Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

For the cape gooseberries I got the idea from my Italian blogger friends, surprised that I can grow them in my garden. Apparently in Europe they are really expensive, and you only buy them to decorate important cakes, and to coat them with chocolate. Usually I coat dried apricots with chocolate, my kids love them, especially the boy: he wants them for his birthday party! Sometimes when I make chocolate apricots I also roll some in shredded coconut, and then use the left over coconut to clean up the chocolate bowl, making little coconut chocolates. It is all very easy, and in no time I have a tray full of sweet treats! For the cape gooseberries I pulled back the outer "lanterns" that cover the berries and held them in place with a paper clip, so that they didn't get into the chocolate. And for chocolate I used Whittaker's Dark Ghana (my little boy prefers really dark chocolate!) True Vegan Dark chocolate works well too. Photos and Recipes by Ales...

Thank you to all of you who have written and sent emails about the earthquake in Christchurch. Our family is well but the situation is still bad in the city and around.  It feels unreal to be in Auckland, so far away: now more than ever I appreciate a roof over my head, water and electricity, and a garden full of food. Today I picked my first rhubarb for the season, it looked a bit green, but I was happy to see that inside the stalks were quite pink. I confess I don't feel much like cooking these days, so I opted for something really simple. I cleaned and chopped 700 g of rhubarb stalks. In a pot I put 500 ml of water, 4 tbsp of sugar and a few drops of lemon. When the water was boiling I dropped in the rhubarb. I waited for the water to boil again and then, as soon as a white foam formed, I drained the rhubarb, collecting the water into another pot. I set the stalks aside and boiled down the water until I go a thick syrup. I whipped 300 ml of cream and added the co...

Con questa ricetta partecipo al concorso piatti unici , proposta dalla bravissima Eleonora di Burro e Miele In famiglia siamo vegetariani e mangiamo leggero, quindi per noi il piatto unico perfetto contiene carboidrati (pasta), verdura di stagione, olio d'oliva e poco formaggio e/o legumi. Qui gli ingredienti ci sono tutti! Volevo proporre una ricetta pi ù 'preparata', e se troverò il tempo lo far ò  sull’altro blog ( Alessandra Zecchini ), ma per il momento, con terremoto e tutto, ho pensato che sia meglio postare subito qualcosa qui, perché non voglio perdermi il primo contest di Eleonora :-) The recipe is in English I am not sure why I bought this pack of pasta, I think it was because I never seen it before, because it was on special, and because in that supermarket they didn't have Barilla (my safe supermarket choice, since here the pasta selection is extremely limited). The price, similar to quality pasta like Garofalo (obvio...

Heart Sushi for Saint Valentine I find cooking rice for sushi challenging: you need to buy proper sushi rice and then wash it several times in cold water, until the water runs clear. And then cook it by absorption. The doses are about 1 and 3/4 (three quarters) cups of sushi rice for 2 cups of water, but that depends on the type of pot. You need a pot with a good lid, or you will loose too much steam. I kind of regulate myself by ear now, since I know my pots and pans. Bring the pot to boiling point, lower the heat and simmer until all the water has been absorbed. Once the rice is ready pour it into a bowl and stir it with a wooden spatula, cooling it with a fan if you can. I then add some ready made sushi vinegar, about 2 tablespoons, but this is my personal taste. If I don't have sushi vinegar use 2 tbsp of rice vinegar, a little sugar and a little salt (to taste, and I don't like to use too much sugar or salt myself!). To fill this sushi (which is Vegan) I used a ...

Upon my return from holidays I found that I didn't have a veggie garden but a forest of leaves and bugs! We had so much rain when I was away, and I could hardly see the tomatoes on the plants (full of leaves), the zucchini plants were rotten while pumpkins were crawling everywhere, and golly, the Cape gooseberries were out of control! My problem is that I am not very good at 'thinning' plants. I don't have the courage of killing a seedling just because it gets to close to another one... and the result is this: a mess! I almost felt like removing all the cape gooseberry plants at once, but then I remember the Italian bloggers saying that cape gooseberries are so expensive in Europe... so I picked some and made a jam, on the same afternoon that I got home, even if I was tired from the trip. Ingredients: 700 g cape gooseberries Juice of half a lemon 500 g sugar (I used caster sugar simply because I just had that in the pantry, having being away so long!) 1 ...

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...

I am dedicating this post to an initiative from the blog of Norma Carpignano : get rid of the pig (dedicated to the Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi). Presently Italian women are speaking up to ask the resignations of Berlusconi, and bloggers, as usual, have a very original way of doing this, with a recipe :-). But since I am vegetarian no pork recipes here, so I am posting a vegan recipe instead. Pilaf rice with Chickpeas I am still very ‘timid’ when it comes to Indian spices: I am always scared to burn them, or to use too much, or too little. In particular I am so used to have cloves and cinnamon in sweet dishes that I never know how much to use in savoury dishes. For this pilaf I just filled up a tbsp of spices, as you can see there are plenty of cumin seeds, but just a little cinnamon and a few cloves, plus a few cardamom pods), still, just the right amount for me to flavour a pilaf for four. Ingredients: 1 tbsp vegetable oil 1 tbsp mixed whole spices (cumin seeds, cinnamon, clov...