It's the Official Drink of Rhode Island, Y'all!

A few weeks ago when I was in North Carolina for my weekend getaway to the Biltmore, my friends and I stopped by a grocery store to pick up a few items for breakfast. While we were perusing the dairy section in search of coffee creamer, we came across an intriguing item called Coffee Milk. Lauren and I were the two who were most interested in this concoction and so we bought a quart to try. 

I don't remember if we popped it open that night or waited until breakfast the next morning, but whatever the case, we really liked it and were sad that we had never seen it at home. We assumed our coffee milk days were behind us and that we would look upon that time fondly. 

Well, for whatever reason, I decided to Google coffee milk last week. My original intent was to try and find out if it might be sold in one of the grocery stores nearby and in my search, I discovered that coffee milk is the official drink of Rhode Island and then it made perfect sense as to why I had not yet seen this delicacy in the deep South. I then ended up searching for recipes and came across several, all involving coffee syrup. I don't know about you, but I had never heard of coffee syrup. I did find some on Amazon but it was kind of pricey and so that led me to search for recipes for coffee syrup and in the process I found a recipe for coffee syrup and the proportions needed to make coffee milk. 

Since I had all the ingredients on hand to make both the syrup and the milk, I made this my Saturday morning project. I brewed two cups of coffee, added one cup of sugar and brought it to a boil on the stove top. Then I reduce the heat and let it simmer until it was reduced to about 1 and a half cups. The recipe says this should take about 30 minutes, it took me a little longer. I then removed from the heat, poured into a glass bottle (you can use a Mason jar or whatever you have on hand) and placed in the refrigerator. Once cool, you combine 2-4 Tablespoons of coffee syrup to one cup of cold milk and mix to get coffee milk. 

I think I put a little too much syrup in my glass  because it was a lot sweeter than I remembered it, so in reality, two Tablespoons is going to be plenty. The syrup will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. It was really easy to make and now we can have coffee milk whenever we want which is a bonus indeed! 

Here's the link to the recipe I found online. 

Coleslaw 101

I'm sure when you clicked over here today the last thing you expected to see was a post about coleslaw. Believe me, it's not a subject I ever thought I would devote a whole post to, but here we are. I don't remember when or even how it started, but one day I became the official coleslaw maker in our family and now it is my most requested dish. My grandmother Opal was the original coleslaw maker in our family and I tired to replicate her slaw for some family event and ever since I've been the go-to coleslaw person. Even my grandmother loves it.

I make coleslaw for every holiday and cookout and all events in between and the funniest bit of all is that I don't even eat it. In fact, I don't even like the smell of it. I like coleslaw in general, but I guess when it's something you make all the time you kind of develop a distaste for it.

I often get requests for my "coleslaw recipe" and I hate it when people ask that because there is no "recipe". I just make it. There are no official measurements and that's what makes it difficult when people ask for the "recipe". Since I made coleslaw as part of our Father's Day lunch, I decided to put it in a post so I can refer people when they ask. There are still no measurements, but maybe this will at least help folks out when they are trying to make it on their own.

Here we go...

The Ingredients: Cabbage, Carrots, Onion, Mayonnaise, and Splenda (or you can use Sugar)

First, I chop the cabbage and then put in the food processor and pulse until it is very fine.  

The cabbage in the processor before it is pulsed

Chopped Cabbage

After chopping a bowl of cabbage only, I chop a bowl with cabbage, carrots and onion. In this case I used about 15 baby carrots and a little more than half an onion. The amount of onion you need will depend on how strong the onion is. You don't want the coleslaw to be overpowered with onion. 

The bowl now contains all chopped ingredients.

I use a spoon this size to scoop out the Mayonnaise. It's a serving spoon - bigger than a Tablespoon, but not as big as a giant serving spoon. The Mayonnaise jar I was using while making this batch of coleslaw was almost empty so I scooped as much as I could. Most of the time, if the jar is fairly full, I will scoop about three or four heaping spoonfuls of Mayonnaise into the bowl. 

 Here is the bowl with Mayonnaise scooped in.

Next I pour in Splenda (or sugar if you prefer). Again, there are no precise measurements, I just pour in the amount that looks good. If I were to guess I would say maybe a cup or so. 

