Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

If you are vegetarian or a vegan then mushrooms can be your super-food! Clean the Portobello mushrooms with a damp cloth. Heat some olive oil with a few peeled garlic cloves, then place the mushrooms in the pan, top side down. Move them around with a spatula, so that they don't stick to the pan, but do not turn them. When they start to brown at the bottom sprinkle a little salt, and then add a glass of wine. Cover and let them simmer on low for about 20 minutes. They should put out lots of water, but if not add just a little water, if they become too dry. After 20 minutes turn them over and let more of the juices come out. With a sieve add one tsp of flour and stir, the juices, mixed with the flour, should make a nice gravy/sauce. Taste for salt, and then add plenty of freshly chopped parsley. Serve with polenta, or potatoes, or cous cous, or even in a bun as a veggie burger. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

If you like juices you may also like this combo: 10 organic carrots, 4 organic juicy pears and a piece of ginger root. Serves 4 and it is super healthy! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I prefer mango, but papaya is also an amazing fruit, especially if paired with lime. Try to slice a papaya and eat a piece of it. Then try squeezing a few drops of limes on the fruit and taste it again: you'll see what I mean!  Sometimes I can find ripe papaya really really cheap in the Chinese veggie stores: in supermarkets they often are too expensive, and sometimes they are not ripe. I like ripe papaya, I make smoothies, or a papaya salad for dessert.  This is my lime squeezer, my husband got it for me in NY, in the shop of the Museum of Modern Art. It looks like a little boy popping up from a basin, I don't think that it is particularly effective for squeezing, but it is cute and original, and sort of... artistic. Squeeze one lime and place into a bowl. Add sugar (from one tsp to one tbsp, depending on your taste), mix. Cut the papaya and place into the lime mixture, stir. Add a few mint leaves and refrigerate for a few hours. This is a great dessert after a s...

The bok choy comes   from my garden , is growing well now, one of the easiest brassica to grow, in my opinion. It looks great if you cook it whole, but for a family meal it is easier to cut it into pieces first. Wash well and cut into big chunks. In the meantime in a bowl mix 1 tsp of cornflour with 50 ml of water, 2 tbsp of soy sauce (as always, I use Japanese soy sauce), and half a tsp of freshly grated ginger. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) in the pan and add the white stalks of the bok choy first. Sizzle for a couple of minutes, then add the green leaves. Cover for a couple of minutes and let the greens wilt in their own steam. Add the sauce and mix until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

 I like cooking with ginger, especially now that the weather is getting colder. Most of my Chinese style dishes are very simple, I usually make a tofu or a gluten (seitan) dish, and a side vegetable dish, to serve either with plain rice, or noodles.  To use fresh ginger I cut a piece from the root, peel it, and then grate it using the ginger grater that I got in Japan (Italian bloggers, you can use the apple grater designed to grate apples for baby food). Ginger and Chili Tofu Cut a piece of firm tofu into cubes, top with a chili, sliced, and some grated ginger. Add a couple of tbsp of soy sauce (I use Japanese soy sauce, I prefer it to other types) and let the tofu marinate for a few hours, stirring it from time to time so that it gets all coated with the sauce.  Drain the tofu but keep the sauce and all the chili pieces aside: they will be used later. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil (I use rice bran) and lightly fry the tofu on all sides. Lift the tofu from ...

Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies I used a whole 250 g bar of Whittaker's Macadamia Block (please note that this is milk chocolate). The Whittaker's Macadamia Block is good value, it is full of nuts and you don't need to buy extra for these cookies (macadamia nuts are quite expensive!): with one block we made 30 good sized cookies! Ingredients: 250 g macadamia chocolate 100 g butter 2 eggs 100 g sugar 200 g self rising flour 1 tsp cocoa 1/2 tsp vanilla paste (ar a few drops of vanilla essence) icing sugar to roll the cookies in before baking Melt the chocolate with the butter, then stir in the eggs, sugar, self rising flour, cocoa and vanilla paste (or essence). You will get a very oily dough. Line a 90 cm baking tray (or two 40 cm baking trays) with baking paper. Make little balls with your hands (about the size of a heap teaspoon) and roll them in icing sugar. Place on the baking tray, remembering that during baking they will flatten and take a cookie shape, so leave enoug...

