COFFEE AT HOME // A beginner's attempt at cafe au lait

Even though all my classmates would be chugging through cup after cup of coffee when we'd stay up all night getting projects done during college, I always held coffee at an arm's distance. Mainly because I never wanted to spend money on it, and it always made me kind of jittery and shaky.

However, all of that changed when I had first cup of coffee with milk. Don't get me wrong- I still didn't want to spend money on it, and it still made me jittery, but it tasted so good that it was enough to win me over!

Now that coffee has become a regular part of my morning routine (I've been really spoiled by the fancy espresso machine at work) I decided to give it a try at making it at home to enjoy it on the weekends, and to save some money. What I really wish I could learn is how to make lattes at home, but I decided to stop myself from doing this being that I have absolutely zero barrista skills, and decided to start with something simpler and that didn't involve buying machines.


Some Ingredients:






What I did:
I don't have a name for what I made, but it's probably closest to a cafe au lait. I read that a true cafe au lait is coffee with steamed milk, but I couldn't resist adding a little bit of milk foam, because that to me is the best part. And I also used a coffee dripper, instead of a french press. (Coffee experts, please forgive me!) I added some chocolate shavings that were leftover from a milkshake I made for taylor, and it tasted really good as it was melting into the milk and coffee, a small extra that made a big difference!

1. Ground coffee beans and put in filter over coffee dripper. I used Sumatra beans.

2. Boil water, I let it sit for a while and tried to keep it at 200 degrees to keep the coffee from coming out bitter. Poured it into filter in increments (waited a few minutes in between pours)

3. Poured milk into jar, shook it until it doubled in size, and then microwaved on high for 45 seconds.

4. Poured equal parts milk (used a spoon to keep the foam from spilling in) and cofee into cup, and then scooped the top layer of foam on top with chocolate shavings.





It wouldn't say that it was restaurant quality, but I suppose it will get better with practice. There are so many intricacies and details involved with making coffee that I was totally unaware of! One thing I could definitely get used to though, is an apartment smelling like fresh coffee in the morning!

A FEW FAVORITE THINGS// Simple moments around our apartment

Life is good when you are able to enjoy the simple things! When you don't need to do anything, or be anything to be happy, and when your eyes are open to the beauty around you. Most often, my favorite days are "normal days" when nothing special is happening. I am thankful to God for breathing beauty into everyday life!

Some favorite everyday things:

1. Rediscovering an old skirt. I love it when that happens.

2. A flower on the side of the road. I love native flowers! Sometimes I can't believe that these beauties are growing in cracks in the road or on the sides of freeways!

3. My favorite breakfast lately: blueberries, yogurt and granola. I am actually slightly allergic to blueberries, but I started risking it lately, because they are so yummy and pretty!   It reminds me of a recent This American life podcast that opens with stories of people who still eat things they are allergic to!

4. My favorite scarf. a gift from my sweet friend Ruby as a good luck gift before taking my last exam! Taylor had to politely tell me to stop wearing it everyday, so now it's been hanging on our wall :)

BACK HOME FROM A TRULY SOUTHERN WEDDING

Just got back from Jared and Briton's wedding! We are home a day later than expected because of flight delays (took us 30 hours to get home!), and I am totally smoked (a southern phrase Taylor's been trying to use every chance he gets!)

I've never been to the south, but it did not disappoint! People there certainly know how to have a good time, and were some of the warmest and friendliest people I've gotten the pleasure of meeting. Had my first real southern BBQ, with collard greens, the best mac and cheese I've ever eaten, and even drank my first glass of moonshine! Hope to share more pictures soon, but for now, here's a picture of the gorgeous bride and groom!

SERVE LA // Saturday, July 28th!

If you live near or in the Los Angeles area and are looking for a way to get involved in the community, my husband Taylor has got the thing for you! He's helping organize an event with an amazing organization called Serve the City LA.

We'll be teaming up with the Harmony Project, an award-winning, research-based nonprofit organization that targets at-risk youth in underserved areas of Los Angeles through the study, practice and performance of music.  I can't think of anything better than using the arts to reach out to kids, I know it made a huge difference in my life growing up!

We will need volunteers from 3-6pm to help with set-up (stage and sound equipment set-up) and also from 7-10pm for tear-down (usher during event and strike the stage afterwards) at their concert. If you are a musician that can help children tune their instruments, that would be even more helpful!
If you are interested, you can sign up HERE!! We are project number 97, and we'd love to meet you!  There are also a ton of other projects there, so be sure to check those out too!  It's free to sign up, and you get a free T-shirt too ;) 


Anyway, I'm off to catch my flight, wishing you a happy early weekend!

ALL "PACKED" AND READY TO GO!

We're headed to South Carolina tomorrow for Jared and Briton's wedding! I am so excited, I seriously can't wait! I've pretty much been waiting for this day since before Jared even started dating!