Then I stir everything together. Sometimes I might add more Mayonnaise and Splenda depending on if the mixture is dry or not. Basically I just want it all to be mixed well an all the cabbage, carrots, and onion to be coated with the Mayonnaise and Splenda. (Yes, I keep my mixing bowl in the sink while I'm working.) 

Finally, I place the coleslaw in a pretty bowl, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours before serving. That way it will be cold and all the flavors with me melded together. 

Here's an up close photo of how finely everything is chopped and what it looks like after mixed. 

And that, my friends, is how I make my infamous coleslaw. If you give it a try, let me know how it turns out.

Back to the Grind

Well, I wrapped up the final couple of days of my Christmas vacation and went back to work on Tuesday. I was ready to be back on a normal schedule, but also dreaded getting up early after sleeping in (until 7:00 - I'm such a rebel!) and taking lots of naps while I was off.

On Sunday, my dad came home from the hospital and we were able to enjoy the nice dinner we had originally planned for New Year's Eve. The food was excellent if I do say so myself. I tried this new potato recipe and also this recipe for Egg Nog Pie. If you like Egg Nog, then you will definitely like this pie, which is very light and goes well with a heavy meal when you don't want a heavy dessert. After dinner, we visited with our friends Naaman and Cheryl and then The Tide and I headed home for a night of good rest.

Monday morning I went to the gym and then came home and finally cleaned my bathroom. I say finally because it seems like ti had been on the to do list for about a week before I was finally able to get to it on Monday morning. That afternoon, I took a break from watching football (much to the surprise of my dad) to go have a late lunch with my Aunt Linda. We went to Jason's Deli and the food was, as expected, great. I love their salad bar! We visited for an hour and a half or so and then I came back home and watched more football and perused the internets for nothing in particular.

All of my Christmas decorations were put away last Friday with the exception of my outside lights and I suppose I will get around to doing that this coming weekend. I did manage to take the wreaths down as they are stored in the same bag as my tree. I've got some lingering dish towels and whatnot to put away still but am waiting on some of them to still be laundered so I can take them all out at once. I haven't got in much of a hurry with the laundry as of late.

As mentioned I started back to work today and I was kind of excited because back in early November, I won a sweet parking spot in our annual United Way campaign. I won the spot for two months, which then turned into four months when they doubled the number of spots available on the side where I park. You see, we have a huge parking lot and it is quite a trek from where us minions usually park to the inside of the building and the spot I won (for January, March, July and September) is quite close to the entrance. Seeing as how today is the coldest day of the winter thus far, that made the spot even better.

Well, when I arrived this morning, everyone was parked up close because they have started doing some repair work on the paring lot and I kid you not, over half of the parking lot was blocked off; and now, since it's so cold out, no one knows when the work will resume. So, my parking spot, is less than shiny right now since everyone is parking up close. I hope they get those parking lot repairs completed soon so that I can enjoy my winnings while everyone else (except those who have worked here for 25 years or longer) have to park out in Timbuktu.

Work actually went by rather quickly today as we are doing inventory and spent a good portion of the day auditing counts. I suppose it's a nice way to ease back into the daily routine of coming to work each day and actually wearing clothes other than pajamas. Hope your week is off to a good start as well!

Thanks For The Salad, Deb

Last week I wrote a post about the Taco Flavored Doritos that have made a comeback and about the salad my mom used to make when I was a kid that was ever so tasty. Well, good ole Deb is a loyal reader of my blog and she made that salad for me this past Saturday. I should have taken a picture of it so you could see all the salad-Dorito goodness, but we were too hungry to take time to stop and do that. The salad was delicious and just as wonderful as I remembered it being. My dad liked it too and so did my mom. I’m not sure about my granddad; he didn’t say much, but he’s more of a sweets man anyway.

My mom didn’t have a recipe and just kind of made it up as she went along. Here’s what all she put in it in case you want to give it a try yourself:

Lettuce – a head of, not the bagged kind
Chives
Tomato
Avocado
Ranch Dressing – Just however much you think is appropriate
Crushed up Taco flavored Doritos

Mix the first four ingredients together then crunch up the Doritos, pour on top and mix again. Serve immediately – otherwise you’ll have soggy Doritos and that’s never a good thing.

You can add other ingredients as well. I remember this salad having cucumbers, but that may just be because I’m a cucumber lover and like to think of all things salad as having cucumbers. We didn’t think about putting cheese in it until the end, but you can obviously add that too. Just make it your own – I promise you it will be delightful!