Steeped Coffee Single-Serve Bags

steeped coffee bag with package

As long as I have been alive, my mother has been an avid coffee drinker. I remember when instant coffee bags were invented – they’re like tea bags, but with coffee in them, and they are supposed to taste better than instant coffee crystals that you just stir into hot water, because there is some brewing involved. It seems like a good idea for when you are out of coffee for your drip machine or French press, or for camping, but honestly the brands she has used in the past have never worked for me. I like my coffee medium-strength and the best I could ever get out of the instant bags has been…not great.

I tried Steeped Coffee last fall before the holiday season began, in advance of my mom’s annual Thanksgiving visit. I had dreams of introducing her to a new brand that would blow her mind, and I also had high hopes of identifying a better backup for my own coffee habit. This is what grabbed me about the brand:

…each Steeped Pack contains hand-roasted, ethically-sourced, Direct Trade coffee that’s precision ground to showcase the distinctive flavor profile of every crafted blend.

The sample pack contains Light, Medium, Dark, Extra Dark, and Decaf, and includes instructions on how to brew the coffee for maximum flavor. I settled down to try it…

coffee package with brewing instructions

coffee bag with package and mug

coffee mug with brewed bag

woman smiling holding coffee mug up to her face

It is tasty!

No sweat. If you follow the directions and use really hot water, the flavor is strong and rich. The true test was my mother, though. When she visited I gave her the Steeped Coffee bags and she loves them. However, she left them behind. Good thing I can just order them and send them to her. The company even offers a monthly subscription box. They offer fun little accessories, too.

Steeped Coffee
$15-39 per box
steepedcoffee.com

I received a complimentary sample pack to facilitate this feature. To have your product or service featured on Agoura Hills Mom, please contact me at ki*@************om.com

Drink Recipe: Volcano Screwdriver with Mongibello Blood Orange Juice

What! A blog post? Yes, I do still blog from time to time. In fact, I have a backlog of posts just waiting for me to finish and publish. It’s just that, well, life gets in the way sometimes, okay a lot of times. But never fear – I have come upon a chunk of free time in my schedule so I’m returning to this blog that I love, in the town I love. Stay with me here, because there’s a tasty cocktail at the end of this post.

Mongibello Juice glass

What you see here is some pretty amazing juice. It is Mongibello Blood Orange Juice, available at Bristol Farms and on sale through October 16 (that’s next Tuesday, so make your field trip to Bristol Farms NOW). The orange trees grow on the side of Mt. Etna in Italy, where the soil is perfect and the juice is squeezed fresh, then frozen for its journey all the way to us in The Bubble. That means it tastes heavenly.

What’s great about Mongibello Blood Orange Juice is that it’s not only delicious for the whole family, but also, you can make a cocktail out of it!

Because Mt. Etna is a volcano, I went for a volcano-inspired hybrid cocktail this time. May I present to you…

The Volcano Screwdriver with Mongibello Orange Juice:

Part mimosa, part volcano, part screwdriver, but all Mongibello, and all delicious. I know because let’s just say I tasted several versions of this recipe until I got it just right.

mongibello juice volcano screwdriver

Volcano Screwdriver with Mongibello Orange Juice

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Mongibello Blood Orange Juice
1 1/2 ounces raspberry vodka
1/2 ounce Prosecco
fresh raspberries for garnish

Directions:

Mix juice and vodka in a shaker with ice.
Divide mix into two Champagne flutes. This will fill them 2/3 to 3/4 full.
Add Prosecco to fill.
Top with a splash of raspberry vodka.
Garnish with raspberries.

mongiobello juice drinks

Cheers!

Mongibello Blood Orange Juice is available at Bristol Farms and on Amazon 
You can follow Mongibello Juice on Instagram for recipes, serving suggestions, and inspiration!

This is a sponsored post. All ideas, opinions, and preference for a little extra vodka are my own. This recipe got “two enthusiastic thumbs up” from Sybil, my taster. 

mongiobello juice top of glass

 

My Amazing Banana Bread – Recipe

Who doesn’t love bananas? I buy a bunch every time I go grocery shopping, and my family eats all but 1 or 2 of them. They just don’t dig bananas that are even a little bit too ripe. (What’s your banana number?) To me that means one thing:

banana bread graphic

My mom taught me how to make banana bread when I was young, maybe I was 12 years old. I have always had this banana bread in my life. She wrote the recipe down on a recipe card that my girlfriends had given to every bridal shower guest, and then I collected all the recipes in a matching recipe box. (For you youngsters, that’s how we used to collect recipes before Pinterest.)

I make this banana bread all the time. I make it to keep on the kitchen counter for my family to eat. I make it for potlucks, for bake sales, and for people who just had a baby or surgery or a death in the family. Everyone loves it. Everyone raves about it.

But the recipe isn’t a secret. It was from the Jiffy Mix box, probably a box that my mom had in the house when I was little.

I make my own baking mix now so I don’t use Jiffy Mix, but it’s easy enough to buy a box of that pre-mixed baking mix and whip it out. This is how easy it is:

Ingredients:

2 cups baking mix
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter

Directions:

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Beat in the eggs and banana.
Stir in the baking mix until you form a moist batter.
Use a rubber or silicone spatula to scrape batter into bread loaf pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes.

And this is what you get, and it’s amazing, and everyone loves it:

banana bread on cutting board

Photo by Jo del Corro via Flickr