I should Change the Name of my Blog

Really starting to feel like I should change the name of this blog to “epic food failures”. I will tell you why in a moment.

I think that we as humans have become complete creatures of habit. Can you imagine living in the Stone Age, where you don’t just need to start the fire to cook the chicken? You need to hunt the chicken, and do all the nasty things leading up to having a raw chicken to place on the fire.

In today’s world that is completely unheard of- even if you went hunting yourself chances are you enlisted an abattoir or butchery to prepare the meat into the cuts that you would like.

This past Friday night, was one such night where we longed for the creature comforts available so readily pre-virus and now so restricted that it becomes a constant reminder of our current ‘new normal’ situation.

I had seen during the day that the Mc Donald’s in our area was finally online on the Mr. Delivery app, and my heart raced of excitement. I have been longing for the convenience of their delicious food. Especially the fries, oh what I would give for Mc Donald’s fries.

Pretty sure that my constantly hinting about my Mc Donald’s craving had stirred something up within my boyfriend, as well after 10 p.m. he mentioned a longing for a something sweet to drink like a milkshake.

Me, being the dedicated girlfriend that I am, and all convenient entities such as Mc Donald’s being long out of reach for the day, I set out to make his desires a reality.

I remembered that we had some Ricoffy peppermint crisp cappuccinos in the cupboard and started hatching out a plan to turn this into a delicious milkshake for my love. Sadly, a thought entered my mind, reminding me of the coffee drink everyone has been trying out since lockdown started.

The whipped coffee, the Dalgona coffee- how could I not, being the good girlfriend that I am (yeah, no ego at all) bestow this seemingly divine drink upon the man that I love?

Now you need to bear in mind that it is after 10 p.m. and I am not at my own home with all my favourite kitchen gadgets. I decided not to turn to google for a recipe, since you know I’ve seen all the videos and I am more than capable of giving it my own spin. I decide to use the Ricoffy peppermint crisp cappuccino sachet- this was my first mistake. My second and in hindsight I think really obvious mistake, was to use our sweetener tablets instead of actual granulated sugar. My third mistake, and this was my most physically painful mistake, was not knowing that there was not an electric mixer in the house. I still have some level of tennis elbow in my shoulder, or maybe it is just PTSD from my failed attempt.

I emptied the sachet into a bowl, added the sweetener tablets (still want to facepalm at the thought), and then added the two tablespoons of hot water. Okay, it was probably a bit more than two tablespoons since I had the spoon over the bowl and poured over the spoon messing off the sides quite a bit. I then started to attempt to mix this with your ordinary run of the mill whisk. You know the one where you need to use your wrist and shoulder to operate. Now the recipe says that with an electric mixer it should take about 3 – 5 minutes to turn into the fluffy texture required for the coffee mix to stay on top of the milk and not just blend into the milk. Considering that at the time I had not yet consulted the recipe, can you imagine what the elbow grease time scale comparison to 5 minutes with an electric mixer would be? I didn’t find out, I tell you what it’s not – it’s not a half hour of mixing vigorously. Wonder how I know? I tried!! After half an hour of mixing rapidly by hand and adding two tablespoons of granulated sugar and two tablespoons of instant coffee I still just had a watery liquid. By this time, it was after 11p.m. and luckily for us my boyfriend’s parents stay on the property and would still be awake. At this point I pleaded with my boyfriend to ask his mother who used to be a baker if I could borrow her electric mixer. She naturally agrees, I mean who wouldn’t? How desperate do you have to be to ask for a mixer at 11 pm. I mixed with the electric mixer for what felt like forever, and still no change. A sticky smooth coffee resembling liquid is all I had. I gave up! I threw some ice into one of our Krystal whisky glasses, poured it three quarter full with milk and added the sticky coffee mix at the top. I don’t know why I was still hoping but it didn’t float like all the videos, it sank right to the bottom. I gave it to my boyfriend and prayed that it would satisfy his craving for a sweet cold drink. He said that it did, but still now I am sceptical if he wasn’t just trying to be nice after seeing the frustration in my eyes.

Being the tough cookie that I am, the next morning I got right back on the horse and tried again. This time actually following the recipe to the T and set an alarm (yes, I know so geeky) for the amount of time to mix. Thankfully I still had the electric mixer with me, and this time it was absolute perfection! Leaving some counter tops messy and sticky of course, but how else do you enjoy the experiments in the kitchen?

