New! Yearly Recipe Tasting/Testing

Big news for everyone this week (and the weeks to come), guys! I'm going to test all of my recipes (one by one) on SWT and give it a rating from either 1-5 or 1-10. This will be my yearly test. (YRT = Yearly Recipe Testing...or Yearly Recipe Tasting) Then, I'm going to go through my blog and add my ratings to the posts. But as I go along. So, for example, I test the muffins. Then, after I test it, I add the rating to the recipe post. I also might post about the recipe and what was good and what was bad. Pros and cons. Then I move on to the next recipe and do what I did for the muffins. If you guys don't think this is a good idea or you don't want me to do this, that's fine. It just means less work for me.

Really looking forward to the YRT!

Questions you may ask: 
Notice: these might not be questions you ask. If so, please email or comment below and ask me. I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible, if possible. Thank you!

• What's the deadline on the YRT?
  The deadline is Jan 31st, though I will be prolonging the deadline this year because I got the idea in, like, the middle of January and I have so many recipes that I'll need more time to rate them.
• When will you rate them? How do you know what to rate?
  I'll rate all the recipes from the last year the following year. So say you have ten posts posted in 2014. So you rate them Jan. 2015. You rate all the recipes posted in 2014. None of the 2015 ones.
• When do you stop rating the recipes?
  As soon as I'm through with all the recipes that need rating. (Don't understand which ones I decide to rate? Look at the question above.)
• What month do you rate them?
  I'm planning on rating them in January.
• What if we want to follow your progress as you do this year's YRT?
  I'll try to post often enough, telling you which recipe I'm tasting and rating and hopefully I'll have a link so that you can see the post, and maybe you'll be able to rate and taste with me! 
• What if we want to tell you our ratings and how much we liked the recipe?
  That's easy! If you want to, either comment and add your rating, or (and this is recommended) send me an email about how much you like or dislike the recipe and what your rating is.  
• What about the posts following the YRT?
  The posts following the YRT will not be rated until the next YRT. If you don't get this, read the question "When do you rate them?" and if you still don't understand, read below.

I still don't understand!
OK, that's fine. Say, for example, I have ten posts. The following January, I do the YRT and rate all ten posts. Then, once I've rated all the posts I have, I'm done with that year's YRT. Then, after the YRT, I post some more recipes. I don't rate these because I've already done that year's YRT.

If you STILL don't understand, just contact me and ask all your questions. I'll try to answer them as much as I can. If you don't want to email, comment below and ask. Either way, I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Hope this helps!

P.S. This exact post (or, the exact words) are also found on the page "About theYearly Recipe Testing/Tasting" which is by the top of this blog, where the recipes and "About Me" are located. Why? Because then, after this post has disappeared into the many other posts in my blog, all you have to do is go to the top of the page and click on it to know more about. Also, that way, visitors who don't know that there's a post on it will be able to read about it as well...without having to search and see if there's a post about it. It's just for your convenience, though, so if you don't want it up for some reason, just contact me (go to the "Contact Me" page to find my email address) and tell me all your problems about it. I'll try to meet those problems and make the YRT/it's page better. :)

Peppermint Mocha

(Coffee recipe #6)
Told you there would be a lot of coffee recipes coming through. And I haven't even posted half of them! They're all in a folder, all together, all waiting to be posted. Don't worry, some day they will. But for right now I have only one...just one. And just one post for it, too. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk (not a measuring cup, a real cup, that you drink out of)
• 1 dash peppermint mocha creamer (Coffee Mate)
• 1 teabag chai tea

Directions

1. Put milk in microwave 1-2 minutes.
2. Put in peppermint mocha.
3. Put teabag in and steep for 3-4 minutes (or whatever time you want)
4. Sweeten if desired and

English Toffee Mocha

This being the fifth coffee recipe, I thought it should have a rather extravagant name.

Also, it's the flavor of the cocoa I used.

It's really good.

It's much better than normal cocoa which consists of cocoa powder/one cocoa packet and hot water (or, if you're like me, hot milk). It's much better.

Here are the steps.

Ingredients

• 1 c 2% milk
• 1 small spoonful Trader Joe's inst. coffee
• 1 heaping spoonful English Toffee cocoa (Lisa's gourmet)
  (this is the cocoa I used for this recipe...you need it to make the recipe the right way)

Directions

1. Heat milk up in microwave or 1 min
2. Stir in coffee
3. Stir in cocoa
4. Serve and

Here's how to make your own 2% milk:
You'll need:
3/4 c fat free/skim milk
1/4 c cream* ("heavy whipping cream" to be exact but you don't need to be)
Directions:
Pour milk into a cup, pour cream in (make sure both ingredients are measured...see note below), stir, use it to make the cocoa recipe above. And enjoy!

*I use less than 1/4 cup...WAY less, because it seems like too much and I feel like I'm going down the fat road, so put as much in as you like, no skin off my nose, but I do suggest you use more like a tablespoon to three tablespoons of cream.

(If you want a more accurate recipe, like the one I use, as soon as the new page "Add-On Recipes" is posted, go there and it should be somewhere in there...if you can't find it, just do Ctrl+F and a bar at the bottom of your computer screen will pop up with a little bar at the left corner. Click on it and type in "2% milk" and it'll get you where the add-on is. Hope that helps!)

Mocha Coffee

I love this kind of coffee.

Not only do you not have to add sugar or cream to it, it's also enjoyable for those of you who don't like coffee.

Which is quite a few people, actually.

One of my friends only likes coffee if there was enough cocoa mix.

So, here's my version. It's very basic, only takes a cup and a spoon and a few minutes. And luckily, more and more often I have a few minutes, so I do it a lot.

It's really not a recipe, though. It's more of just something you can throw together. It doesn't take a genius, it only takes instant coffee and a packet of instant cocoa. And it's good. And you can make it at hotels because all hotels have either coffee or cocoa or, most likely, both.

Make it and try it. You don't need a recipe, but if you're not sure what to do, well, that's why I'm here.

Not literally, just figuratively.

Enjoy the fourth coffee recipe I've posted! Should be good.

Ingredients

• 1 pkg Swiss Miss inst. cocoa
• 1 spoonful Trader Joe's inst. coffee
• 3/4 c warm milk

Directions

1. Put cocoa mix and coffee into cup
2. Put milk in microwave for 2 min
3. Pour milk slowly into cup, stirring while you go (it takes care of the chunks of cocoa powder that come to the top after you've poured in the milk)
4. Optional: Put dash of cream in, serve and

Note: for an even easier no-work experience, try this. It's delicious! It's basically instant coffee and mocha mix all together in one big container of yum! This is 100% my own opinion and to some people it's watery. To me, it's not. Put in about an 1/8 of a cup in an 8 oz. mug and you should be good. Just play with it, see what you like in or out of it and you should end up on your head. Either way, give it a try. They sell them at Costco on the West Coast and trust me they're the best! Also, their cappuccinos are really good, too. But that's a different recipe. Enjoy!