Month: June 2018

The summer season is upon us. I’m enjoying gardening, swimming, longer daylight hours and now it’s time for the all important switch from hot to cold coffee. Everyone who knows me, knows I drink an obscene amount of coffee. I love flavored coffee in particular, and sugar free flavored syrups as well. Torani sugar free s’mores and sugar free salted caramel are on the top of my syrup lists. My K-Cups of choice are the Friendly’s ice cream inspired coffee flavors. I’m also an almond milk and Splenda-aholic. When that warm weather hits, I want my coffee cold, but I can’t stand how watered down ice coffee gets. I’ve tried freezing coffee cubes with fair results, but it would only cool down hot coffee so much.

I turned to Pinterest, which offered me solutions involving making coffee sludge in mason jars and draining it out with mesh strainers. It was a huge mess and way too much work. I pondered why I couldn’t just steep coffee the same way I steep ice tea. That’s when my cold brew coffee hack was born.

Here’s what you’ll need.

1. A bag or canister of coffee of your choice.
2. A pack of coffee filters (Dollar Tree brand is fine)
3. A pack of mini rubber bands (Again, you can get 500 of them from the hair section at Dollar Tree)
4. A two-quart pitcher (Holy hell, they sell these at Dollar Tree, too!)

In the photo above I’m using Target brand mocha coffee, but you can use whatever brand and flavor you like. In fact, if you’re budget-wise like me, you know that Giant often has coupons for Folgers at $1.99 and Wal-Mart has their own brand of coffee for not much more than that.

Take the coffee and scoop a few tablespoons into the coffee filter. Leave enough room to bundle and tie it on top with the rubber band and make a little bundle just like the one pictured on the right. Use at least two rubber bands, just to make sure it’s secure. Make two of the coffee bundles and put them in the pitcher and fill to the two-quart line. Put it in the fridge and allow to steep for 8-12 hours. Then take the bundles out and throw them away. Or compost them. Or make coffee grind body scrub.

That’s it. Take the cold brew and add additions to your liking.

I recently got my hands on a free sample of the new Dunkin’ Donuts cold brew packs, which are essentially the same principle.

As much as I love my Dunkin’, they are a little on the expensive side, costing nearly $10 retail to make 4 quarts. With my coffee hack we have:

$1 – Filters
$1 – Bands
$1 – Pitcher
$2 – Coffee canister

So for $5 you can make several more pitchers of cold brew coffee. Since after the initial investment of filters, bands, and a pitcher the only additional expense is the coffee itself, you can save tons on your cup of cold brew with subsequent pitchers.

Another tip – it goes great with a little Bailey’s Irish Cream! I’d save that mix for the weekend, though.

When I’m running late or just plain forget breakfast, Dunkin Donuts is my usual go-to. I love their 190 calorie Veggie Egg White Wake Up Wraps, and they’re hard to resist when they’re on sale.

When they’re 2/$2 I go ahead and order 2 and have a little calorie saving hack. I take the egg patty out of one, put it in the other one and eat a double egg wrap and toss the extra tortilla. Double the protein without double the calories.

Wallah!

This week’s lunch had two key components — chicken and salad. I whipped up a quick chicken salad using 3 ingredients.

1. Rotisserie chicken breast
2. Friendly Farms Garlic Herb spreadable cheese (Aldi’s brand of Laughing Cow)
3. A little bit of Kraft Avocado Mayo.

It turned out super creamy and full of flavor. I made one lunch where I wrapped the chicken salad in large leafs of romaine lettuce. Another I mixed it up with broccoli slaw, some shredded 2% cheddar cheese, and added in a 100 calorie pack of guacamole because avocado makes everything better. I often use 100 calorie guacamole packs in place of dressing on my salads.

The salad I made this week was garden lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, cucumber, tomato, broccoli slaw, and StarKist Tuna creations ranch. I usually don’t add dressing to my salads when I put the StarKist Tuna creations in them, but I was feeling a little dab of bleu cheese this week.

I’ve been using fruit as my afternoon snack for a few weeks now, but it’s starting to get old so I may have to switch over to veggies and hummus for a little while. I’ve been getting the big clamshell packs of kiwis for $5 and slicing them up into my fruit salads. Sam’s Club has had some great deals on strawberries. When it comes to pineapple, I usually buy the plastic jars in their own juice because they last longer and it’s difficult to keep fresh pineapple at the ready.

Yogurt was a big side snack this week as well. Giant had a big sale on Dannon Greek yogurts and I believe I wound up getting them around 54¢ a piece after discounts and coupons. My favorite is the Dannon Light and Fit Greek Caramel Apple Pie but I also enjoy Oikos Triple Zero Salted Caramel with bananas sliced into it.

I will share that I have been ridiculously hungry this week, and can’t get to the bottom of what is causing it. I’ve tried to keep super hydrated, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. Maybe time to up my protein intake? Time to figure it out!

One of my favorite breakfast foods are eggs, primarily either fried or hard boiled. They’re a staple for keto dieters and currently 0 points on the Weight Watchers Freestyle plan. Of course I love them smothered in cheese, peppers, onions, and bacon. But a lot of times I stick to a low down dirty secret for making flavorful eggs.

Popcorn seasoning.

My favorite is pictured above, Kernel Season’s Bacon Cheddar, but the White Cheddar, Nacho Cheese, and Cheesy Jalapeno lend perfectly to eggs as well. I’m also a huge fan of the Garlic Parmesan on roasted vegetables.

Yes, it does add sodium. Though I’ve never compared, I can’t imagine it’s more than the addition of real bacon and eggs plus there’s a lot less calories involved.

Another hot tip? You can sprinkle it in your egg salad or deviled eggs for added flavor.

I’m a big fan of alfalfa sprouts. There’s something about the texture and the way salad dressing clings to it. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find containers of sprouts in any of my local grocery stores for almost two years now. I saw on Pinterest that sprouts can be grown indoors in glass jars fairly easily. I thought I’d give it a try but then discovered a step up — this great two-tier sprout on Amazon.

It didn’t come with the seeds, so I purchased those separately. I soaked the seeds overnight and then created a layer of seeds on each tray. I placed it next to my AeroGarden in the kitchen so it would reap the benefits of some of the light. Each day I rinsed them once or twice. In six days the sprouts were ready! Huzzah! They were perfectly wonderful and fresh. I think I’m going to rotate so I’ll have a new stash every 3 days or so.

For me, each tray has about half the sprouts needed for a lunch size salad. The one pictured above is romaine, cucumber, tomato, broccoli slaw, sprouts, Sunkist Tuna Creations Ranch, reduced fat cheddar cheese, and just a little bit of blue cheese dressing. It was a perfect veggie and protein combo with lots of crunch!

Now to find a much larger sack of alfalfa seeds!