by Linda on September 3, 2010
We’ve just harvested the first of the coffee beans for the season, and now begins the slightly laborious process of processing them.
We have eight Coffea canephora (Robusta) coffee bushes. They are small trees or large bushes, that we keep pruned to about 2 metres tall. From them, we get about a third of our coffee supply. We could plant more, but we would have to be sure we would get around to harvesting, as it has the potential to become an environmental weed if the beans are let wild.
Robusta is generally considered inferior to Arabica – more full bodied and higher caffeine, but more bitter and harsher. But it in an expresso maker like this, robusta is a very drinkable coffee, or at least ours is! And it has the advantage of being much hardier and less prone to pests and diseases.
Coffee grows really easily in this Northern NSW climate – this region grows some of the world’s best. Although commercial producers like full sun (and lots of fertilizer) it is naturally an understory plant and will produce fine in light shade. It doesn’t cope at all with frost.
But getting it from bean to cup takes a few stages – worth it considering the price of coffee and the satisfaction in offering visitors a cup of home-grown. But you can see why coffee is expensive!
First step is to pick the beans. We get several picks, from August until October, usually a large bucket full each time.
Next the beans have to be popped out of their cherries. This can be done by hand (and during football season my partner is usually more than willing to do it). But he has discovered that the plastic blade on the food processor does a good job without the requirement for him to watch football on TV.
The beans inside are coated with a slippery gel, and the next stage is to ferment it off. The easiest way is just to soak the beans for a couple of days, feeling them every so often until the slippery coating rubs off with a bit of agitating.
They are then rinsed with several changes of water.
Next the beans have to be thoroughly dried. We spread them out on an old screen door on the verandah to dry – we have been caught out too often by an afternoon shower to leave them out in the sun! They take a few weeks, depending on the weather, to get down to 10% moisture content. They are ready when you cannot bite into a bean and create teethmarks.
That’s where we are up to now. After the beans are dried, they still need the parchment layer removed, also easiest done, we’ve discovered, in the food processor with the plastic blade. Then the green beans need to be roasted, ground, brewed, and finally, you get a wonderful cuppa out of it.
I shall keep you updated as the process continues!
by Linda on August 30, 2010
The rules of my Muesli Bar Challenge series are that the Challenger must be healthy (low in sugar and saturated fat, low GI, wholegrain), based on in-season fresh produce, easy enough to be a realistic option for busy parents and kids themselves to make, and rated by my school age reviewers as no-way-going-to-be-left-in-the-lunchbox.
So many choices for a recipe for this week!
It is the turning point in the seasons – my strawberries and mulberries and pawpaws are still green but so close that a bit of warm weather will bring them on, and I haven’t yet finished with all the macadamias, oranges, mandarins, limes and tangelos that are all still just finishing their season. The cockatoos have finished off the bush lemons (which are the sweetest, much like a Meyer but hardier) but we still have plenty of Eureka lemons. What to feature?
In the end I’ve decided to go with this adaption of a traditional recipe that uses macadamias along with the date and orange combination that was so successful last week. The recipe takes more time than most of this series, but it is easy in the sense that even young kids can manage much of the making, and will probably love helping.
Traditional Lebanese cooks probably should turn away now. I have taken huge liberties with a traditional Middle Eastern sweet. These little pastry mouthfuls are tradionally a bite sized ball of sweet shortbread surrounding a date, almond, fig or pistachio filling. But for a lunch box treat, the dates and orange juice provide nearly all the sweetness needed, and macadamias make the most wonderful shortbread, smooth and buttery and melt-in-your-mouth, and they’re super healthy at the same time.
So this is a very non-traditional Ma-amoul that fits the rules of the Muesli Bar Challenge.
The Recipe:
First crack your macadamias. I’ve written before about this little tool that takes macadamias in shell from “too hard” to “seasonal staple”. Like all nuts, if you buy them fresh, in season, in shell, (or grow your own) you will be amazed how different they are to the stale, slightly rancid things you get in packets in mid-summer.
The Shortbread
You need 125 grams, or about a cup of macadamia kernels. They will blend quite easily in a food processor into a fine meal.
To the maca meal, add
- 3 dessertspoons of cold butter,
- 3 dessertspoons of brown sugar,
- 2 teaspoons of finely grated orange zest, and
- ¾ of a cup of wholemeal plain flour.
Process until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Then add cold water, a dessertspoon at a time, until you can knead it into a soft dough. Add carefully – you can’t take it out – but when you have a dough that just holds together, add another spoonful. You want a dough that is soft but not quite sticky.
Put your dough in the freezer for a few minutes while you make the filling.
The Filling
In a small saucepan, bring to the boil 100 grams (2/3 cup) of stoned dates and 100 ml of orange juice. Tip into your food processor and blend briefly till it is minced but not smooth.
Assembling
Now here’s the bit that kids will love doing.
Break off a piece of dough, large macadamia sized or slightly larger, and roll it into a ball. Push your thumb into the ball and hollow out the inside like making a little pot. (Mudpie making practice will help here). You should be able to fit a good half teaspoon or more of filling into the pot, then squeeze the top shut, roll it into a ball shape again, and roll the ball in a little raw sugar.
Put the Ma-amoul seam-side down on a greased biscuit tray and bake them in a medium oven for about 30 minutes until they are browned. Cool on the tray (they will crispen up as they cool). Store in an airtight container, but not for long, because they will disappear.
by Linda on August 28, 2010
It is actually all but spring here, but a final burst of cold weather is making me a little cautious. I am tempted to plant out all the spring perennials like asparagus but they are happy enough in the shadehouse at the moment so maybe I’ll wait a little.
I’m planting another round of all my root staples – carrots, parsnips, spring onions, beetroots - starting seeds off in the shadehouse, and planting out the seedlings started last month. If I do just a tray like this every month, we have a good steady supply.
But my main little task today is to dig up some turmeric to take some rhizomes for planting as a gift for a friend I will be visiting over the weekend. Of the very many things I like about gardening, this ready supply of gifts is one of the best!
Fresh turmeric is one of those things that are so hugely different that you know why you garden! If you imagine the difference between fresh and dried ginger, you get the idea. Grated fresh turmeric goes in a great many more dishes than the obvious curries and stir fries. It adds a lovely touch of spiciness, not hot but interesting, to all sorts of dishes from eggs to pasta. I also love turmeric tea – just a slice with boiling water poured over it, allowed to steep for a minute or two.
And turmeric is one of those wonder-spices that have any number of health benefits. It has a compound called curcumin, that is an anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-biotic. There is some solid science backing its claims for effectiveness against cancer cells, arthritis, and infections.
Turmeric grows really easily in my climate, and now that it is well established it survives even in the dry years when I can’t give it enough water to produce well. One clump gives so much yield that I con’t care whether it produces well anyhow!
All through summer it’s a really decorative plant – a metre and a half high clump with huge green lush leaves. In late summer it produces the most beautiful flowers. I often cut them for a vase. In winter it dies right back with not a sign of it above ground, which reduces its decorative value but probably helps it survive a bit of cold. It’s a native of South East Asian monsoon forests, so if you think about those kind of conditions you can imagine what it likes – warm weather, summer rain, good drainage, a bit of shade.
If you can find someone with turmeric in their garden, you just need to dig a little round the edge of the clump to get a rhizome to plant, or if you can find some fresh turmeric in an Asian grocer or market, you can plant that. But you will need to do it in the next month or so to give it a whole season to establish.
