Remember my post from yesterday where I mentioned I was in the process of making cold brew coffee? Well, if not, I did. I tried some the next day and love it, and even have more brewing as we speak you read this. Since I like to share (sometimes) good things, I’ll tell you this super easy cold brew coffee recipe to try for yourself.
Traditionally, to make cold/iced coffee, it’s brewed hot and served over ice or refrigerated to cool it down. But cold brew coffee, as the name implies, is never heated and brewed entirely with cold or lukewarm water over several hours. With this method, you lose most of the acidity/bitterness that results from brewing with hot water, which gives you a smooth, highly enjoyable, and bitter-free coffee that is wonderful on its own or with a bit of milk.
Using a French Press makes this simple recipe even easier. If you don’t have one, don’t fret, it’s still easy as ever and wayyyyy worth it. Unless you don’t like coffee, which is weird and unheard of in the parenting community. What, do you have natural energy? Well, coffee is natural, so there!
Sorry, now where was I? Oh yes, coffee, cold brew, homemade…recipe. Okay, I’m good, here you go.
Easy Homemade Cold Brew Coffee
Ingredients: (Yields 4 Cups of Concentrated Coffee)
1 Cup Coarsely Ground Coffee
4 Cups Good Quality Filtered Water
Directions:
Add coarsely ground coffee to a large bowl or French Press.
Pour in your cold water and stir to mix everything together.
Cover and refrigerate 12 – 24 hours.
After sitting/brewing for 12 – 24 hours, strain your coffee.
If you used a French press, just press the lid down to strain the coffee and pour it into a separate, sealable container. Store in the fridge until ready to use.
If you used a bowl, get a separate bowl and place a strainer lined with a coffee filter or cheesecloth on top of it . Pour the coffee and grounds into the cheesecloth and let sit until the liquid has passed through. Remove the strainer with filter or cheesecloth and serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Once strained, you now have coffee concentrate. Make sure to dilute it based on how strong or light you want it. I like it fairly strong and find 2:1 coffee/water ratio works best.
Add milk and/or sweetener (I like stevia) if you want, but please try it alone before adding anything. The cold brew method makes it a lot smoother and even sweeter.
For the best results, use high quality coffee beans. Probably obvious, but Folgers or Maxwell House just won’t cut it……ever. Also, if you’re able, buy your beans whole and don’t grind them until you are ready to start. Make sure the grind is coarse and not fine. Using finely ground coffee will not give you good results with the cold brewing method!
For those of you that aren’t a fan of coffee, you might end up loving the cold brew method since it’s not as bitter as the traditional method of brewing. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.
Have you ever tried cold brew coffee?
Have you made it at home or plan on making it now?
Is there something you’ve wanted for years but haven’t been able to get it for some reason? Okay, fine, there’s probably more than just something and more like a lot of things. But for me, one of them was an ergometer so I could enjoy indoor rowing at home.
After many many years of blah-blahing to Going Mom about how I want one, I finally earned enough points on my Amazon card to pull the trigger; or should it be rigger? 🙂 Just a little rowing joke for you, you’re welcome. And of course I had to share my purchase on Facebook, but only because Amazon asked me to after I hit “submit payment”.
It finally came this past Tuesday and I quickly worked on putting it together. With my favorite little helper, of course.
Think something’s too easy for you? Throw in a toddler or two and that should solve your issue; instant increase in difficulty! But we love them! Avery was super interested in everything I had out and thought everything was up for grabs.
What if I push this button?
Thankfully Kelley was able to keep Avery at bay long enough for me to have it assembled and ready to test before it was too late. I skipped the usual walk (it was freakin’ cold outside anyway), and opted to do a 5k row which took just under 20 minutes. Ahhh, I love it!
But there is one thing that’s an issue…..Avery. She’ll walk right into my arms as they’re pulling back which results in me knocking her over. Poor girl, she just laughs and thinks I’m playing with her. It’s sad, really.
