How to make the PERFECT vanilla Latte

I LOVE coffee. I am a total coffee addict. I drink about one or two cups a day, mostly for the taste, but sometimes because I’m tired and coffee gets me moving. Back in college, I used my meal plan dollars to get a Grande Breve (half&half) Vanilla Latte, extra hot, and no foam (because if it wasn’t extra hot, by time I got to class the coffee would be warm and no foam because I don’t like buying a 5 dollar cup of foam). My college Starbucks’ made the best coffees and they knew me by name and order which was wonderful, especially since I stutter. Now that I’m not in college, I haven't been able to get coffee like that as much because I had to use actual money out of our actual bank account and I’m not for that. Plus, despite the abundance of coffee shops in Seoul, their vanilla lattes are absolutely horrible and they’re super expensive, about six dollars for a “tall” size.

Because of the expensive horrible coffee here in Seoul, I mainly made coffee at home. However, despite my love of coffee, I am horrible at making it. I had a drip coffee maker from my parents and a French press and I could never produce good coffee from either (though my non-coffee drinking husband can). We bought a Keurig for this exact reason because I love coffee but can’t make it. I’ve used it religiously for the past year, but plain coffee isn’t quite the same as a latte. Then one day I found an espresso machine on one of the military community buy/sell Facebook pages here for $25 and snatched it up! I was worried at first that my curse of bad coffee would transfer to espresso, but thank goodness, it did not! I am able to make a vanilla latte that is *almost* as good as the lattes from my college’s Starbucks and 100 times better than what I can get here for 6 dollars. Now, after my ramblings about coffee, here’s what you need and how to do it!

What you need //

• Espresso Machine (I have this DeLonghi EC155 which I've found good for my amateur at home latte making. As long as the espresso doesn't taste burnt and can be tasted through all my milk and sweetening, I don't really care how perfectly the espresso is brewed)
• Food Scale (we have this one. This is also optional, but helps make a consistently good latte)
• Espresso of your choice (I use Café Bustelo because it’s cheap and one of only two espressos I have access to.)
• Milk of your choice (you can use regular, half & half, almond, soy, cashew, etc.)
• Syrup of your choice (I, of course, use vanilla but use whatever you like and I use the Torani Brand as it's the only brand I have access to)
• Optional: sweetener of your choice

How to do it //

1) Pre-heat your espresso machine Follow your espresso machine’s instructions. Mine requires at least a 20-minute heat up time so I’ll often turn it on while I make breakfast so that it’s done by the time I’m ready.

2) Measure 7-9 grams of espresso into your espresso filter, I use the two shot filter. If you don’t have a scale, it’s about 2 heaping teaspoons (not the measuring spoon just a regular old small spoon).

3) Press your espresso. My espresso machine came with a tamper attached to it, but if yours doesn’t, then you’ll need to purchase one like this. Make sure to not press too hard but hard enough that the espresso looks pressed.

4) Begin brewing your espresso, I found that about 30-35 seconds of actually espresso drip is the perfect amount of time. You may have to play around with this depending on your espresso.

5) Pour your milk into a mug, measuring cup, or other milk frother cup. I use a one cup measuring cup and fill 4 ounces with half & half and 2 ounces of regular 2% milk (because half & half is expensive). But 6 ounces of any milk of your preference is the perfect amount. Steam the milk until it reaches the temperature you desire. I like mine very hot and with not much foam so I don’t purposely foam my milk by leaving the frother near the top of the milk.

6) Combine your espresso and milk. Add the syrup of your choice and sweetener of your choice if you desire. I don’t have a spoon measurement for the syrup but I add about 3 seconds of pouring for sugar-free and 5 seconds of pouring for regular syrup and it comes out perfectly vanilla to me. I also add a little sugar because I like my lattes sweet. But this is up to your preference.

7) Sit back and enjoy 😊

I hope this helps you make a better latte. What's your favorite coffee drink or if you don't drink coffee, what's your favorite drink to get at a coffee shop?

