Angela

Thursday 31 July 2014

Favorite summer drinks: Cold brewed espresso

Right now I`m totally addicted to iced coffee. My favorite part of the day (besides when Sean comes home) is when the baby is sleeping and I`m in my office with a cup of my iced coffee. Its actually how I look right now. I have been making them at home trying to save a buck ;) Because our income dropped a couple months ago with Sean`s new job. Plus our cost of living has gone up with us now living in the north. I like saving money where I can anyways and like making treats healthier/lower calories.
 You need to start with a nice smooth coffee or espresso concentrate. You don`t use regular brewed coffee or you will end up with a more bitter and watered down version. Cold brewing takes away the acidity and gives you a more smooth taste. Here`s how I brew up a batch of iced espresso:

I ground up 1 cup of  beans. Right now I'm using Starbucks dark roast espresso. We store the unused beans in the fridge to keep them fresh. You could use regular coffee grounds too (1/2 cup coffee for every 2 1/2 cups of water)

I dump it all into my glass pitcher and fill it with cold water. I used about about 6 3/4 cups of water. Give it a stir to make sure all the coffee is covered and mixed. Then I let this sit over night (at least 9 hours) You could do a shorter sit period of a few hours. The longer you leave it the stronger it gets. In the morning I pour the mixture into my french press to strain all the grounds through. You can store the concentrate in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. It never lasts this long in our house. A batch for us only lasts a few days!
Pour 1 cup of the espresso and add the sweetener (Sean takes 1 1/4 cups of espresso haha) I have different syrups and sugars. I personally use a spoon of sugar free caramel or else stevia. My husband likes a spoon of cane sugar in his. Then I add 1/4 cup of soy coffee creamer or else equal parts unsweetened almond milk to espresso concentrate depending on my mood. You can use regular cream or milk obviously and add more or less depending on your taste. We like the espresso taste strong and creamy with just a hint of sweet.
Finish with your ice and its ready to enjoy. I know there is a lot of coffee snobbery out there haha The way I explained is just the way we like iced espresso right now ;)


Monday 28 July 2014

Dinner in the smoky heat


 I didn't expect summer in Yellowknife to be so warm! I mean the temperature has been between 25-29 degrees (around 77-84 fahrenheit) which isn't blistering hot....but its the sticky muggy gross kind of heat. Pair that with all the forest fires blazing around here with the awful smoke and it seems soooooooooooooooo much hotter outside and inside. There is a fire 30 km away from Yellowknife burning an area 20,000 hectares in size. The city has been covered in a hazy blanket causing our position on the air quality scale to be a +10 on a scale from 1-10! On top of that the power has been going out for periods almost every day. This means no fans running. Its been tough trying to keep windows closed and kids in side most of the time. Our home is like a gross sauna right now until late at night. So if anyone has ideas on how to cool a muggy hot home without AC send them my way!! I did decide to take the little ones to the park on Saturday and we ended up totally smoked out. It got so much stronger after we went out doors. I even woke up with a sore throat this morning. I feel so bad for my poor babies. What is there to do to make the day more comfortable or fun?! maybe sit in front of an open fridge? haha Even my picture above looks hazed and muggy. So our dinners have been easy and haven't involved cooking anything. Tonights food was delish! If your in Canada and love olives like me then you have to find this tapenade. It's an olive, feta and sun dried tomato tapenade made by Larosa and says made in Vancouver BC....yummmmmmmmy my new addiction. In my books feta make everything better so I love the big chunks in the olives. We had platters with salami, sliced ring sausage, gouda cheese, light cheddar cheese, spinach, light cheese spread, Olive feta and sundried tomato tapenade, sliced multi-grain baguette and lastly multi-grain wheat thin crackers. My favortite combo was the baguette with tangy cheese spread, olive tapenade, spinach and finished with salami.
 Thank god for the swimming pool here for a cool dip and break from the smoke. Another plus is its been free swimming all week ;) Right now I feel like camping on the deck outside because its so nice to have the bit of fresher breeze at night....I dread the inescapable heat and air tomorrow.

Sunday 20 July 2014

B-day goodies

My birthday was July 14. I was spoiled with home made dinner and gifts from my family. Some of my bday loot:
* Urban decay primer potion in the beige tinted version called Eden. I usually use the famous Mac paint pot in painterly but ran out a few weeks ago. I love an eyeshadow base that is a beige color over a clear one. I just prefer how it washes out any lid redness or veins. This stuff works awesome...no creasing at all at the end of the day.
* Smashbox High definition concealer in medium. This is my favorite concealer! I had this in the shade light before (from the suggestion of the makeup lady at the counter) I still used it all the time but it was a little too light for me. If you go too light it can look ashy. This stuff is great for all day wear and looks perfect in photos. mmmmmhmmmmm...
* Smashbox Brow tech to go pencil in brunette. Its a waterproof formula that lasted until I took my make-up off (haven't tried it near water yet haha) It has this sort of triangle shape to the pencil. Its taken a few days to get used to it. I didn't like the shape at all at first but its a different story now. I like how one side is pointed for finer detail and one side is wider to fill in faster. The other end also has a brow gel and brush to keep hairs in place! I have crazy wiry eye brow hairs that want to do their own thing some times so this helps.
* Urban Decay 24/7 glide on lip pencil in Naked 2. Its important to have a pencil that is close to your natural lip color that way it will go with almost all lipstick shades you have. I ran out of my nude lip color recently and chose this to replace it. Love me some urban decay...this is my first lip pencil I have bought from them though. So far so good...next time I would like a darker shade that leans more toward brown (any suggestions?)
* LACC nail color in the shade 1992. Its a gorgeous full coverage pale beige pink. It doesn't brush on sheer at all which I love. It's vegan, formaldehyde free, Dbp free, and toluene free. A company based out of Vancouver, BC. The website is www.laccbeauty.com
* Burberry London perfume.....LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this scent. I used to spray the tester all crazy every time I went in the store haha Its very fresh and sweet yet sophisticated. It has a very feminine and floral scent mixed with Sandalwood and Patchouli.
I love that I was able to pick these all up at right in the little Northern city we now live in. Yaaay for Shopper's drug mart! haha  

Thursday 17 July 2014

Brand spanking new

Here I go! Attempt # 2 at blogging. My first blog site I forgot about after only 3 posts haha I was sucked into maintaining my instagram and facebook pages so the blog was back burnered. This will be random glimpse into my world. I'm a mom, wife, entrepreneur and just a goofy girly. I have three kids. Nahlin is 12, Zola is almost 5, and Mahikan is 1. My husband Sean and I have recently packed our family up and left our beloved BC Canada to move to Yellowknife NWT. Sean has had his commercial helicopter license for a couple of years now. Hes wanted to be a pilot since he was a little kid. We decided to go for it and follow his dream at the same time as following mine of being a entrepreneur with my cosmetics line Kamamak. It might get tough starting a career from step 1 with a family and a new home city....but we will make it all work! (picture is from our April 2014 trip to the grand canyon!)