Play It Again, Blog!

Today, over at Rocks in My Dryer, we were asked to pull out one of our favorite WFMW blogs and "play it again", so here is one from February 2008 (I haven't been participating all that long):

I only drink one cup of DECAF coffee per day (helps me wake up), but I like flavored creamer in my coffee. Since I have been making my husband's half and half with much success, HE suggested that I ought to be able to make my flavored creamer in a similar manner. Since we live in Mexico, we can only purchase this when we go across into the states, so it is a matter of convenience even more than frugality.

Well, guess what I found over at The Motherload? She had experimented and figured out a way to make flavored creamer using sweetened condensed milk (she even has a recipe for making that from scratch). So I decided to experiment myself and try it with Lechera (the Mexican version of sweetened condensed milk). I put one can of Lechera, 2 cups of milk (1 1/2 like she called for was still too thick), 2 teaspoons of vanilla (the real kind from Mexico) and about 1 Tablespoon of ground cinnamon (I am sure a liquid would be better, but that is what I had). I mixed that all up in my blender and it came out really great! I had a tiny bit left from my previous purchase to taste test it against and it is awfully close. And, just for the frugal side of me, it only cost HALF of what I have been paying for creamer. So it is a big savings, too!! Don't you just love that?

I am sure you could make all different kinds of flavors with a little experimenting and some of those liquid flavorings like they use at Starbucks. I like mine simple - vanilla and cinnamon.

A couple additional notes - I now use liquid cinnamon extract and it works much better! Also, Lechera is MUCH sweeter than the American sweetened condensed milk, so I add more milk to it. Some folks from the Southwinds group tried it, too, and liked it very much! And you don't really need to use your blender if you just shake it up REALLY well.