Hello from snowy DC!
You know what’s kind of lame? The fact that with technology nowadays, a snow day from work just means that you work from home instead of at the office. Bummer, right? I miss the days of full on snow days, where snow meant you didn’t have to work at all! It is fun to have Matt working from home with me today, though. 🙂
In honor of the snow, I decided to make us a batch of my Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal (<—click for recipe) this morning.
I hadn’t used the stove to make oats in… um… a year or more?! I always rock the microwave, and if I include pumpkin, I just stir it in at the last minute! So today’s oats felt like a special treat.
They were extra yummy. Topped with pecans for a little healthy fat. I also stirred in some wild blueberries near the end of cooking, since we now know how awesome wild blueberries are. 🙂
You know who also enjoyed some of my pumpkin pie oatmeal this morning? My high school best friend Jenny’s daughter, Mia, down in Georgia!
Jenny said she’s obsessed with it. How cute is that photo?! 🙂 I love it!
Anyway! We enjoyed some especially awesome coffee with our oats because last night I cleaned out our Keurig and our Nespresso Pixie Espresso Machine using these CleanCup products!
A few weeks ago, Matt commented that we needed to figure out a way to clean out our Keurig. He said his coffee had started tasting a little watery/off lately, and that it was brewing more slowly, which makes sense considering we’ve had it for 3 years now and basically never cleaned it. Don’t judge.
Well, in what can only be called serendipity or fate, a mere few hours later that day I received an email from the CleanCup peeps asking if I’d be interested in reviewing their coffee machine cleaning products. They read our mind! Yes, please. Tastier coffee for all!
They sent us two products to try, and first up was the CleanCups Single Cup Brewer Cleaning Cups, which are compatible with the Keurig K-Cup brewers. They’re essentially little K-Cups filled with cleaning solution that clean the exit needle, portion pack holder, and funnel area of the Keurig. The solution is biodegradable, phosphate free, and odorless.
The CleanCup Single Cup Brewer Cleaning Cups are the first ever cleaner in a cup specifically designed to clean a Keurig, and they are super easy to use – all you do is pop the K-Cup into the holder and brew like you would a normal coffee K-Cup!
After you brew twice with the cleaning cup, you take it out and then rinse it out with a few plain water brews (with no K-Cup in there at all). Easy as pie.
Once that was done, I tried out the other product they sent us: the CleanCup Descaling Liquid, which works with all home coffee machines. Basically, they told me that any time water comes into contact with a heating system, limescale and mineral deposits build up. If the limescale is not removed, you will notice that your coffee isn’t getting brewed as hot and eventually the machine will stop working. Cleaning out the buildup will help to extend the life of your machine, and they said this solution is more effective than vinegar. Like the CleanCups, it’s also biodegradable, phosphate free, and odorless.
I used the liquid to clean out both our Keurig’s water reservoir and our Nespresso’s water reservoir. It was also really easy to use – just pour some of the liquid into the water reservoir, fill the rest of the way with water, then brew through the machine (without any coffee in it) until all the water is gone. Then you brew a few more times with clean water to rinse it out, et voila! Clean machine.
So, what’s the verdict? I had Matt do a taste-test of the Keurig coffee and he said that he definitely noticed a difference! The coffee tasted richer and less watery and the weird flavor that he’s noticed for the past few weeks was gone, too. It also brewed more quickly. Total win! I’d definitely recommend both these products if you have a Keurig or other home coffee machine. We’ll be buying more of them on our own dime once our samples run out! Thank you to the CleanCup team for letting us check out the products and for sponsoring this section of the post!
And now, I will leave you with this picture, which cracks me up.
Little Zara says hi. 🙂 The poor thing has a cold right now – her sneeze is both the cutest and saddest thing ever. I have to take her to the vet later today (if the snow allows –it’s just a routine check in that’s required within 10 days of getting her from the animal shelter), so I’ll double check it’s nothing more serious!
Have a great day, my friends! Is it snowy where you are, too?
