Candied Peel

So far I have been unable to find mixed candied peel for my baking. This has not been such a big issue up to now as the main recipe I make using peel is Cumberland Plate Pie - which also requires currants. I have found currants here in the supermarket, but at a cost of around nz$6.00 for 100 grams. Say no more - no CPP.

The other recipe I use with mixed peel is Hot Cross Buns (having found yeast quite easily and a kind visitor brought me the appropriate mixed spices!) With Easter fast approaching I thought I should do some experimenting.

The internet is so good for finding answers, so searching found a few recipes for mixed peel. Most of them seemed a little too much work, or needed too much time over lots of days, but I narrowed it down to two recipes which I though might work. I also didn't want hard candied peel as I wanted the sort you can use in cakes etc, which is kind of sticky.

drying, cooling and waiting to be tossed in sugar

So I had a go - it's surprisingly easy, as the recipe promised, and as I removed some of the peels after session one I now have the cake candied peel as well as the firmer "candy" peel which is great for snacking. Needless to say I am already saving up orange skins for the next batch. We will not be throwing our peels on the compost any more.

So far the people who have tried my peels love them - and no, there are not many left from the first batch....

first batch of candied peel

I am still on the tofu trail - my experiment with turning soya flour into tofu was not a complete success, but I think I will have to try again and cook it for longer next time. If it works I will be able to have tofu at one sixth of the cost of bought tofu.

And on the coffee front, we decided to have our own coffee experiment, which so far, has brought good results. I have tried a few variations and the ones we like are (mixed in with the ground coffee in the filter) :
with citrus peel, with cocoa powder and sometimes orange flavouring, with cinnamon and cocoa, with cinnamon and ginger. Any suggestions for other combinations welcome!

An Awful Lot of Coffee in Brazil

Woodcut print of coffee bean with permission from Wouter, the artist (see link to his website below for more information)

A friend of ours recently visited and brought some Robert Harris (Irish Creme - my favourite) coffee - filter and plunger grind - from NZ - each time I make this, Wouter says - that was a nice coffee, so I know he likes it as much as I do. (Actually it should read MADE as it's all gone, hence my desperate quest for some decent coffee).

Two weeks ago we made a trip to Toulouse to go to IKEA and order our new kitchen. We also bought a lot of other things at IKEA, one of which was a plunger coffee pot.

The reason: we have a stove top coffee maker and another on the way. To make nice coffee in the stove-top coffee pot, you need coarse ground coffee. Alors, we have looked high and low and tried all sorts of coffee from the shops, but none is coarsley ground. It's just moulu - ground - and the only moulu coffee we have found so far is ground to a powder. If you make stove-top coffee with powder, then most of it gets into the cup when you pour and you feel you need a coffee filter on your teeth.

So, when we got the IKEA plunger, there were instructions in 24 languages on how to clean, dismantle, use and maintain your new coffee plunger device. Aha, I thought, in English it says to use coarsely ground coffee - so over to the page francais with excitement to finally find out the French equivalent of coarse grind which has so far eluded us. But it just said "moulu". So I have come to the conclusion that you cannot buy coarse ground coffee in France and need a coffee machine to grind your own.

The next problem of finding a coffee grinder (at least temporarily) was solved by other friends loaning us one of theirs. But we still need to find our own at some stage. Other than that, we are looking for some nice beans to grind - the first packet I bought looked promising, but the taste is not that nice - shall we say the earth from our garden might have tasted nicer, although Wouter thinks this is a little exaggerated ... Luckily I didn't buy the kilo pack!

It just so happens that Robert, one of Wouter's sons, runs a lovely little coffee shop in Raglan, and also roasts his own, so we might have to put in a special order if he delivers world-wide!

See Roberts website for more details on his coffee expedition:

http://www.raglanroast.co.nz/index.html

and Wouter's site on the coffee print: http://www.acwwoodcuts.com/Site/Woodcut_prints/About_Woodcuts/Coffee_bean_in_roasted_state.ashx

Update - we've spoken with Robert the coffee expert who tells us we might be lucky if we buy espresso grind as it could be coarser - next time we shop we'll buy some and report back.