I’m pleased that in the end I accomplished my goal, want to attempt Dalgona milo next and possibly home made cocoa hot chocolate – good luck to the kitchen. I do get frustrated at my kitchen mishaps, but at the same time I think that’s what gives the best flavour to my food and drinks.

Don’t let your flops discourage you but rather see them as an adventure.

Jo xo

Jo’s Take Away’s

Don’t be hasty
Make sure you have the necessary tools
Check the recipe, just in case!

As always find the photos on instagram @imjoxo

The Final Flavours and my Personal Favourite

I hope you’ve been waiting in anguish since my last post to find out which one of the final three came out on top as my personal favourite flavour of Beanies coffee.

I wish this upon you only for the reason that I had to wait almost two weeks to try the Creamy Caramel flavour, which I assumed would arise as my number one.

Sadly, this was not the case. The caramel smelt amazing but to my disappointment it tasted very generic. It smelt a lot more like the yummy caramel that I was expecting than it tasted.

So sadly my taste buds and heart were let down by the Creamy Caramel coffee which I waited two weeks to enjoy.

All hope was not lost however, I found two real gems in-between. I was so shocked at one of the two that I so much enjoyed since I don’t even like this taste in general.

Ginger Bread!!! I am so completely shocked, I don’t like ginger at all. Except maybe a bit with my sushi. I don’t eat ginger cookies, I don’t drink ginger ale- nothing!

Yet the ginger bread flavoured coffee made it to my top two, I actually ended up not only drinking mine but my boyfriend’s ginger flavoured coffee too!

My favourite however, was the…wait for it…

Cookie dough flavour! I was very impressed with this flavour! It was so good, creamy and yummy. A friend of mine who also tried the Beanies coffee was asking me about my flavour journey and mentioned that he didn’t like the cookie dough so I guess it’s not for everyone.

I really enjoyed this adventure through the flavours especially since it was the only kind of adventure I could have while our country is on lockdown!

I’m looking forward to the day I can go to a restaurant again, and buy some wine!

Please Stay Safe!

Jo xo

Jo’s Take Away’s

When you buy a low calorie coffee expect it to taste as such
Be a little open minded
Always make the best of tough situations

The Flavoured Coffee Journey Continues

My apologies, I intended this to be a daily post but realised one flavour to review at a time would be a very short post!

I currently have a favourite flavour, which I’ll share shortly, and a very close second which even surprised me.

At this point there are four that I haven’t had yet, three of them I will never have the privilege to try due to a sensitivity to nuts. I won’t be able to try the following flavours

Amaretto Almond
Nutty Hazelnut
Cinnamon Hazelnut

If you try any of those please feel free to share your experience in the comments.

The fourth one I haven’t tried yet is the creamy caramel- I am waiting in suspense to try this one tomorrow morning, hoping that I have saved the best for last.

The day after I had tried the double chocolate flavour, I was a bit sceptical about trying the rest of the flavours and didn’t go in with an open mind.

The second one I tried was the Irish Cream, OH. MY. GOODNESS. I was pleasantly surprised, I accidentally let it get cold, but I still drank it. You don’t understand the magnitude of this, I don’t even drink Nescafé if it’s too cold.

The only thing though about the Irish Cream is that I am not sure if it actually tasted like Irish Cream. It tasted good yes, but did it taste like what it was supposed to? That – I can’t answer.

Next, we had the Choc Mint, I guess Beanies haven’t quite gotten the formula right for flavours containing chocolate. It really wasn’t great, was a bit like having coffee after brushing your teeth.

Then there was the Very Vanilla, I had a sip of my boyfriend’s one a few days prior to having mine since we didn’t always do the same flavour. I was not impressed, it made my toothpaste combo seem like it tasted good. However, when I had mine, it wasn’t half bad- I really enjoyed it. It had a light coffee taste with slight undertones of vanilla. I think the difference between my boyfriend’s Very Vanilla and mine was that he used sweetener and I used refined sugar which we used for a few days.

The next one was the Coconut Delight- not actually that memorable, it wasn’t bad but wasn’t amazing either. I do remember the slight aftertaste of coconut though. You know after you’ve eaten a lamington and that last bit of coconut is stuck to the underside of your teeth without you knowing? You might gnaw your teeth a little and have that crunchy coconut taste in your mouth. That’s what it’s like after having a sip of the Coconut Delight!

The last one which I am going to tell you about in this particular post is the Chocolate Orange. You know that I said they haven’t mastered the chocolate flavour’s formula yet, right? Well they should use the this one’s ratios. It’s perfect! It reminded me of the KitKat citrus chocolate, which I quite enjoy. Still this wasn’t the best one I’ve had so far though.