This type of bread is typical of my area of Italy, in the province of Modena. In other parts of Italy some people call them tigelle , but tigelle is the name of the terracotta disks in which they were originally baked in. Terracotta disks are still used, but today most people use large iron plates with long handles called cotte , or the more modern version, made from aluminium. Personally I still prefer the iron cotte , they are heavy and many years ago I carried them to New Zealand via Japan, almost half of my luggage allowance, but worth it. Great food for cold nights, and the children go crazy about them! They helped, Max chopping the rosemary that goes in the filling, and Aranxta dividing the bread dough into small balls. The balls are flattened and then placed on one of the hot plates, which I greased with vegetable oil (not olive oil, I used rice bran oil, which has a high burning point and no flavour). Then you cover them with the other hot plate. So this bread 'bakes'...

 Autumn  Crème brûlée 3 egg yolks 3 tbsp white sugar 300 ml cream 1 vanilla pod 4 large feijoas 2 small figs 4 tsp brown sugar In a pot mix the egg yolks with the white sugar, add the cream, the vanilla pod, and bring to a gentel boil. Stir until the c rème set, then remove the vanilla pod (this can be washed well, then air dried, and used again). Peel the feijoas and cut into quarters, divide the fruit between four ramekins, and pour the c rème on top. Cut the figs into two halves and place on top. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours. 1 or 2 hours before serving sprinkle the tops with brown sugar and place under the grill until the sugar starts to babble. Let it cool down and then place back into the fridge (but do not leave it there too many hours or the crust will turn soft). Notice that I didn't use one of those torches or hot irons to make the  'brûlée', I don't have them, but I find the grill perfect for this, especially wh...

Well, the pot is French... :-)! I chopped some vegetables (agria potatoes, carrot, onion, celery -with leaves-) added one fresh yellow chili and some Italian parsley, then sauteed everything with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Then I added one can of Italian cherry tomatoes, one can of Italian chick peas, some water from rinsing both cans, and a little (very little) Vegemite. Simmer simmer simmer, until the potatoes start to mush and the carrots are soft. Then add salt to taste, and serve. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Krzyszof gave us a bag full of   Feijoa . With mine, and the one Carolyn gave us, we have been eating them everyday, and using them for smoothies. But because the feijoa season is short I though of freezing some for winter, to make smoothies when we don't have so much fresh fruit. To freeze them it is better to peel them and cut them into two, so that they can blend better. But before peeling them I wanted to keep some zest. I wanted to make a liqueur, and then the kids complained: they cannot drink alcohol! "Mamma, can you make a cordial please?". I collected the zest from 12 large feijoa (wash them well first), added the zest of half a lemon, placed everything in a pot with 500 ml of water and 100 g of sugar. Boiled the lot for 5 minutes (to dissolve the sugar), then covered with a lid and let it rest overnight. In the morning I strained the 'syrup' and bottled it. Now the kids have their cordial (a real treat, as I d...

I am "recycling" this post for Sweet New Zealand (just to show you that it can be done :-), and I am doing it now because this month our lovely host Sue from Coucous & Consciousness has put a linky tool to make submitting posts easier, and I cannot wait to try it!!!!  I am so happy that Sweet NZ is already in its third month, and I would like to thank all the bloggers for taking part. I have made a page on my main blog dedicated to it, with the link for each month's recap . If you like to take part in Sweet New Zealand #3, October 2011, please go to this link ! Dark Chocolate and Fig Cake I made this last Autumn, but figs will be ripening again this Summer, so this recipe can come handy soon. Also, I have received so many positive feedbacks about this, especially from Italian bloggers who  have started to making it now (it is Autumn up there!!), and it also works well with other fruit too, even canned pears! And didn't someone made it ...