I also love going places I've never been! The only thing I don't love about traveling though, is the packing. I always plan on doing it ahead of time, but am always packing til the last minute anyway! I think it's because I am really indecisive and end up packing for every single just in case scenario and before I know it, my suitcase is busting open for a 2 day trip!

I'm thankful that Taylor already mapped out our itinerary down to the last millisecond, so I just know that I need to be up by 4:30 and packed, and the rest is taken care of. As a big picture gal, I'm really glad I married a detailed picture guy!

FOAM FEST // From a really long time ago

Taylor ran the foam fest in May, so I'm a little late in posting these!  I think I was procrastinating a bit because I took so many pictures and kept putting off sifting through all of them.  But this morning, I saw Andrew's post about his SF triathlon this morning (seriously amazing!) and it totally put me in the- get off your lazy butt and edit Taylor's running photos mood! 

I didn't participate, but luckily Ben was there to keep me company!  A bit of a swaperoo of sorts since I usually talk to Ruby, and Taylor talks to Ben.  But it was really fun, and I even got to see some totally impressive behind the scenes cakies photography at work!  ;)  It was also really fun to hang out with Jun and meet some of the people on Taylor's team.  There are so many talented and creative people out there, it's always so inspiring!  

Anyway Taylor is so cute when he runs.  It was  more of a "fun" race where you dressed up in crazy outfits and brought your kids, so people would stop in the middle, take pictures etc... but Taylor was all business, no stopping, come on, let's go people! the whole way through.  He's so funny!  Anyway, super proud of him, and looking forward to any future runs!

IN THE MOOD FOR PEACH COBBLER

I don't really have much of a sweet tooth and hardly ever bake anything requiring hard core mixing and measuring. However, with the 4th of July being last week, and all this talk of BBQs and pies, I started to majorly crave some peach cobbler! I tried a dish similar to this at a wine bar in Eagle Rock that Jerilene and Alisa took us to a few weeks ago.  (I can't remember the name of the place at the moment though, and it's driving me crazy right now because it was a really cute!)

Anyway, Jerilene ordered the peach cobbler, and the ice cream oozing onto the oven fresh granola and peaches was just sooooo good!  It seemed like it'd be really simple to make, so I found a similar recipe here and decided to try it!


SOME BASIC INGREDIENTS:





Here's the recipe from all recipes:
The pictures don't completely match up with the recipe though because I didn't have some ingredients with me, and I'll have to admit that I was lazy and didn't peel my peaches!  For someone who isn't a pie expert, I didn't really taste a difference (but I'm sure some of my more sophisticated baking friends would have been horrified that I did that!) 

Ingredients
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1/2 cup honey-sweetened granola
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
5 cups fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (optional)
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, combine the oats, granola, 3 tablespoons flour, and brown sugar. Cut in the 1/4 cup butter until crumbly.
Place peach slices in an 8-inch square baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon flour. Scatter the oat mixture over the peaches. Sprinkle top with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and pecans.
Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

After that, I let it cool for about 10 minutes and then put some ice cream on top!

THEY SAY YOU HAVE A YEAR RIGHT? // We finished our thank you cards!

For our wedding thank you cards, we wanted to avoid a situation like this, which we got ourselves into while we were making these.  So this time around, we tried to find a way to do something really simple and affordable and something that did not involve any remote form of cutting, scoring, folding or going to printing places of any kind!  And yet, even with all these precautionary measures, we still managed to take forever!  I think once we exited wedding mode, it was really hard to get back into it.  (Hmmm, so tonight- should I eat ice cream on the couch with Taylor and watch NetFlix, or should I write thank you cards?)  But anyway, here we are, fully aware that it is over 8 months after the wedding, but nevertheless, we are still totally pumped and ready to send these puppies out as if we got married yesterday! 








Also, we've been wondering:
We got some awesome salmon colored towels and a beautiful white plate and cup set set with pink flowers, both from Amazon delivered as a wedding gift, but were not able to tell who gave us those. If you gave us either of those gifts and happen to be reading this, please let us know, because we love them both and really want to be able to thank you personally for them! 

And of course, many thanks to the lovely:
EPLove for the city photo, and Cakeflix for the night time photo which is actually a screenshot of the amazing wedding video they made for us!

BACK FROM THE WEDDING

A quick photo from Joyce's instagram taken from this past weekend's insanely beautiful wedding in the Bay Area. The sun is peeking out behind us, so some of our faces are a little washed out, but I still love this photo because I really don't get many opportunities to see these girls anymore :(

I suppose it is back to the real world now! I must say it's really good to be back home though- I'm pretty pooped from the drive! We also visited our friends Dan and Kirsten on the way home, so we were on the road the entire day. I'm glad that we have the 4th of July off to decompress a little, maybe get some laundry done, shop for groceries. Errands always take so much longer than I wish they would! I think I'm going to try to see fireworks that night too. Either way, I hope you're having a wonderful start to your week!