Again, thanks to my wife holding Avery back as best as she could, the first row went mostly okay. But the next day, when Kelley was at work, I wanted to try for another 5k. After Avery finished….umm, whatever she was doing with it…..
I’m gonna have to work with her on how to properly use equipment.
Anyway, I finally got to it with Avery circling me like a shark and I was a surfer with an open wound. Then she went in for the kill and put her hand on the railing as I was pushing back, and oops! Avery’s shark fin hand got hit by the rolling seat.
The good thing is that I slowed down just before since she moved behind me, but the bad this is that I hurt her precious little hand and she was screaming to let me know. I held her, for a while, but the screaming ensued. I was finally able to set her down and finish my workout (the hand incident happened only 2 minutes into it) and she kept her distance the remainder of the time.
I’d like to think she now knows better, but something tells me she’s still too intrigued by the machine to keep away. You could call it a hunch, but she makes it apparent as well. Especially when I said “raise your hand if you still want to get close to the rower” and she responded with….
Yeah, so there’s that.
My foot is still not healed from when I fractured it this summer since I started running on it before it was fully recovered. Call me stubborn, call me dumb, call me whatever, but I’m hoping this rower will keep me from running while still giving me that tired, sweaty workout I seem to crave. Time will tell, and then I’ll tell you here.
In the meantime, I have this beautiful French Press full of black gold (not oil, coffee!!!) in our fridge right now in an attempt at my first homemade cold brew coffee.
I’m letting it steep for 24 hours and then I’ll press and strain the highly concentrated coffee into another glass. I’m sure I’ll try some before diluting. You know, just to “test” it at full strength. Then I’ll dilute in a 2:1 coffee to water ratio.
Maybe some Pyure Sweet Stevia or SweetLeaf English Toffee Liquid Stevia for something extra fancy and tasty, but otherwise, I’ll enjoy it cold and black. I’ll let you know how it goes soon. Maybe it’ll fuel another 5k row, or even 10k if Avery keeps her little hands off the rail!
Have you ever used an indoor rower (i.e. ergometer)?
Ever make your own cold brew or try some already made before?
Going Mom, aka my amazing wife, has always been ah-mazing since the day we met, and this past weekend was no different. It’s been over 2 years since I’ve been sick, let alone going a day without coffee or fitting in a “needed” workout, but Kelley took care of everything in true awesome wife/mom style.
On Friday, I started feeling a little off, and not like my ‘Going’ self. I had just knocked out 30 reps of heavy-to-me barbell squats followed by high-rep front squats for leg day, so I attributed my weary status mostly to this.
Saturday, we woke up to our almost 15 month old alarm clock named Avery, and went about our normal routine with coffee and breakfast. And of course spontaneous bursts of crying for no reason followed by cute laughs and smiles. You know, typical toddler ludicrousness.
But things still didn’t feel right with soreness across my body. My legs were sore (blamed the squats there), neck and shoulders were tense (must’ve been a bad sleep), and I felt fatigued (again with the bad sleep). But I shrugged it off as I left Kelley and Avery at home as I went grocery shopping with orders to hurry home. The weather has been awesome here in Texas with highs in the mid-70’s, and we wanted to bring Avery outside to a playground.
The sun? I’m ready!
Upon my return, I promised to watch Avery so Going Mom could take advantage of the weather for a nice run. While my wife was out running, I brought Avery to the garage for a quick weight-lifting session. I would’ve run too, but I’m still nursing that darned fractured foot! Even though my body was telling me “no”, I pushed through a quick but intense barbell session followed by a tabata-style conditioning workout.
Afterward, I was gassed, more so than usual, and only feeling worse. Kelley put Avery down for a nap and we had lunch, but I just wasn’t feeling up for eating. Actually, nothing sounded appealing which is extremely rare, and by the time Avery woke from her nap, I was only getting worse.
