Homemade Frappé ;)

Like I promised, my recipe for this week will teach you how to prepare yourself a frappé.
The recipe was done by my mother and it works fine for my family, but you can adapt it to your own tastes or according to the ingredients you have. Let's get started.

This is for approximately 3 or 4 people.
Ingredients:
- Ice  (I use around 16 ice cubes, the more ice you use, the less milk you pour.)
- Milk (1 cup per person (4 in this case), or a little less if you used more ice than stated above.)
- Coffee powder : 60g. (Around 3 envelopes of 20g each.)
- Vanilla (1/2 spoon)
- Kahlúa: coffee liqueur (1-2 spoons)
- Cinnamon powder (Just to decorate the top at the end.)

Additional material:
-Blender
-Spoon
-Cups

Now step by step :)

Get your kitchen blender ready.

Pour in 16 ice cubes or so.

Pour in the coffee powder. Three of the 20g packs below, or an equal amount of any coffee powder.

Now, pour in the milk. Remember, 1 cup (or a little less) per person. In this case, you can pour in 3-4 cups.

It's time for the vanilla and Kalhlúa, here you decide how much you want of each. I recommend a 1/2 teaspoon of the first, and 1 spoon of the second one).

And that's it. Mix it all with the blender and pour in tall cups.

It should look something like this:

Isn't it pretty? Tastes delicious. :)
You can also now decorate the top part with some cinnamon powder. (Unless you're allergic to it ;P ).

And voilà, it's ready to enjoy.

For any doubts, comments or suggestions, ...comment below.

xo~

Living a little bit longer? Sounds perfect.

So I haven't updated this in a while.. and since school's over for now, I figured it'd be nice if I start using this blog again. :) Maybe one day it'll become important... (or not.)

Here's how it will go:
Mondays or Tuesdays I will post news and information and stuff like that.
Wednesdays or Thursdays I will post recipes.
And Fridays or Saturdays I'll post fun or random stuff. (facts, art, crazy news, whatever.)

Ok, now, some news I read recently.

Headline reads:

"Two cups of coffee a day cuts overall risk of dying by 10 percent, research shows." 

Even though there is a certain controversy due to the results of different studies that say coffee might be good or bad for some specific diseases or body functions, there is a new discovery. A study started in 1995 with leader researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute, shows that people who drink coffee might actually live longer than those who don't.

"Compared to those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10 percent less likely to die at any age. For women, it was 13 percent. Even a single cup a day seemed to lower risk by 6 percent in men and 5 percent in women. " (cbsnews.com)

However, even though for coffee drinkers there was less risk of having heart or respiratory diseases, diabetes, strokes, etc., there was no visible effect on cancer death risk.

Click here for the whole article. I strongly recommend you to fully read it. :)

As always, it's up to you to decide whether you consider coffee as part of your diet or not. I know I will. <3

Stay tuned for Wednesday's Receipe :D I'm sure you'll love it.

COFFEE vs. CHOCOLATE :P

So I'm saving the topics about decaf  and starbucks until I have time to actually do some decent research. For now I'll continue with last week's post about ways of staying awake :)

Today:

COFFEE VS. CHOCOLATE

Both of these products contain caffeine, but in different doses. Obviously, coffee contains way more caffeine than chocolate, but both have great efficiency when it comes to waking you up.

In my case, I love both products but I believe coffee wakes me up better than chocolate, whenever I'm feeling really tired and sleepy… And time ago it used to give me an energy boost. Lately, I don't really feel it makes a difference whether I drink it or not so I guess that after a while it loses its effect.

I do believe (I read this in a news website, probably Lifehacker) that the effect of waking you up coffee produces is merely psychological and even by the only smell of it in the morning you could feel awaken.

On the other side, I use chocolate whenever I can't drink coffee (or when coffee doesn't work). The point of eating it is giving me energy. Usually anything sweet and chewable would do (gum, cookies, gummies, chips, food, etc.)

And my personal advantage about chocolate is that I’m allowed to eat it more often than coffee :D  .Even though I read about this on the internet and it said that even 4 cups of coffee per day were healthy and not bad for you at all. However, my mom prefers me not to be so addicted to coffee, so I chose chocolate as an option when I’m not allowed to drink coffee. (My personal disadvantage is that I’m actually allergic to chocolate, so I can’t have too much of it.)

So I guess in the end it depends pretty much on the person, and everyone will have different opinions…  I’d like to hear yours :)

xo

Other options besides drinking coffee...

 Last week, Karen gave me the idea of talking about other methods of staying awake, besides drinking coffee. Instant Gratification ;) I’m still missing some other topics that have been suggested.. I promise they’re still in my list :)

Well, the first method for staying awake that comes to my mind is the use of energy drinks (Red Bull, Boost, Rockstar, Monster, …)  which may be very popular due to its effectiveness, but in my opinion, I rather not take the risk that comes with this. I’ve heard cases in which the consumption of these substances gives the person symptoms like tachycardia. The level of caffeine this drinks contain is more or less the same as a normal cup of coffee, but the addition of substances like taurine (among others) may cause health problems when drinking in excess. Personally, it is my least favorite method.

Another method for staying awake, (I’ve tried it myself, after listening to several people saying it works) is drinking water. Pure water, preferably cold. This one is really one of the best methods because it doesn’t involve the consumption of substances that in excess might cause damage to your body. (Well, water in excess might make you choke or drown in it, but besides that…)  If drinking cool water still doesn’t work, try taking a shower with it.