See you next week :)

Kylie <3

Kylie Reads: Percy Jacks & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Can we talk about why on Earth it took me this long to read this series!? Not only did it take me forever to even buy the first book (Sophomore year of college), but I’ve had the first and second books in my library for 3 years now, they even moved to South Korea with me! I decided to finally pick the book up recently because I wanted something similar to Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Nick to take my mind off the fact that my husband was at a temporary duty station for two weeks. I wanted something set in fantasy but wasn’t super involved and was light and fun to read. I am SO glad that I did! I absolutely loved it and I understand now why there is a whole huge fandom centered around the series.

Percy Jackson is a 12-year-old with a history of getting kicked out of schools and is the son of the Greek God Poseidon. After getting kicked out of his most recent school, he finds himself at a summer camp for kids who all have a Greek God as one parent. Quickly after that, he is thrust on an adventure to try and stop a war amongst the gods.

For a short book, I loved the amount of adventure in it. There was enough to keep me glued to the book but it wasn’t over the top. I also liked that since it’s a YA book, that the adventure isn’t gory or crazy. It’s just nice clean adventure. I was also surprised that for Percy being 12, it doesn’t read like he is. I often forgot that this is a 12-year-old boy going across the United States to save the world, he could very well have been an older teenager. I’m really excited to read the rest of the series. I looked on Amazon and there’s a box set for 25 dollars with beautiful covers. So I plan on adding that to my library soon. I can also feel this series quickly becoming an all-time favorite of mine and one of my series that I get Funko Pop Figures for haha.

Overall, I loved this book and I highly recommend this series. If you like YA books with a lot of fantasy, a nice amount of action without much gore, and if you like Greek mythology then I think you would like this book. I know that the series starting out with such a young character seems off-putting for older people, but it’s not very noticeable once he leaves school. Also, if you like series such as Harry Potter then I think you would enjoy this.

Book rating: 4.5 out of 5, I absolutely loved it!

Have you read or do you plan to read the Percy Jackson series?

See you next week :)

Kylie <3 

My favorite Bullet Journal Supplies

Bullet Journaling is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I love making lists and filling things out, hence why I have so many trackers in my monthly, you can see a monthly set-up here. Over my year of bullet journaling, I have accumulated a few items that I use every day or even if they aren’t used daily, they're something that’s important to my journaling.

A Variety of Colorful Utensils //

My absolute favorite colorful pens are the Staedtlertri-plus fine liners. They write wonderfully, come in a vast array of colors – especially if you spring for the 42 pack – and they last for forever. I love how thin they write and how vibrant the colors are.

I also use Papermate Flairs and Le Pen, I don’t like these quite as much but I love pens so I buy them every now and again. The Flairs are a bit of a thicker point than the Le Pen and the Staedtler so I mainly use them for outlining.

Crayola Colored Pencils are a classic pencil, while they may not do as well as high end colored pencils they serve the purpose that I use them for and they’re great. Plus, they're cheap.

Crayola SuperTips are a wonderful, cheap way to add a little color or use for highlighting and underlining. I’ve heard you can learn to hand letter with them, but I haven’t had the patience to try.

Zebra Mildliners: A cult classic for bullet journalists. I love that they are double sided and I love the muted but still vibrant colors. They were great for college and they’re still great for just journaling. My only qualm is that they're expensive and hard to find if you’re not in Asia.

My regular writing pens are just Sharpie Pens. I was using a Pilot G-2 but they smeared horribly in my book, even after I waited a few minutes. Sharpie pens also don’t bleed or ghost as bad and they dry instantly. I use a Pilot G-2 pencil for my outlining and a Pentel Clic-Erase eraser, both are long time favorites of mine. I also have a uni-ball style-fit multi-pen with a .32 tip on all 3 pens. It’s super fine and wonderful when you want to write neatly, but super tiny.

