Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Labne cheese is basically strained yogurt. I use  Cyclops  organic yogurt (green top) which I find to be the best for making labne. Use think plain yogurt which is just yogurt (no added gelatin or other thickeners). To strain the yogurt I used a cotton cloth, not too fine, but finer that a muslin cloth or cheese cloth. Tight well and hang in the fridge with a container underneath to collect the liquid. Leave it for at least one night and one day. Two days if you can. Here is your labne: you can spread it on bead, or spoon it on salads or hot food or nachos, but what I like best is to make little labne balls. Oil your hands with olive oil and shape small balls (about the size of a walnut). Add some more olive oil, salt and herbs or spices, like cumin seeds, coriander seeds, chili flakes, garlic, bay leaves, pepper, smoked salt, or anything that takes your fancy! I also like to roll them in  dukka ! If you fill a jar with olive oi...

In case you don't know  Tim Tam  is possibly New Zealand most popular biscuit. I like the idea of a biscuit sandwich with chocolate, but I wanted a 'lighter' version, homemade. I set to work with my 10 years old Max, using as the base some plain water thin crackers (my favourites!). In the centre we just put some hazelnut chocolate spread (you can find Vegan chocolate spread in health food shops) and then we made little biscuit sandwiches. We placed the 'sandwiches' in the freezer for 30 minutes, then we dropped them in melted dark (72%) chocolate (once again, if you are vegan look for vegan dark chocolate). Max loves dark chocolate but found dipping the biscuits in the hot stuff a bit too hard, so he took the photos for this step. Let the chocolate set at room temperature and then, if it is a hot day, store the biscuits in the fridge. The verdict? This is too easy, and too tasty to be allowed!!!! ...

Red Beetroot, Carrot, Feta and Coriander Salad Wash and boil the red beetroots until you can easily pierce them with a knife. Let them cool down and then peel them (keep the peels aside to colour the eggs later on). Cut them into cubes., then add a grated carrot, cubed feta cheese, chopped fresh coriander, olive oil, lemon juice (optional) and salt and pepper to taste. With this recipe I take part in the event  Weekend Herb Blogging  ( number 292 ). The creator of WHB was Kalyn di  Kalyn's Kitchen , followed then by  Haalo,  Cook (almost) anything at least once , and then by  Brii,  Briggis recept och ideer  for the Italian version. Thank you also to this week host   Erbe in Cucina . Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Wash and boil the red beetroots until you can easily pierce them with a knife. Let them cool down and then peel them (keep the peels aside to colour the eggs later on). Cut them into cubes, then add one big tbsp of mayonnaise and a little wasabi (to taste). Stir. Boil the eggs, peel and colour using the beetroot peels. You can either rub the peels directly onto the eggs, or place them in a bowl of water and immerse the eggs in it for 30 minutes. Serve with the beetroot wasabi mayo salad. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I have a few fennels growing in the garden and the other day only two were big enough to pick. They were certainly bigger than those ' bambino ' fennels I see in the supermarkets here in New Zealand, but not as big as the ones I used to get in the markets in Italy. I had to find a way to make them go ... further! So I decided to cook them with bok choy (the only other vegetable really 'active' in my veggie garden), hoping that the strong fennel taste would take over.  Go Further Fennels Surprisingly enough it worked! I guess that this was a sort of 'Fusion' experiment for me, and I wonder if in Chinese cuisine fennels are ever paired with bok choy. Do you Know?? Anyway, for the recipe: I washed and cut the 2 fennels and 1 bok choy and cook them in a pan with just a little butter (Vegans please use margarine, not olive oil for this dish) then I added some vegetable stock, covered them with a lid and let them simmer on very low for quite ...

I like cooking fusilli with chive sauce,  this is an example . Just chives, feta, maybe a few nuts, cooking water from the pasta, and olive oil. If the feta is salty you don't need to add salt. Chop the chives before placing them in the blender or food processor with the other ingredients: if you leave them long they will take forever to blend. To top the pasta I used a few broccolini quickly cooked in a pan with garlic, salt and olive oil. A simple but filling lunch, and then back into the green bush. <a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Falessandra-onlyrecipes.blogspot.com%2F&media=http%3A%2F%2Falessandra-onlyrecipes.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F07%2Ffusilli-with-chive-sauce.html&description=Greens%20and%20Blues" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal">Pin It</a> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js">...

We had a guest coming for afternoon tea so I quickly whipped up a cake with what I had in the house, and it turned out really nice. This is very easy: whip 2 eggs with 3 tbsp of sugar, then add 6 heaps tbsp of thick organic yogurt (I used full fat  Cyclops  green top, the full fat).  For the base I used a sheet of frozen sweet short crust pastry, and added some strawberry jam. Pour the yogurt mixture on top and bake at 160°C for about 30 minutes, or until the top starts to brown on the edges. Remove from the oven and do not touch for a while: it will be very soft! Then refrigerate for a few hours. Because I lined the baking dish with baking paper it was easy to lift the cake out and place it on a plate. Sprinkle with icing sugar, if you like. I admit it, I got a few American cherry (out of season), not something I would do normally, but seeing cherries everywhere in the blog world, I could not resist: I just got a ha...

I got some potatoes from the garden and I wanted to make a potage soup with other winter vegetables: onions, carrots and celery, coriander (before it dies completely!), and then some not so popular vegetables: swede and parsnip. Once again my husband reacted like for the brussels sprouts: it seems like swede and parsnip have a bad reputation too! Not my favourite veggies either, I would not bother growing them since I am happy to have them just once a year. After chopping all the veggies I felt that they didn't look bad: at least there was colour there! But not for long. After cooking everything with some vegetable stock, and blending it into a creamy soup, I had a strange yellow colour. But the soup was good (I think that the coriander really works here)! The kids tried to guess: pumpkin? No. Kumara? No. I realized that they didn't remember what swedes and parsnips were! I think that the last time we had them (in a soup, as always) it was about 2 year...

Ingredients 3 eggs, separated 2-3 pears 100 g sugar 100 g butter 150 g dark chocolate 1 shot of Rum or a drop of Vanilla essence 200 g self-rising flour Usually I fold in the beaten egg whites at the end, but this time I wanted to experiment a bit, and also I wanted to coat some pear slices with meringue for decoration, so I started by whipping the egg whites. Coat a few pear slices with the egg white, then roll in sugar and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Then keep beating the egg whites and add the sugar, then the egg yolks. Melt the butter with 50 g of dark chocolate and add to the mixture. Then add the Rum (just a little, these cupcakes were for my kids also) or vanilla essence, and finally the self-rising flour. Fold in some pear cubes and divide between 12 cupcake cases. Bake at 180 °C for about 16 minutes, or until the cupcakes are cooked. Don't overbake them or they will become dry. R...