Being the stubborn guy that I am, I pushed through our normal afternoon walk, but little slower than usual. I had prepared my dinner for the night earlier in the day, but as dinnertime approached, I had lost all appetite and was reduced to laying on the floor as Kelley and Avery played.
At least I had prepared Kelley’s dinner beforehand too, so all she had to do was heat it up as her and Avery had dinner without me. I wanted to help, but remained lifeless on the playroom floor as Kelley fed and bathed Avery. And, of all days, Avery went and dropped a “bomb” during bath time….literally, she pooped. But Going Mom was quick to action and “handled it like a champ” as she said on Facebook. I agree, she was more than a champ for this unpleasant Avery first!
It took all I had to be there to read “Goodnight, Gorilla” before Kelley nursed Avery to sleep, and then I went straight to bed. My normal routine of staying up until 1am was not happening; that night, it was 10pm sharp. That is, until I woke up as hot as a furnace and immediate rushed to make friends (or enemies depending how you look at it) with the toilet.
Almost every hour that night, I woke up in a cold/hot sweat and ran to the bathroom with no time to spare. It sucked….big time. Somehow, Avery slept through it all even though I was plenty loud. Silver lining?
All of Sunday, I felt like was a nauseous heap of uselessness with zero appetite and no desire for coffee. What!? Yeah, that bad. All parents know coffee is black gold and a “must” for survival, so missing it is serious business.
Since I felt a little better after the previous night, I joined Kelley and Avery for a nice weather walk to the neighborhood playground to let Avery run around. She can’t play on the equipment yet, but that didn’t stop her from having fun. No shoes needed!
That amazing wife of mine ran all around after Avery as I just laid there, watching, and sometimes smiling between painful stomach churns. At one point I tried to join in and hold Avery in the tire swing, but that was painful, and something tells me Avery wasn’t too impressed.
When Kelley took over, Avery’s mood “swung” the other direction to happiness. I hated being so miserable, but it made me smile to see these two grinning together.
We made it back to the house and I tried eating a little but still wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I pureed frozen organic strawberries with coconut milk for a cool treat that we all could enjoy on the warm February day. Avery and Going Mom approved, and even I was able to keep it down.
During nap time, I tried to read as Kelley did yard work, but couldn’t concentrate with my pounding headache, so I laid down for a nap. Napping is something I truly despise and refuse to do, but this day, I made an exception. I woke to my beautiful wife who then came back with a smiling Avery. If kids’ smiles can cure sickness, Avery’s is the best panacea around!
Kelley then broke out the vacuum and went around the entire house with Avery making sure to create several obstacles along the way. As I mentioned on a previous post, I vacuum every day, but missed it considering my circumstances, so her cleaning meant a lot. She does so much going to work for us that I want to take care of the household tasks, so it gets to me when I’m not able to.
My appetite remained absent, but at least I was able to sit with my favorite girls at the dinner table this time. Thankfully, I made our daily green power smoothie earlier in the evening and that provided some kind of sustenance for my body.
After our nighttime routine, it was another early-to-bed night for this sick SAHD. There was no more vomiting, but I did have other “runny” issues. Sorry if it’s TMI, but this is my blog! 🙂 Anyway, I slept a little better and had regained some sense of a desire for food come Monday morning.
Kelley went into work late and I made coffee (yes, one day without is enough!) for the both of us. I think I attempted eating my usual diet too fast and it upset my stomach, but I was happy to be able to move around. Despite feeling tired and not totally recovered, Avery and I made use of the warm weather by going for a walk and playing in the back yard. She even busted a few moves on the porch with the music I had playing.
What does dancing and dropping something hot have in common anyway?
And, that night, I had a full meal at dinnertime!
To my wife, Kelley, you always mean the world to me, and I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate all that you do. To be so great and take over everything makes me love you even more than I though possible. Seriously, thank you, you’re a wonderful wife, mom, and best friend.
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How often do you get sick?
Are you usually caring for others or are others usually caring for you?
An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.
