Morning Bliss

I did a little wordle for our friend Ms. Blissfully Caffeinated. As you can see one word stands out predominantly. Ms Caff has gone and had herself a baby. As my beloved late father would have said; "Ms. Caff took seriously what was poked at her in fun".

And a beautiful little bundle she did have. Unfortunately, she had a bit of a hard time with it. I doubt that contracting pneumonia was part of the plan. Things are looking up at the Bliss household though. The baby is home, the Ms is home and everyone is feeling better. I'm pretty sure this is in part from the amount of caffeine that mama has taken up drinking. The woman loves her some coffee.

And what's not too love. Coffee is my second favorite beverage. Yes, we all know what the all time favorite is, moving on. I love coffee so much that I learned to roast my own.

Many a day I cruised the green coffee brokers looking for some (sucker, idiot) kindly broker to take pity on me and send me a sample pound or two of green coffee. This green gold came from places all over the world, Ethiopia, Sumatra, Costa Rica, Hawaii. I waited somewhat impatiently for the UPS man to bring my lovely beans. I think he might have been a little afraid of me. I can't imagine why.

Now, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't toss in some learnin'. So here is how you can roast your own coffee beans.

1. Find the oldest heavy steel deep-sided pan with a lid you can. This is going to get all black a crusty so don't go for pretty. You want something that will distributed the heat well.

2. Fire up your gas BBQ, HOT. Sorry, briquette users, they just don't get hot enough.

3. Put the pan on the hot BBQ so it can heat up.

4. Pour beans into pan. Cover.

5. Shake like you were making popcorn over an open fire. Really, get into it. Put on a little Salsa music if you need to. This could be claimed as your exercise for the week.

6. It will start making popping sounds like popcorn. This is called the first crack. When the water in the green beans bursts from the bean. Don't be fooled. They are not done. You are waiting for the second crack. Then start checking them for doneness.

7. When the beans are almost the color you like them pour onto a baking sheet to cool. They will continue to cook. If you have not poured them out soon enough put them into the freezer on the sheet pan to stop the cooking.

8. When cool. Grind and enjoy.

There is nothing like the taste of fresh roasted, ground and brewed coffee.

Ms. Bliss have a cup of joe, give that new baby and the two other sweet girls you have a big smooch. And GET WELL!

Love,
M

PS: Want to go see others who are wishing Ms. Bliss well. Go see the blog world equivalent of a get well/congratulations card over at Oscarelli.

PSS: It has been brought to my attention that some may want to try roasting coffee in their home. I sincerely don't suggest this. Roasting coffee creates a lot of smoke. So, unless you don't have a problem with your smoke alarms going off, the fire dept. showing up and your house smelling like fresh roasted coffee for months please use an outside grill. I learned this lesson from first hand experience but that is a story for another time.