My third and final recommendation is drinking soda. The sugar it contains is also a good source of energy. I haven’t really tried this one, but I’ve heard it works for some people. Just remember everything in excess is bad for your health, and that maybe, after this temporary energy boost any of these methods might give you, you will return to feeling sleepy and tired.

If none of these methods work… just give up, you need to sleep.

P.S. I still prefer coffee ♥ .

lol.

P.S.2. A friend made me realize I missed mentioning chocolate. So I've decided I'll take this one as a topic for my next entry. Coffee vs. Chocolate ..sounds good? Stay tuned for more information next week.  :)

Bad things about coffee ¬¬

     This topic wasn’t on my list, but my friends here are telling me to stop talking about the good aspects of coffee and for once write about the negative things. Honestly, I think these will be the hardest entry to write. 250 words of things I rather ignore… but I've got an idea, let’s make this as fun as possible.

     3 negative aspects about coffee:

1. CAUTION: HOT CONTENT. Whenever you read this, or whenever you know it’s true, BE CAREFUL. Believe me, you don’t want to burn yourself with it and spend the rest of the day with a scalded tongue or a burned hand.

2. Watch out were you place it. If you’re not careful enough (and considering how sleepy you usually are in the mornings or late at night) you may spill it over your work or laptop. And that’s the last thing we would want to happen.

3. Avoid excess. Coffee might sometimes be useful, but too much coffee can cause you problems: for example, not being able to sleep at night (insomnia) or being hyperactive (jumping and fooling around, doing or saying things you might later regret).

     And those are some of the things I could come up with. I hope you are satisfied with the results of forcing me to write about the negative aspects of coffee. Maybe someday I’ll retake this topic and write what the recent studies and investigations done show about coffee and its effects. I’m so sorry if you were expecting something else, I know I promised I would try to be objective in this blog, but coffee saved me today so I’m not saying anything really bad about it for now. :)

     XO.

P.S. Make sure your head doesn't get stuck in your cup of coffee. That's also an undesirable situation. :)

Empty coffee bag... transformed into.. a wallet ! :P

Well, after the partial exams break, let’s continue with the next topic for this blog :). In the past entries I’ve shown some types of art involving coffee, which to me are really impressive. However, this time I’d like to share with you some ideas that you may consider whenever you’re bored or feeling really creative.

First, I found this article on Lifehacker on how to make a wallet out of an empty coffee bag. It gives you the link to the actual page where you can find the steps for making one: Instructables.com. Can you imagine that? First, it’s actually a useful thing, since that way you are not spending on buying a new wallet that will eventually wore out or you might lose and have to replace. This is an easy way to have a cool wallet, different to everyone else’s and I bet it would be even prettier than your actual one. It’s also something you can brag about (if you did it on your own) or give as a gift to someone. It’s especially great for coffee lovers to show their addiction and to receive a subtle scent of coffee smell every time you open your wallet. Isn’t that nice? :)

Here’s a picture of the final product, though you are entitle to try out your own ideas:

Summing up, the steps are basically:

1. Open the empty bag of coffee.

2. Remove the vacuum belly button.

3. Practice folding to make sure you like how it'll look.

4. Sew (or duct tape) the hem.

5. Measure and sew the middle separator.

6. Measure and sew (or duct tape) the ends.

7. Attach Velcro closure (optional).

8. Fill it with money, cards, etc.

9. Make friends with the curious admirers of your wallet!

(instructables.com)

So whenever you feel like doing something with your own hands, this is a really good option that will entertain you for a while. This is perhaps a great example of reusing material and how to be creative with things you may find at home, like an empty coffee bag.

Works cited:

Rogers, Matthew. "Make a Delicious-Smelling Wallet Out of an Empty Coffee Bag." Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done. N.p., 19 May 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. .<http://lifehacker.com/5803454/make-a-delicious+smelling-wallet-out-of-an-empty-coffee-bag?tag=coffee>

katmckee. "Make a Coffee Bag Wallet & Friends for free." Instructables - Make, How To, and DIY. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. <http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Real-Wallet-out-of-a-Coffee-Bag-a-few-New/ >

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL COFFEE DAY :D

Ok, so I almost choked up my coffee (^^♥) when I saw that today (September 29th) was the International Coffee Day :D YAY! (It is so awesome because I was running out of topics for my blog :P – just kidding, I actually have a list with three more topics waiting to appear in this blog.) Now, I think I should've posted this earlier, but today was one of my busiest days (Ha. Being an IB student I honestly doubt there are non-busy days.)

Anyway, the point here is that it’s great to have an entire day dedicated to coffee! Because as we already learned, it has a lot of benefits (let’s just for now ignore the cons), and it’s really important to acknowledge that. Well, I personally think that international days like this mean greater incomes for businesses like Starbucks, Italian Coffee, etc. and that’s one of the reasons why they are created and promoted. However, there are also these other coffee fan clubs, and coffee lovers who just love to dedicate one day to celebrate this beverage that has given them so much.

What are some events done on the International Coffee Day? Well, as far as I knew, in days like these, coffee shops tend to reduce their prices, or even give away free or discounted samples of their products (which is great to attract more customers). However, I decided to investigate a little more, and this is what I found: you can send a Coffee Day eCard, there are festivals organized to celebrate this, people coming together to share their stories about coffee, and the list goes on.

Personally, my favorite site I found today is this one since it contains all the coffee related dates celebrated worldwide.

So, this might help you get involved and don’t forget to mark it in your calendars for upcoming years! That way you can get up early and run to the nearest coffee shop to claim a free cup of coffee to start your day :) and spread the happiness!

Talk to you next week :D and sorry if this post is not totally coherent, I’m trying my best to keep the hamster in my head running, but it just refuses to do so.