Necessity is the mother of invention as they say. I wanted that tasty-looking peppermint coffee and I wanted it NOW! So I made one. I’d bought a box of candy canes a week or two ago to spruce up my kitchen Christmas decor and I happened to have a can of ready whip in the fridge. I had coffee, and the fixings I enjoy daily (Splenda and Cremora–I know, don’t judge, that’s how I like it). So I stuck a candy cane in my morning coffee, I shot it with a squirt of whipped cream (just for the visual of course…) and VIOLA! I was a happy girl sipping my peppermint coffee for no more money, and not many more calories than my usually morning brew cost me, and, this is key, I didn’t have to even go out in the cold to get it! My pajama-covered ass went no farther than my own kitchen with the heated tile floor so toasty on my happy feet.

Since I have a new book release I’m promoting, another novel for my series I’m writing, and two other stories I’m plotting, coffee and not having to leave the house are both key components of my writer’s day, but I figure everyone can use this recipe. I’m picturing a holiday party, New Year’s Eve in particular, where the hostess can set up a large coffee urn, cups, sugar and cream, all as normal BUT add a bunch of candy canes, and a bunch of cinnamon sticks as stirrers, with some whipped cream guests can make their own special gourmet coffees.

Enjoy!

Cat

Yes! You can do it. You don’t need to go to Starbucks and shell out $5 for a holiday seasonal latte. You don’t need to pack on ten extra pounds before you ever reach Aunt Ida’s turkey on the Thanksgiving table because you’ve been indulging in the new Gingerbread Grande with Extra Whipped Cream. How do I know? Because I have delved into the dark and scary recesses of my mind and come up with a coffee recipe that couldn’t be easier, has no extra calories, and is practically free.

Years ago I had a waitressing job at a shore club that catered weddings and such. The Long Island Sound and sand just feet from the windows meant they were a popular place (less so the year the hurricane hit and we were in the middle of a wedding in a heated tent outside on the sand in December. Yeah…But anyway…)

Well they had a signature coffee and though this was about 22 years ago, I still remember the ingredients and how good it tasted. There, we would throw a broken cinnamon stick, a spoon of sugar and a spoon of espresso grounds right in the coffee filter with the regular coffee grounds when making a pot. And just those few simple ingredients infused the pot of coffee with a subtle layer of warm flavor that everyone loved but not one guest every said, “Ew, is this flavored coffee?”

I recently was at the food store searching for the new Pumpkin Dunkin Donuts grounds and they didn’t have them. Since I’m on deadline, I’ve been drinking a lot of extra coffee and I was truly disappointed to not have what I was looking for available for me. I made a stop in the dairy aisle and picked up the Coffeemate Pumpkin Spice creamer, but one look at the label, and my ever-widening waistline, and I put it back down. Yes, before you all write in it’s only 30 calories a serving, go ahead and measure how much you put in your coffee cup. I estimated last year I was using 3 spoons per cup and I was up to 2 cups a day. My small frame can’t afford almost 200 extra calories daily, especially during the holiday seasons.

So, I went to the spice aisle and picked up a jar of cinnamon sticks–and put them down again because the price was INSANE and we were on our way to Sam’s Club anyway where I again visited the spice aisle and lo and behold, there I found a large jar of cinnamon sticks at a bargain price.

Now, each morning I do this… I put one broken cinnamon stick in the filter basket THEN on top of that I put the paper filter. The coffee grounds go inside that. I’m lazy so I rarely remember to add the espresso grounds. And I’m worried about calories so I forego the spoon of sugar most days. But the coffee dripping over the cinnamon sticks gives it a lovely flavor. Then I add my usual everyday creamer and sweetener and I’m happily drinking a lovely spiced winter brew.

When I throw out the coffee filter to clean the maker, I save the cinnamon sticks to use the next day. They are clean because they were under the filter and didn’t touch the grounds. You can probably get a week out of one stick.

So there you go…lots of time and energy spent over a cup of coffee but what can I say, it makes me happy. I haven’t tried it yet, but I bet you could use nutmeg or cloves or some other spices and make your own concoction at home.

Enjoy!

Cat

The clams are barely an hour old when we’d bring them back to the house and throw them in the closed shells on a hot BBQ grill rack. They cook only until they open up, then you take them in hand, shoot just a dash of hot sauce and eat them, all hot and tasty good, right out of the shells. No utensils, no plates. Add an icy cold beer to cool the fire of the hot sauce and you’ve got all you need.

