Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Pizzoccheri is a traditional pasta from Valtellina , in the North of Italy, made with a percentage of buckwheat flour. The taste is similar to the Japanese buckwheat noodles (soba). The traditional recipe for pizzoccheri, born in the village of Teglio , is to boil them together with pieces of potatoes and green cabbage (put the potatoes in the biling water first, then the cabbage and the pizzoccheri (which take about 15 minutes to cook). Pick up everything with a slotted spoon and mix with casera cheese and butter melted with garlic. Very filling! A vegan could stop at the cheese and butter steps, adding a little tamari sauce instead, and the stock from the pizzoccheri can also be recycled in real Zen style as it is full of proteins. But I didn’t feel like going for Asian flavours. So I made mine with onion, potatoes, spinach and walnuts. Ingredients 500 g pizzoccheri 1 small white onion 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 big boiled potato, peeled 1 bunch spinach leaves, washed 1 handfu...

I cannot buy dried borlotti beans in New Zealand, they are all imported and heat treated, or fumigated, or not sure what they actually do with them at MAF, the fact is that they are impossible to cook! ‘Untreated’ beans are easy to cook, and they make a fantastic stock. Soak the borlotti in water for 10 hours, changing often the water and washing them at the same time. Then cook them with plenty of water, removing any scam that forms at the top with a slotted spoon. They should cook in one hour, taste to see. I add salt when they are nearly ready, and when I stopped removing excess scum from the top. Your beans are ready for any recipe now! Keep the stock, it can be used for soups, or as stock when a recipe requires it. Stewed Borlotti Beans with Smoked Paprika Here I chopped a small white onion, a small carrot and a celery stalk with leaves. I saut é d the vegetables with some extra virgin olive oil, and then I added the beans, and some of their sock, which is al...

Photo by Alessandra Zecchini© I decided to try to make pesto with pistachio nuts: in a mortar I put a little garlic (peeled), some pistachio nuts (also peeled), and some leaves of Genovese basil (which has very small leaves). I worked the pesto with a pestle and added more leaves little by little, and at the end a little salt and olive oil. You need patience with a mortar and pestle, but the results are great. Also, basil should never be cut with a metal blade (knife or blender), don't ask me why, but the flavour changes!!!

Photo by Alessandra Zecchini© The photo is not very good, in fact I thought that I wasn't going to put this recipe here, as it is really basic, but if you have a veggie garden with lots and lots of zucchini you are probably looking at different ways to cook them... I used Barilla pre-cooked egg lasagna sheets. Cut the zucchini (green, yellow or a mixture of both) into slices and place in a pan with a little olive oil and a garlic clove. Cook stirring often and then add salt and a little tomato passata. Set aside and make a white sauce with 2 tbsp of plain flour, 500 ml of milk, 50 g of butter, and then salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg to taste. Put a little white sauce in the bottom of a lasagna dish, add a layer of lasagne, one of zucchini, and one of white sauce. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese. Repeat until you have finished all the ingredients, making as many layers as possible. Put very little white sauce between layers, leave most to put on the top, or the lasagne ...

Photo by Alessandra Zecchini© This is an easy and quick salad to prepare, and it is perfect for a lunch box: You can use some left-over plain rice and add some fine chopped vegetables: cucumber, carrot, and tomatoes, then add a few olives (also chopped, if you like), some capers, or some pickled vegetables (if you like). Fold everything with mayonnaise, and add some fresh herbs (here I put thai mint) to decorate. Keep chilled until serving time. Serve with fresh fruit and you'll have a complete meal!

Photo by Alessandra Zecchini© For this soup I used a packet of 3 parboiled cereals: rice, barley and spelt. The brand is Gallo – a mainstream Italian rice brand. Traditionally Gallo brand had rice only, so I was happy to discover this 3-cereals combo, which is easy to use. Ingredients 1 carrot ¼ green cabbage 1 leek 1 celery stalk, with leaves 100 g fresh or frozen borlotti beans a few parsley leaves, chopped 2 l water rock salt to taste black pepper 200 g Gallo brand mixed rice, barley and spelt 1 tbsp tomato puree Extra virgin olive oil Cut the vegetables and place in a large pot with the water. Bring to the boil, remove the scum that may form at the top, add salt and pepper and then simmer slowly, for 10 minutes. When the beans look cooked add the cereals (they are parboiled so they will take about 15 minutes, but cook them for at least 20 to get the flavour through). Add the tomato puree, and then remove from the heat. Serve hot or warm, drizzled with olive oil. It taste...

From my window I can see.... Snow!!!! I thought that in Italy I would start cooking complicated dishes, instead I am just enjoying eating simple things, tasting the ingredients...and then...it snowed! Wow! So we all need some extra vitamin C. This is not a recipe, sorry, but I wanted to show you how beautiful and red are the Sicilian red oranges! The children asked me if I added sugar to the drinks: no, no sugar, just fresh red orange juice, lovely and sweet. Drink it quickly as vitamin C tends to 'evaporate' in the air...apparently! :-) Photos by Alessandra Zecchini©

The photo is not very clear, taken with the iPhone at dinner time, and the recipe is very simple, but effective. On arrival to Italy Martina gave me some Florence fennels, I had some raw in a salad, and then I cooked the rest very slowly with a little vegetable stock and some butter. At the end I added some Parmesan cheese. I used them for pasta, and they tasted great. My original recipe for these fennels is here (with a better photo!)

Making Fregola I dug out these photos for my friend Tiziana, who was here with me making fregola, and she is now a vegetarian! Fregola is something between cous cous and pasta, thicker than the former, and finer than the latter. Start with a blend of fine and coarse semolina and a little salted water. Mix mix mix collect the pellets pass them through a sieve and let them dry for 24 hours. We cooked the fregola like a risotto. First chop and saute some fresh vegetables, slowly add vegetable stock and, finally, saffron. Yum!

A crop which gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews; in particular I like soups with pumpkins, but since this year I am traveling on, I will not enjoy the pumpkins that are growing in my garden. So I tried a different 'pairing'. A friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil...) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork. I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery. Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft. I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be goo...