So we’ve had the new bed for almost a week now, and with only a little insomnia hiccup (due to someone coughing cold death for several days), it’s been a week of solid blissful sleep. However, we’re finding that a comfortable, sleep-friendly bed comes at a price: for those of us who aren’t early-morning risers, who will never be early morning risers, the bed makes it even harder to get up at 6am. That mattress just absorbs energy; you hit it and you suddenly just don’t want to go anywhere. Desperately don’t want to go anywhere.

But work doesn’t wait. Students fill classrooms, clients want copy. The sun’s rising, the trash needs to go out, and the dog has his legs crossed and is doing a little I-gotta-pee dance. So that’s where coffee comes to the rescue.

We like coffee around here, and we brew it strong. Most of it goes into my cup; I get a pot going first thing in the morning, and Kristi’s out the door with a travel mug. I usually polish off the rest of the pot over the course of the day. I couldn’t get through the day without good coffee, a habit I picked up about ten years ago working in the telecom industry. I wouldn’t want to go through the day without it.

Here’s what we use:

Cinnamon Hazelnut beans, Pacific Coast Cafe brand. I don’t know if you can get this on the East Coast; we buy it at our local Savemart here in Modesto, stocking up whenever it goes on sale at $5.99/lb. We usually have at least four pounds stocked in the freezer at any given time. Back in Orlando I brewed Starbucks French Roast, but that crap’s expensive. Pacific Coast Cinnamon Hazelnut is cheaper and tastes better, in my opinion.

Sweetened French Vanilla coffee creamer. Usually the Savemart store brand – again, cheaper and tastes at least as good as the more expensive stuff. Lately though we’ve been using Coffeemate Peppermint Mocha creamer, and that’s some good stuff. Pour some of that in a cup of strong, quality coffee and you’ve got a pretty close approximation of a $5 Starbucks peppermint mocha at a fraction of the price.

And don’t buy the ground, vacuum-packed stuff. Grind your own beans – you’ll get more and better flavor for your money. We got a Krups coffee grinder as a wedding gift and use it every day. We love it.

But of course, what makes good coffee is a good coffee maker. They range from super cheap Mr. Coffee machines at Walmart to super expensive units that do far more than any sane home coffee drinker would ever need. Again, a wedding gift came to our rescue this year: a Krups programmable coffee maker. Brews excellent coffee and features several protection mechanisms to keep the coffee from burning, the water from overflowing, etc. Best of all, you can program it the night before to have a pot ready five minutes before you get up.

How about you guys? Any other coffee achievers out there with tips to share?

We haven’t done food on R&K in a while. Chicken’s big around here, because I generally avoid eating red meat; when we do meat, it’s usually fish or poultry. So we go through chicken like crazy.

When Kristi and I first got together, we had menu problems. We were both used to fast food, frozen dinner diets that had to stop: they were lousy for us, expensive, and just didn’t taste all that good. Problem was, neither of us came to the table with many easy dinner recipes – especially hearty ones that keep you going on a cold December NorCal night. So we went out looking and came up with a chicken casserole recipe that we gradually adapted over time and is now a regular weekly staple.

It’s good stuff. Takes a while to cook, but isn’t hard to make – you mainly just throw the parts together and put it in the oven.

Monday Night Chicken Casserole:

4 raw chicken breasts, cut into 3/4 inch (or so) cubes
1 6 oz box of salad croutons
1 10.5 oz can of Cream of Chicken soup
1 10.5 oz can of Cream of Mushroom soup
1 whole zucchini, sliced
1 head of broccoli, cut up in salad-sized chunks
1 small onion or 1/2 a large one, chopped
Mushrooms (optional and to taste, but I like it), chopped or sliced

Don’t get fancy with any of the ingredients – just get the cheapest, store-brand stuff.

Start by spraying a 9×13″ glass pan with no-stick spray. Lay the cubed chicken along the bottom of the pan; it should pretty much fill the bottom. Then pour the whole box of croutons over the chicken and evenly spread it out.

Next, put all the chopped-up veg (again, a good chopper makes this speedy and easy) into a large skillet and then turn on the stove; pour the two cups of soup into the skillet and mix in some water. Not much water – just enough to start the soup liquifying. Use one of the empty soup cans; about a third of a can, maybe half of water should be enough. Cook the soup/veg mixture on the stove only long enough to evenly liquify the soup and to mix it into the vegetables. The mission right now isn’t to cook the vegetables – that’ll happen in the oven – but to evenly distribute the soup.

IMPORTANT: Be conservative about adding water to this mix. When it cooks down, the veg is going to add a lot of water on its own. Too much water and the casserole will be soup, and will boil and overflow into a messy oven. You don’t want that, so take it easy on the water.

Season the mix to taste. Basil, oregano, pepper, any classic veg seasoning like that will do.

Next, pour the soup/veg mixture over the croutons and chicken. Again, evenly spread it out.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and put it on the oven at about 400F 375F for an hour. Then take the foil off and put it back for another half hour. You might also want to put something – an old cookie sheet maybe – underneath the tray in the oven to catch anything that might drip in overflow.

It’s a short prep time but a long cook time. It’s worth it. When you pull the casserole and let it cool a bit, the whole thing will be cooked through and through, slightly crisp up top while down below it’s all nice and thickened up. We usually end up with enough for dinner and then at least lunch the next day.

Not necessarily a summer dish, but it’s a great dinner for a cold night. Enjoy.

By the way, Wendy: we tried zucchini in our quesadillas and you were right, they’re great! Now we’re sure always to drop a whole chopped zucchini into the mix – thanks for the idea!