coffee addiction

Yesterday we shopped Aldi's where I bought my favorite cheap coffee ever. I used the rest of my last bag the day before so the situation was critical. The children were tired and fussy so I grabbed an orange bag and threw it in the cart.

That was my critical mistake.

When we moved here I shed 2/3's of what we owned. Christmas decorations were cut by 2/3. Kitchen small appliance were cut by closer to 3/4. Clothing that was stained was tossed in the trash.

My mistake was not fully reading the bag.

WHOLE BEAN coffee. 

When I read that this morning I honestly thought, "Heh. It's ok. Maybe they mean it's made from whole beans but then they ground it for me? ::insert slightly psychotic laugh here::" and when I opened the bag (still mostly asleep) I contemplated chewing them.

Snapping out of it I dug in the cabinets for a coffee grinder in hopes that one of the two we had in Tennessee made the trip and wasn't buried deep in storage. No dice.

I did look at my ice cream maker, then to my stand mixer, then to my food processor. Oh. Food processor. Well this just happens to be a food I need processed.

I gave it a few pulses and then turned it on full speed.

I was rewarded with coffee turned into small rocks. I pulsed it again and again but as they became smaller they flew around the spinning blades. Still I randomly pulsed hoping that by some miracle they'd realize what I was attempting and fall to their doom. 

At this point I whimpered loudly. My awake-sans-caffeine time had just past the "can hold it together" mark.

If we still had 2 cars I would have laughed, made myself some high octane hot tea, put the kids in the car and driven to town to pick up  coffee at a coffee shop and a grinder. No biggie.

Instead I was stranded with coffee beans laughing at me in a house too far from town to walk.

I took the coffee pebbles and tossed them in my coffee pot and received an amber liquid. This I added to a packet of hot cocoa to mask the thinness and at least transfer a small amount of caffeine to my system.

After finishing one mug I threw out the rest of the amber water and put the coffee pebbles in a baggie. Then I looked for my hammer. A few minutes later I had this:

Which I'm sure I could sell on Etsy as "hand processed extra course ground coffee made in small batches by a mentally disturbed part aboriginal woman".  I'm drinking it now and it's still weak but not as weak as round one.

So if you've ever wanted to know if you can grind coffee with a food processor the answer is no. No you can't. Don't even think about it.

And keep some ground coffee hidden in the freezer for emergencies.