I do love my coffee. I now buy Central American virtuous (fair trade, co-op grown, organic) beans, inexpensive because I home-roast them, so I appease my guilt with that. And I drink more than 50% decaf. Still, I love my coffee. Probably too much for my own good.I had been lusting after an espresso machine. Mostly because I wanted to be able to create foamy milk. My amazing husband ferreted out a little gizmo that I didn't even know existed. Its sole purpose is to heat and foam milk for people like me. People who like the look and feel of latte-look coffee, but who don't necessarily need the extra kick of espresso shots, people who have children who love milk steamers in various flavours, people who loved playing with the magnetic stirrers in the organic chemistry lab at university.
This little device doesn't use pressured steam to foam milk like an espresso machine does. Instead it has a miniature coil whisk which spins in the bottom of a small stainless jug. The jug heats a quarter to half cup of milk in about a minute, almost silently, whilst stirring and foaming the milk via a magnet which spins beneath the inner jug. It's small and efficient and works beautifully.
Very cool!
ReplyDeleteWe want to start roasting our own beans too-we have friends who do and so have an idea of what it entails but have not begun yet...what do you use to roast?
Hi Denise, I posted about how we're roasting coffee here. I can't add much to what I wrote before, except to say that we now use a tin can with holes in it, rather than the polycarbonate popper lid over top, as we found that the long roasting time of coffee compared to popcorn tended to make the plastic unusually, er, malleable.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, that is right. I remember now! Sorry. ;P My memory must be shot from lack of sleep this week. Ha ha. ;)
ReplyDeleteYour gizmo is very cool. We've had something even simpler for years now - a little gadget you can now find at Ikea even. It's a tiny electric whisk. You heat the milk in the microwave and then stick this whisk thing in and push the button - in a few seconds you have foamy milk! I think we paid about $7 for it.
ReplyDeleteWell wasn't that nice! I too love coffee, but will be trying to give up caffine here real soon...it's having adverse affects upon me.
ReplyDeletePS- I love that your mug blends so well with the tiles in the photo/backsplash!
LOL Shawna about the mug matching the backsplash. I bought the mug two or three years before we reno'd our kitchen and when we decided on understated natural colours for floors, walls and counters and "something colourful" for the backsplash, I got that mug out and told Chuck "I want this for the backsplash." We passed on the purple and bright turquoise but the other colours are all there.
ReplyDeleteMiranda, does the gizmo have a name so that I can look for one? Or do I just google "foaming milk gizmo." We actually were given an espresso machine for our wedding, but we rarely use it because it is such a pain and we drink regular coffee anyway. A Gizmo would be perfect for us!
ReplyDeleteIt's called the Aeroccino, and it's made by Nespresso. You can probably see it on this page where there's a link to a demo.
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