Want to know which one was best? Look out for my next blog post on these coffees which will reveal my favourite flavour so far and if the creamy caramel could knock it off it’s throne.

To be continued.

Jo xo

a Series of Flavoured Coffee Reviews part 1

So, the boyfriend and I went on an essential shopping trip, you know for the normal things.

Trash bags, lemon juice, distilled water and so forth. We have a tendency for trying new things, and of course, as a true theology student, I have an intense love for good coffee.

Years ago, there used to be caramel instant coffee which I can’t seem to put out of my head- the search for its equivalent is ever present in the back of my head.

We went to one of the supermarkets in our area which is open during lockdown, and kind of dwelled around hoping the items in the aisles would spark our memory of what is lacking at home.

Of course, we would end up in the coffee aisle and find a box of Beanies flavoured coffee with 12 sachets of coffee in! This we had to try, so we decided to get each of us a box, sadly not the box with the salted caramel flavour though (which is one of my favourite flavours for anything).

So, with dinner we decided to try out the first one, ‘double chocolate’. I must say at first, I was underwhelmed, it seemed to have a bit of an identity crisis. Not enough coffee to be a coffee, not enough chocolate to be hot chocolate and not enough of both to be a mochaccino.

I will admit some error on our part as the kettle had recently been boiled and we did not re boil it and I am not a fan of cold coffee. Also, we only added 2 sweetener which is the equivalent of what we add to Hug in a Mug.

So I did warm my coffee and add another sweetener and then it was actually quite nice, still not as flavourful as I had hoped though. It smelled amazing but the taste did not quite live up to the smell.

That might well be because I am more accustomed to a stronger blend of coffee though, so if you are fond of the less intense coffees and in the mood for something exotic I would definitely suggest you try these!

Jo’s Take Away’s

Make a shopping list
Make sure you aren’t allergic to any of the flavours before you buy the box
Use smaller mugs for stronger coffee

The next flavour I will be reviewing is the Irish Cream, really hoping that it will impress me more than this one.

Hope you are surviving lockdown and staying safe.

Jo xo

Baked Potato Boats

I think most of us are in lock down around the world. For me this is quite frustrating as I am 100% an extrovert. Don’t get me wrong, I understand and fully agree with our government’s decision to keep us inside, and I am very thankful to have some time to get back to my blogging again.

I decided to spend the 3 weeks of lock down at my boyfriend’s house- don’t think I would’ve survived three weeks without him. This being said, his kitchen is not without uhm challenges.

At my house I have a gas stove and oven, and at his place everything is electric. If you have ever used an electric stove you know that it takes time to build up heat whereas with a gas stove the heat is immediately there.

This presented quite the challenge for me with our dinner this past Friday, making baked potatoes in the oven.

In my gas oven it would take 20 – 25 minutes for baked potatoes to be completely cooked, in his electric oven after an hour the potatoes were only mostly cooked.

Since we are in lock down I have some extra time on my hands so I decided to try some new ideas out (well at least new to me- ideas I haven’t tried yet.)

Friday night baked potato boats had won the lucky “what’s for dinner” question.

What are baked potato boats you may ask? A mash up between baked potatoes and mash, excuse the pun.

Step 1: You cut the potatoes in half and bake them in the oven until the skin is nice and crispy and the inside is thoroughly cooked and soft;

Step 2: Scoop out the inside of the potato into a bowl that you have ready and try to keep the skin of the potato intact.;

Step 3: Mash the potato insides together, I use some baking powder and milk to make my mashed potatoes fluffy and creamy, and added some cream cheese to add some delicious flavour;

Step 4: Make bacon (if you want to add some awesomeness to your boats);

Step 5: Add the bacon to your mashed potato mix;

Step 6: Scoop the mash potato mix into the skins of the potatoes which are hopefully still intact (I did not succeed in all of mine being intact);

Step 7: Grate some cheese;

Step 8: Sprinkle cheese over the “boats”;

9: Microwave the boats for 30 seconds (till cheese melts);

10: Enjoy the deliciousness.

The baked potato boats were absolutely delicious and filling. I used two large potatoes per person, so we ended up leaving some in the microwave. Not the best idea when milk and cream cheese are involved. I think the baked potato boats would be better the next day if kept in the fridge and not the microwave.

Jo’s Take Away’s:

Use lock down wisely
Make sure that there is no dairy in the product before putting in the microwave over night
Familiarize yourself with the equipment beforehand