommate dressed like an escaped mental patient.


In other news, I have figured out something wonderful! Last week I returned my new Tassimo machine. After months of wanting one, I finally just decided I deserved a treat and bought it for myself. But it took approximately two minutes for me to realize that each coffee comes with a side order of guilt, in the form of the disposable t-disc. My options were as follows: toss the t-disc and spend all day worrying about the environmental impact, or slice open the t-disc, scoop the grounds into the compost bucket, clean out the packaging and recycle it, which completely ruins the convenience aspect of the whole product. In the end, I felt a huge surge of relief after I'd just boxed it back up and gotten my money back. But now I was missing that nice, easy cappuccino.

The Captain has a "restaurant-grade" (you'll want to put on a snooty nasal voice when you read that) cappuccino machine, but it takes half a day to warm the thing up, and it's kind of messy to use, so I just prefer to stick with my simple, no-fuss automatic coffee maker. But the coffee maker obviously doesn't make delicious cappuccino. I'm really not picky in this area though--a little coffee with some hot milk and foam is really all I'm looking for here, so I set about figuring out the easiest way to heat up my milk, get it all foamy and combine it with a regular cup of joe to make a pretty decent version of a cappuccino. My brilliant solution involves these everyday items (please ignore the hard water stains on the measuring jug):




I haven't used that manual egg beater since the Captain put it in my Christmas stocking about ten years ago (in the Captain's defense, I had made quite a production beforehand of talking about how my mother had one and how it was my favourite toy as a kid). But it turns out that when you plop that thing into a jug of microwaved skim milk and give the crank a few quick turns, you get some AMAZING foam! Check this out (and again, ignore the stains on my mug):


Who knew?! So now the egg beater and jug sit permanently on my counter right next to the coffee maker, and I'm lounging around every morning, faux-cappuccino in hand, congratulating myself on saving hundreds of dollars on the Tassimo AND not having to heat up the Captain's fancy kitchen equipment. I really should have my own show on cable.

Comments

Linda said…
Sounds like an excellent solution to me. Way to go!
Dimple said…
Good job!
I don't care about foam, but I do like milk in my coffee, and ...unsweetened powdered baking cocoa! And I don't add sweetener, either! I mention it in case it might sound good to you...
Blessings on your day, and may both your children bring you joy!
Unknown said…
You're so creative! High Five for saying no to adding extra disposable crap to the landfill!
Janine said…
You would be fabulous on TV!!My son bought me one of those battery operated whizzy things.. it's cheap and cheerful and foams up my milk just perfectly.
I love my skinny vanilla latte!!
Deb Neerman said…
LOLOLOL, always so much fun to read what's goin' on in YOUR crazy life! Makes me feel better about MY crazy life. ROFL over the Curious George roommate association.

And yes, sign me up ... I'll watch your new Cable show ... can I have a guest spot?!? Please note: I asked first. LOL!

Yup, it's always those old antiquey things that work best. They were invented before planned obsolescence was ...

Keep on laffin' ... it's the only thing gonna keep you sane, my friend!!

Sending hugs!
Angela said…
I had to beat eggs to fluff by hand the other day and almost died. : )
Jenn said…
Way to go you! I just go for a overly sweet coffe type mix in the morning. Mornings and effort don't do well around here. lol.
Allison said…
I used to love using that kind of egg beater! Now if I just would start drinking coffee I could have some foam too!
Heather said…
such a great inspiration. I bought a percolator when my drip coffee maker died. I have a senseo, but same problem with the little pods. I hated to toss multiples of those every day. I've been looking for a way to make my coffee as enjoyable as my addiction to the local starbucks. My wallet would be so happy with a foam method. How do you warm the milk? Or do you froth it cold and add it to your coffee?
Melanie said…
You are amazing - I am horribly addicted to my Tassimo and very much hate the waste -- while my coffeeaholic (sp) tendancies will not allow me to give it up, i will do as mentioned and scoop and sort into the recycle bin.

Thanks for the prompt -- while I do my part -- I let that little thing hit the landfill -- NO more.
LuckyLady said…
You lied when you said no one will read this - you have 91 followers. This should be a comment on your profile not this post but I never found a place to comment on the profiles. I read a comment you left on someone elses so I just had to hop over here and check you out.

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