Washi, Washi, and More Washi //

I sometimes use washi tape to add little pops of cuteness to my book and to sometimes cover up mistakes. It’s super versatile and comes in hundreds of patterns. I pick up a roll every now and again when I’m at Daiso or ArtBox, they’re kind of expensive (to me) so it’s not something I get often.

6-inch ruler //

I was using a regular 12-inch ruler and decided to spend the dollar and get a 6-inch ruler and I’m so glad I did. The 6in is so much more portable and it fits the notebook better because it is an A5 size and isn’t even 6in across. Such a simple, but a nice item to have.

A Portable Printer //

My husband bought me a Polaroid Zip printer for my birthday and I absolutely love it! I love being able to print pictures of fun things Mark and I do and stick them in my bullet journal as a memory. It makes it so fun to look back.

What are some of your favorite journaling supplies?

See you next week :)

Kylie <3 

Goodbye August

Another month has ended! We are flying through this year and it’s hard to believe that this time last year I was in my last semester of undergrad. Time seems to keep going faster and faster. But I’ve always wanted to do monthly review posts and decided that I might as well start today.

Reading //

This month was a Harry Potter Binge month. I’m not really reading them in order because I’m reading them in order of my favorite book. Harry Potter is a comfort series for me like it is for many people. I had quite a bit of anxiety this month and wanted books that were familiar and decently happy and preferably not set in the world we live in. So I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I got halfway through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in July. I may or may not finish the series throughout the rest of the year, but the last 2 books are so much darker and I don't really want to read darkness in my books...at least not knowingly.

Aside from Harry Potter, I read Saturn Run by John Sandford. Keep an eye out for a review on it, I loved it! I also read Inferno by Sherrilyn Kenyon, book 4 in the Chronicles of Nick series. Which I also loved as this is one of my favorite series – I might do a review on this one as well but my thoughts on it are basically the same as my other reviews on books from this series which you can read here and here. Finally, I read Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo, the last book in the Shadow and Bone Trilogy. You can read my review on that here.

Watching //

On my own, I watched season one of Gilmore Girls. I’ve previously watch up to season 4 but decided to start over since the last time I watched it was August of last year. But I love this series. The relationship between Rory and Lorelai is great and similar to the relationship I have with my mom. Stars Hollow and its residents just makes me want to move to a small town.

Mark and I are watching The Flash and Grimm and love them both, but we started Vikings on a recommendation and binge-watched season 1 in a day and are almost done with season 2. But we had to take a break because I needed a break from the gore and violence. I do enjoy the show though.

As for movies, we watch Despicable Me 3 for the second time, but this time in a 4Dx theater. I don’t think the 4D added to the movie like it did Spiderman (a movie we watched in 4D in July). But it was still fun, especially because Mark fell asleep halfway through and somehow stayed asleep despite the seats moving. It was entertaining though because his head was flopping around with the seat. Anyway, that’s the only movie we saw in the theater this month. The on-post theater wasn’t playing anything we were interested in and the local theaters weren’t either.

Doing //

We only had two weeks of time we could go do anything because Mark worked every day for the last two weeks. We managed to pack in quite a bit of stuff during the few days he had off. It's starting to cool off so we went on a very long bike ride along the Han River and while fun, I thought I would die on our way back because it was a 26-mile round trip. On the next weekend, which was a four day for him, we went on a River cruise and it was a blast, though we wished it was longer and we plan to do the dinner cruise soon so we can enjoy and hour and a half long cruise. After the cruise, we walked around Yeuido Hangang Park for a bit afterward where we got great drinks from a bongo truck and watched someone play guitar. Then we went to a global food festival where we had amazing Cuban sandwiches and a Cuban sausage from a little food truck - which is a little sad because I have no idea how to find that food truck again and the food was so amazing.

So those were the highlights of the month of August. Hopefully, September will bring great memories, especially after Mark gets home from what is essentially a short TDY, and we can go out and explore some more :).

What were the highlights of your month?

See you next week :)

Kylie <3