Tso, What's Cooking?: coffee

There's no question that I love my cup (or two) of coffee in the morning. Have you seen the Folger's commercial where the smell wakes everyone in the house and everyone has a smile on their face? That's me. The smell of coffee makes me extra happy. A morning without my coffee is a morning you don't want to be around me.

Before I started working from home, I was a Starbucks regular. Now since I'm home every day, I have my coffee brewing down to a science. I've gone from a coffee maker to a french press, which I think provides me with the best brew. You can control how long the water steeps with the coffee grinds and it provides a more robust or "umph" flavor. While not food, I thought I'd share this staple of my every morning because sometimes coffee is my breakfast =).

1. Start with freshly grind coffee beans. Seriously. Makes a big difference. Take the extra two minutes in the morning to do this step.

2. Depending on the coffee beans (I typically like a medium to bold flavor), you'll need to adjust the amount of coffee you add. I add three heaping tablespoons of coffee.

3. With hot water from my kettle, I fill to the top and use my trusty, multipurpose chopstick to give it a good stir.

4. Add the top and let this sit for a few minutes.

5. While the coffee is steeping, I prepare my milk. I am a soy milk fan. I've tried regular milk and almond milk but soy wins the race. I either use unsweetened soy (but need to add a little more sugar) or vanilla soy milk (already sweetened but I only need a teaspoon of sugar). I filled about 1/8 of my big coffee mug with soy milk and heat it up for one minute.

6. With unsweetened soy, I add 2.5 to 3 teaspoons of sugar. I don't like the taste of Splenda or other artificial sweeteners (they taste overly sweet to me) so adjust how much you add base on the type of sugar you prefer.