Coffee from fresh coffee beans!

Did you know that fresh coffee is green? I love coffee, I have to admit. Still I never knew that coffee is green? Did you know? Fresh coffee is green! I have never seen fresh coffee before. When I was little I grinded coffee and made it the old fashioned way in a kettle. My mother and grandmother taught me. It was long before I drunk myself. But I liked the big coffee grinder my grandmother had in her kitchen, Still the coffee beans we grinded were black! 

Now I have seen the fresh green coffee beans and didn´t know what I was looking at, even though I have been drinking coffee for more than 25 years. I have now tasted coffee from fresh coffee beans that I have roasted myself, grinded and made coffee from! It is such a difference in the taste, it is amazing!

I bought the coffee beans in a Eritrean shop in Stockholm. I even got a small pan to roast the beans and the Jebena to make the coffee in after it is grinded. In Eritrea drinking coffee is a whole ceremony. It is drunk with popcorn. So I made myself a coffee ceremony the Eritrean way. Well I drunk alone, and it is always a social event in Eritrea.

It is a long story to describe a real coffee ceremony, You can read more on these links.
www.ineedcoffee.com/coffee-cultures-eritrea-and-ethiopia/
www.ucl.ac.uk/atlas/tigrinya/coffee_ceremony.html

For me I roasted the coffee beans in the pan called a “menkeskesha”. I let them cool on a small woven mat and then grinded the beans in a small coffee grinder I have bought. It works to use a mixer as well. After grinding the coffee I filled water and coffee in my Jebena. This is a coffeepot made of clay. I put it on my electric stove. It works even if it is not the "right way". After the coffee has boiled I placed it on a special woven stand to let the coffee sink before I poured it. The coffee is poured into small cups with sugar. How much sugar depends on your taste. For me I normally drink coffee without sugar. And with the coffee the tradition is to eat popcorn. 

Himbasha

Himbasha is an Ethiopian and Eritrean celebration bread that is slightly sweet. It is often served at special occasions. But it is also eaten for ordinary days for breakfast, lunch or supper. It can be eaten with spreads or jam or with stews where you tear pieces of bread and dip in the stew or toppings.



Ingredients:
1, 1 kg (2 ½ lb) wheat flour
1 tbsp sugar (optional)
1 tbsp yeast
1 tsp salt
¼ cup oil
1 cup water

Directions:

Put yeast and sugar in mildly warm water (about a cup of water). Wait until it rises, 20-30 minutes, than mix all ingredients to make a dough, (just like a dough for a regular bread). Wait until it rises about 4 hours. Then bake it in an electric frying pan or in the oven on 200 celcius degrees for 20 minutes. This will make it flat and you can make any design on it before baking.

This bread is prepared in a number of varieties, however the most distinctive flavoring is ground cardamom seeds. Some put raisins in it or decorate with raisins. This is optional as well. For this size if you like add ½ cup raisins to the ingredients. I baked the bread in the oven, but if you want to bake it in a frying pan it works just as well. Just make sure you don´t have too hot frying pan and you should cover with a lid. You turn the bread over while you bake it this way until it is done.

Prickly Pear Jam

Ingredients:

4 cups of prickly pear fruit and juice (from about 30 fruits)

1/4 cup of lemon or lime juice

1/2 tsp ground ginger (optional)
5 cups of sugar

Directions:

This fruit is full of rock hard seeds inside. They are like small pebbles and you want to get them all out of your jam. With a sharp knife, cut off both ends of the fruit and cut it in half. Remove the skin. Scrape out the seeds with a spoon into a bowl. They are surrounded by juice that can be used in the jam. Once the fruit and seeds are separated, put the seeds in a strainer or in a cloth ( the type used for cooking sticky rice.) Squeeze out all the juice and fruit and you will have the seeds only left. Throw them away.

Heat prickly pear fruit and juice, lemon juice and sugar in a pot. Bring to a boil. Cook for 10 minutes stirring constantly. Skim off the foam. Put the fruit and juice in a food processor or mix with a mixer for a minute or two until smooth. This jam thickens as it cools, so it will seem pretty loose at this point.

Ladle into sterilized jars or freeze.