Of course, for the catching this year, since clamming began at low tide which was 8 in the morning, we indulged in Mimosas made right on the boat out of Prosecco and orange juice.

This year we did something a little different. Since we had a professional chef with us, he insisted we not use the bounty up for our little grilling/drinking party. Instead, he brought the clams back to our rental’s kitchen and turned them into incredible home made chowder on the first night, so light and tasty people went back for third helpings. Then on the next night, the rest were made into Linguini and Clam Sauce, with tons of garlic, good olive oil and fresh parsley.

Another summer’s Rhode Island vacation has come and gone, but the memories will last forever and next year we’ll be back. Clams, look out!

So I got Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child for Christmas. It’s 684 pages, not counting all the index pages in the back which are numbered with Roman numerals that I can’t decipher because I went to public school. This tome weighs a good ten pounds and though I far outweigh it, it is intimidating the hell out of me.

It’s my own fault, really. When my mother called from the bookstore weeks ago and asked if I would like it for Christmas I said yes. Why? Because I love a good story and the story that surrounds this book of late is a great one.

Julie Powell back in August of 2002 decided to not only cook her way through this book, all 536 recipes in 365 days while holding down a real job, but also to blog about it in what she named ‘The Julie/Julia Project”. But that isn’t the story that gets me, it’s what happens next. She turned that year-long blog into a book, and that book became the Meryl Streep, Amy Adams movie “Julie & Julia” that everyone is talking about. Being a writer, publication stories like that fascinate me. So much so I have googled my tushy off and found the original 2002 blog, and I am reading my way through it, day by day, and totally enjoying it.

Julie is normal. She screws up the recipes, and then tells us about how when that happens, she just adds more butter and cream to try and fix it. She drops the f-word liberally, as anyone would while taking on such a monumental challenge. She calls it like she sees it, wondering at the craziness around her, such as the raw food movement that hits during her cooking experiment, or that she couldn’t find swiss cheese in her regular food store in Brooklyn but she could buy imported Fontina.

I anticipate I will enjoy her real-life blog musings far more than what I am sure is a sanitized for mainstream publishing, edited version that hit the bookshelves. She already hinted at that in the comment that the book title (Julie & Julia) is boring, the result of an editorial battle lost. And don’t we authors know all about that–choose your battles.

No, I have no plans what so ever in this lifetime to repeat Julie’s project, but I do hope to challenge myself with a few of these recipes. Looking through the book, the first thing to cross my mind was how outdated it seemed to my modern cook’s eye. I learned to cook during the dawn of olive oil, and microwaves. Julia Child wrote this book in 1961, and it is more than obvious her two favorite ingredients are butter and heavy cream.

Yet a lot of what Julia Child writes makes sense, such as when she warns against the temptation to use the food processor to blend your potato leek soup. She’s right, that one appliance means the difference between what ends up being more like runny mashed potatoes rather than a hearty soup where the potatoes and leeks are still recognizable.

I suppose if I take away a few techniques and basics, it will only help me in everything I cook. If nothing else, it will be a lesson in humility. Let’s just hope I am strong enough to withstand such a lesson. I have to wonder about that as I ignore daily the container full of cookies that I screwed up but still refuse to throw away. Who I think is going to eat them is beyond me, they taste bad and look worse, but there they sit, waiting on the counter. Perhaps humility is what both Julie and Julia are meant to teach me.

I will keep you informed of both the failures and the successes.

Humbly,

Cat

‘SAUCED’ CRANBERRY SAUCE (I named this. She may be the cook, but I’m the writer, after all!)

Overnight soak whole cranberries, white sugar, brown sugar, fresh grated nutmeg, ground allspice, ground cloves, orange zest, fresh squeezed orange juice, Bourbon, and Grand Marnier.  Slowly cook down and reduce until nice and thick. Serve warm.

Donna says, “This is so delicious, you can put it over ice cream, which I have.”  She went on to describe the marinade that she’ll be injecting in the turkey, which sounds equally as enticing, and now I am ready to get in the car and camp out at her house waiting for this meal.

Warm berries, alcohol, and spices that will smell as wonderful as it tastes on the tongue, I’m sure. Ain’t nothing wrong with that! LOL. I’m hoping to get a taste of the leftovers. I’ll report back.

Until next time,

Cat