Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

This turned out to be a fantastic vegan curry, and quite innovative too: I have never seen a curry made with borage!!! Yes, borage again! I have tons of it in the garden, you can eat the flowers, the stems and the leaves, but I limit myself to the smaller tender leaves. They are prickly, but that goes away with cooking. The only thing to remember is to discard the pods with the seeds that have already formed (they are too hard), like the one in the photo below. Flowers and flower buds are soft, and can be cooked. Sizzle one tsp of fenugreek seeds and one green chili with one tbsp of vegetable oil. Add one small tsp each of turmeric, ground coriander, ground fennel and paprika, and also a good pinch of salt. Add one onion, chopped, and sizzle for two minutes, and then add half cauliflower, cut into florettes. Coat the cauliflower well with the spices. Add one can of coconut milk, and then one can of water (to rinse the coconut milk can). Co...

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When I got back to New Zealand, in October, I noticed that the tomatillo had self-seeded in the veggie garden. I thought "good!" and left it there. At first there were just a few little plants, then they took over half of my top terrace garden bed, and became a forest. I though "oh!" but I left the plants there, imagining a surplus of Mexican green sauce for the summer. The plants grew, but the pods remained small. Initially I thought that this was due to the fact that I didn't actually plant them, or looked after them. Then I got suspicious, and I tasted one. They are NOT tomatillos, they are Cape Gooseberries!!! How did they get there I have no idea! Usually I pick Cape gooseberries from my neighbor, but he is too far away in the bush... the only explanations is... birds??? I am not sure. Anyway, we like them, and pick some every day now. I decided to improvise a dairy free cake. I mixed 3 eggs with 200 g of sugar, 200 g of self raising flour, 100 ml of vegeta...

Gnocco fritto is a fried bread they make in Emilia Romagna. The gnocco fritto form my village is particularly nice, sometimes I think that this is because it is high in the mountains, and the water is better... but on the other hand it could just be that my memory of it is better. My husband feel in love with gnocco fritto the first time he visited my village, and my kids love it too (of course, it is utterly delicious!!!): if it was for them we would have it every week! Instead I try to limit fried food, and so I just make it 3-4 times per year. For the dough I just use my pizza dough recipe (but I don't really check on quantities). Some people even put eggs in the dough... I just use flour, water, salt and yeast. Let the dough rise for a couple of hours before rolling it out. Roll out the dough I like the round gnocco fritto, so I cut it with a bowl (and the centre with a smaller bowl). I used rice bran oil for frying. Then I fry the centre holes, the kids love them!!! The rest ...

New Year's cleaning in the air... I need more space! There is a cabinet full of bottles, I drink very little and I decided to finish up a few liqueurs, possibly by cooking them! I had this one, for example: too sweet for me, but perfect for cakes! I improvised: I used some frozen sweet short crust pastry as the base, and then mixed 3 eggs with 3 tbsp of sugar and 300 ml of cream. When the mixture was light and fluffy I added 75 ml of Galliano. I added 10 savoiardi (sponge biscuits), crushed, and poured the mixture into the short crust pastry case. I baked the tart at 180°C for about 40 minutes. So easy!!! Just needed to decorate it with icing sugar and borage flowers. It tasted great! I can use the same recipe with more liqueurs, like Sambuca, Amaretto, Frangelico, Rum.... Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini © I am entering this recipe for Sweet New Zealand  April 2012 hosted by Frances of the Bake Club ...

I made some flower pasta (recipe here) , I used roses, borage and nasturtiums. I cooked some brown lentils, then I passed them in a pot with olive oil, a shallot and salt. I used them as filling. Possibly herbs would have been better: the lentil filling is quite dark, so the petals were not so visible. I'll remember this next time :-)! For the sauce I cooked some baby fennels very slowly with butter and a little water. I added more butter, and just a pinch of salt at the end. The fennel butter matched the lentil filling beautifully. A great dish for New Year (FYI, in Italy it is traditional to eat lentils for New Year). The borage flowers are decorations, but they too can be eaten, and we did! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I have been making pasta with herbs for years now, a good party trick, easy and effective. But I never had much luck with flowers, usually I got strips of colour and little more... until now. I am not sure if this is the reason but... I made a little change to my pasta dough. Usually I make fresh pasta with flour and eggs, the ratio being 100 g of flour to one free range egg. This time for 300 g of flour and 3 eggs I also added 1 tbsp of olive oil. At first I did this to make my job easier: I have little cold hands, not really suitable for pasta making. I could never do what my Grandmother did: work with a huge mass of 1 kg, all by hand and with the rolling pin. But she was a real Emiliana (from Emilia Romagna), with strong harms, and she started to make pasta at a very young age. I picked some herbs and flowers from my garden. I rolled the pasta with a manual pasta machine down to the lower setting (very thin). Then I placed some leaves (and flowers) on the pasta (if it gets dry just ...