So. It's been hot in NYC this week… ridiculously hot… especially for May. WHAT IS HAPPENING?! What is this nonsense?

We finally got our A/C installed in our apartment and LOW AND BEHOLD, I did some research and I don't think it'll be enough to cool our entire apartment this summer. Shocker. I'm estimating the apartment is like 700 square feet and our 8000 btu/hr window A/C definitely won't cover it. I'm thinking about investing in a portable A/C, have you guys ever used one? Did it work well? Amazon reviews make it seem like a good option. Plus, we basically spent $200 to install the window unit that we stole from Frankie's parents and at that price the portable ones would be comparable.

WHY DID I MOVE SOMEWHERE I NEED AN A/C?!?!? I'm missing the Seattle weather. WAH.

With the weather warming up, Frankie and I have been devouring iced coffee like woah. I'm ALL about those dunkin iced coffees (pro tip: do an iced rocky road, just cream – no sugar… it's ah-mazinggg), but at $3 a pop it's almost maddening.

I justify it because um, we don't have a coffee maker, except a single serve keurig and the idea of making iced coffee in that thing haunts my dreams at night (but really, it does).

On Saturdays and Sundays we get bagels and coffees and lounge around the apartment. It's a cute little routine. I inevitably end up in the kitchen either meal prepping for the week or messing around to come up with something exciting for the blog. But, practically every time Frankie buys an iced coffee he asks me if we can just make it at home. I usually dismiss it and say UGH IT'S TOO HARD.

But last weekend I got adventurous. I know, I know, I'm such a risk-taker.

Except it wasn't really risky because Jessica had posted about making sweetened condensed coconut milk for her cold brew and I read about it and was like HEY! I can totally do that.

but I didn't want to spend $50 on a coffee bean grinder… plus waiting for it seemed excessive, so I committed to trying to make it with my food processor.

(I later learned if you buy the beans from a coffee shop, i.e. starbucks, you can ask them to grind the beans for you! SO COOL! Just ask them to grind them coarsely – like for a French press. they'll do the rest. oh and apparently you should use it within a week of grinding for best results – I have a sneaking suspicion you could stretch that to two weeks… but i'll try it out and let ya know).

I'm a sucker for flavored ice coffee though… so I wanted to add some cocoa powder and give this a little hint of chocolatey goodness to the brew. But not just ANY cocoa powder… it had to be the cocoa powder we got on our cruise from Honduras because I'm oh so fancy. (don't listen to me, you don't need to go to Honduras to make this – use normal cocoa powder)

oh and I added an extra cup of water – both Frankie and I aren't crazy about super strong tasting coffee, so this diluted it to a perfect brew for us. That's also why it looks so light. If that's not your thing, just scale back on the water to make the coffee flavor more concentrated.

This lasted him and I for about half the week. which in the long run when you think about it is totally worth it, a pound of beans will easily last the two of us for a week and a half (or two!) for $10! oh, plus the $3 for cream. so that's like two days of dunkin iced coffee…. womp womp wompppp.

I'm probably going to whip up another batch tonight, I'm on the hunt for a few more drink pitchers so I can streamline the process and add it into my Sunday/Saturday meal prep routine. Also, I learned that it might be easier to strain the coffee through a paper towel on top of a mesh sieve. I'll let you know what my experience is and if I like it better than the coffee filters – I will say the coffee filters took FOREVER to drain, keep in mind I have the patience of a small child begging for candy. (update: I totally loved using a paper towel on a mesh sieve more. i only had to switch out the paper towels a few times and it was SUPER fast. definitely my new go-t0 way!)

When I made this for the blog, I had a little bit of coconut milk (maybe a fourth of the can) leftover from a curry recipe (I'm planning on sharing in a few weeks!) so I whipped up a small batch of Jessica's condensed milk to go with it. just enough for two glasses. it was good! I'm not as obsessed with coconut milk, coconut in general is VERY hit or miss with me, so I'll probably just stick with typical creamer from now on – but it's definitely worth a try if you're into that.

Homemade Mocha Cold Brew

Author: Ashley Renee
Prep Time: 5
Cook Time: 1435
Total Time: 24 hours
Yield: 6 1x

Scale

Ingredients

1 cup whole coffee beans
1/8 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 cups warm water

Instructions

Place coffee beans in your food processor and coarsely grind (this takes approximately thirty seconds or so, but you be the judge).
Transfer the ground beans into a large bowl or pitcher and mix in the cocoa powder and vanilla extract.
Pour the warm water over the coffee bean mixture and stir to combine.
Place the bowl or pitcher in the fridge and let sit overnight.
The next morning, stream the mixture through a coffee filter (or use a paper towel in a mesh sieve to speed up the process if you're impatient like me) to remove the granules.
To serve, fill a glass with ice, pour in the coffee, and add your desired accompaniments (milk, cream, etc.).
Store the remaining coffee in the fridge for up to a week! Easy peasy lemon squeezy.