Latte Art

I bumped into this article and somehow got hooked on the idea to check some of these places and see if they can actually make some decent latte art.
I'm failing at my crusade a tiny bit as I am not consistent with taking evidences in forms of photos. but that will be fixed. So far two places have been checked.

my reviews are of course on Yelp but here are few more notes:

1. Bulldog coffee
somehow I expected way more out of this place... it closes at 7pm that's already a minus... but oh well. What I wanted was the bulldog face in my cup! but I guess it only happens to the lucky few who get served by the owner... the two student looking servers who served us didn't look too experienced in latte art so I just got a simple heart (was so sad that didn't even think of taking a photo)

2. Manic coffee

mmm the ice cream

and this place by far exceeded all my
expectations! hipster atmosphere was in the air with tons of people working on their macbooks (ok there was one dell owner...) but what surprised me is stand with a huge variety of ice cream made on the spot... the only few words that need to be said: chai latte ice cream....mmmm.....
also photos! my cappuccino came with a cute art on it and the cups are designed in such a funny way=) I just want this set at home!=)

squirrel!

Read More

Sometimes I cook

Seeing that I spent most of sunday at home I decided to experiment a bit with few recipes that I was looking into for a while. Here is the result:
Chickpea Flour Socca with zucchini:

I slightly adjusted ingredients mix vs the original recipe from Healthful Pursuit as below:

• 1 cupchickpea flour
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon red pepper powder
• 2 tablespoons cumin
• 1 cup shredded zucchini 
• 4 to 6 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 1 tiny tomato sliced

then I followed the same instructions as on the Healthful pursuit: Mix flour with pepper powder and salt. Add water, and two tablespoons of oil and mix until all lumps are eliminated. Let the batter rest for an hour or so. Preheat oven to 500F. 

Let the skillet warm up in the over while it's preheating. Once the oven is ready, take the skillet out pour about 2-4 tablespoons of oil into it and swirl around so it covers the bottom and the sides. Place oiled skillet back into the oven to warm up the oil. Shred the zucchini and add it to the batter together with the cumin. Mix well and pour into the skillet. 

Let it bake for 10min. then add sliced tomatoes on the top and broil for 5-10min. then take out and YUM it's ready and delicious!

And for the dessert I made raw banana-cashew ice cream cake. Didn't really taste like an ice cream or a cake but it was yummy. 

I took the recipe from Southern in-law but I didn't have 2 ripe bananas ready. and the only one I had was smaller than medium. So my ingredients got adjusted to the following:

1/2cup raw cashews

1/2cup pitted dates

1 small ripe banana

2 tablespoons of applesauce

mixed it all in the food processor (starting with cashews and adding dates, then banana and applesauce)

then freezed for 40min and tada - easy dessert is ready. it was gone in 2min.... yes I counted...

Read More