These are recipes based on using a moka pot mentioned in the previous post about how to make espresso drinks at home. As you can see, the espresso drink recipes are simple. Do something nice for yourself or loved one, make your own espresso drinks every day without having to leave your house! Be a home barista and save yourself hundreds of dollars throughout the year.

Basic Espresso Recipe

1 – 1 1/2 oz of espresso

Cappuccino Recipe

1/3 cup espresso

1/3 cup steamed milk

1/3 cup foam

Latte Recipe

1/4 cup espresso

3/4 cup steamed milk

1 tbsp. Torani syrup (optional)

Mocha Recipe

1/4 cup espresso

3/4 cup steamed milk

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

sweeten to taste

whipped cream (optional)

There are many articles about saving money by making your own coffee at home. But they’re about making drip coffee. What if you prefer the more sophisticated, cafe espresso drinks, which require more skill to make? Isn’t that why you spend the extra $3 – $4 a day to buy it from Starbucks?

How much does your daily latte or mocha cost you? $3 – $4 a day? $21 – $28 a week? $84 – $112 a month? What if you made your espresso drinks at home or even at work?

You don’t even need an expensive espresso machine! In fact, I’ll admit, I’m afraid of the espresso machine, especially the frothing feature. It’s loud and screaming hot. You can burn yourself if you’re not careful. And it takes a lot of skill to use it.

The way I make espresso drinks at home is fairly easy.

The 3 tools you need to make espresso drinks:

• Coffee grinder

• Moka pot (cheaper aluminum version) or stainless steel version

• Aeroccino Nespresso frother or a saucepan and a whisk

2 skills to master to make any espresso drink:

1. Make espresso in a moka pot. See the link for step by step instructions. There is even an electric plug-in version of the moka pot that will allow you to make espresso at work! Note: With a brand new moka pot, be sure to season it first by brewing espresso in it 7 times. A few times, I reused the ground espresso beans because I was lazy. It doesn’t matter. After the 7th brew, you’ll “taste” the difference.
2. Steam milk

• In a pan – heat milk over medium heat while whisking, remove from heat before the milk starts boiling and foaming up

or

• using the Aeroccino Nespresso Frother – This product heats and froths milk at the same time. It plugs into any outlet. Add milk up to the line and push the button. The frother stops automatically after about a minute. It’s really fast and really simple! Choose from 2 attachments, one for steaming and light froth and the other attachment for thick, creamy froth. The Aeroccino frother froths way better than any frothing wand. This product requires a small investment of about $100, but it’s worth it in the long run. You can use it to steam and froth milk at work as well as make hot cocoa or chai latte. I’ve had mine for over 3 years.

It will be a small investment at first for some of these products, but if you’re making your own espresso drinks 5 – 7 days a week, you’ll recoup that in a month or two.

Espresso Drink Recipes

To me, eating well is a big part of “living richly”. And eating well doesn’t have to mean eating out. Why can’t we change the way we think about cooking at home? We can cook gourmet meals at home.

Cooking at home can save a lot of money. If you don’t know where to start, here is a menu for a month of easy yet elegant dinners from Real Simple magazine. And you won’t have to pay $4.95 for to buy a magazine.

There’s a good variety of vegetarian and meat dinners. Vegetarian meals save a lot of money. Meat is expensive! Try cooking meatless meals at least once a week, to improve your budget as well as your health.

What I also like to do is cook extra portions of dinner and save it for lunch the next day. What a treat it is to have a gourmet meal for lunch at work instead of a boring sandwich!

See the recipes here: A Month of Easy Dinners