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Showing posts with the label Celery

Eat your colours in a minestrone

Lovely colourful vegetables from the garden (except the red onions), all ready for a minestrone. From the bottom: red onions, rainbow chard, carrots, yellow beans, silverbeet stalks, celery, green beans, flat beans, kale. Just add water and salt. Wishing you all a colourful week! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Avocado and celery cocktails with vegan mayo and edible flowers

This is a delicious raw and vegan dish, serves 4 as a starter or side salad, and 2 as a main Ingredients 2 avocados 1 tbsp lemon juice 2 crunchy legs of celery 2 tbsp  vegan mayonnaise cherry tomatoes and edible flowers to decorate Cut the avocados and remove stones, drizzle with lemon juice. Clean the celery legs and remove the strings (I use a carrot peeler for this). Cut into small bite sizes and mix with the vegan mayonnaise (click  here  for the recipe). Fill the avocados with the celery and decorate with cherry tomatoes and edible flowers (yes you can eat the flowers, even the impatiens, they taste like rocket!) Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Using vegetables from the garden, plus focaccia with zucchini

I love summer and the smell of my veggie garden! It is a bit like a jungle now and we are towards the end of the season so there are more weeds than veggies, but what a joy! One of the best things for me is to make minestrone soup with whatever I can pick on the day, even when it is hot (and then you can have it warm). And I am saving some for winter in some old ice cream containers. So funny, my boy opened the freezer the other day and was excited seeing boxes and boxes of ice cream, I felt a bit mean telling him what they actually contained... Then I like to put veggies on focaccia and pizza, yellow and green zucchini slices look good and taste even better! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Three yummy green smoothies

Baby spinach, kiwi, coconut water Celery (add a few leaves), frozen mango cubes, coconut water Baby cavolo nero, banana, spirulina and natural apple juice Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Brussels sprouts, vegetable and pastina soup

Yes they do! I have a few recipes with Brussels, but the easiest way to cook them is in a soup, a bit like a minestrone, so that all the flavors from the other vegetables, plus the starch of pasta, 'improve' the distinctive taste of Brussels sprouts. Chop one onion, half a carrot and one celery stalk with leaves, sauté with a tbsp of olive oil and then add 1.5 l of vegetable stock. Simmer until the carrots are soft and then add the Brussel sprouts, a cube of frozen spinach and a handful of small pasta (like  stelline ). Simmer until the pasta and Brussels sprouts are cooked, add a little more extra virgin olive oil and black pepper to taste. Easy and yum!   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Lenticchie in umido - Brown lentils Italian style

I love a nice big pot of lentils, preferibly with some oven fresh crusty bread or a slice of polenta or creamy mushed potatoes. But also as pie fillers, for lasagne, or as a side dish, especially now that the weather is cold in New Zealand. For this recipes wash, soak and rinse 500 g of brown lentils, and then boil them in water with just a pinch of salt until cooked but not too soft or mushy.  In the meantime roughly chop one peeled carrot, one peeled onion, one peeled garlic clove and one stalk of celery with leaves and a few leaves of Italian parsley. This time I also added one green pepper because it was all alone in the fridge, but this is not necessary. Sizzle the vegetables with two tbsp of olive oil until the onions are soft, then add 1 tbsp of tomato puree, and if you like a little smoked paprika or a chili. Stir and sizzle for one minute. Add the lentils and their water and more salt to taste, but not too much as the water will reduce. Cover and s...

Bread stuffed cabbage leaves, step by step

Cabbages are cheap and healthy, and when I buy one I can cook with it for a family of four for three days! Usually I start with cabbage rolls, to use the larger leaves, and these can be done in a zillion ways! I have another  good  Vegan recipe here , but today for the filling I used stale bread. But first thing first: Wash the cabbage leaves (the bigger outer leaves, about 15, and steam or boil until soft but not too soft! In the meantime put one onion, one carrot, two celery sticks with leaves and a little parsley in the food processor and mince. Heat two tbsp of olive oil in a pan and sauté the vegetables, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Soak some old bread in water, doesn't matter what kind of bread, I had two white bread rolls and some seed sourdough, so I used those.  Squeeze the water out of the bread and crumble it into the pot with the cooking vegetables. Add a little vegetable stock if necessary and cook everything for about 15 minu...

Red beetroot juice with carrots, celery, cucumber and pears

1 large red beetroot, 6 large carrots, 4 stalks of celery, half a cucumber and 6 pears. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Polenta and Italian lentils - Polenta e lenticchie

 This dish is vegan and gluten free, for the polenta recipe I just use polenta flour, water and salt and follow the packet instructions (real polenta takes about 45 minutes, the instant takes 5!). Usually I make soft polenta, thus adding a bit more water, but packet instructions tend to be for the 'harder' type, the one that you pour onto a wooden chopping board and then cut into slices. My  nonna  (Grandmother) used to make the hard one, and then she cut it with a string attached to the chopping board: no knife needed and even the youngest kids can do it! For the lentils, wash the brown lentils with water and then soak for a little. Soaking is not really necessary but I like to do it so then I can give them another rinse and get rid off possible dirt that 'escaped' in the first wash. In the meantime sauté a finely chop carrot, celery stick with leaves and garlic (or onion) with two tbsp of olive oil, add the lentils and cover with vegetable stock. You can also add...

Celery, cucumber and coriander juice

Green, cleansing and refreshing!  Celery stalks and leaves, cucumber, and a few sprigs and leaves of coriander (to taste, it can be really strong). Happy detoxing! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Green Juice for kids

With summer here it is easy to make juices and to eat more raw food. Green juices are the best, of course, above celery, cucumber and green apple, light and refreshing. Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

A basket of veggies from the garden to make soup

Vegetable soup with: yellow zucchini, green zucchini, plum tomatoes, parsley, chives, celery, carrot, silver beet, onions. The onion are really small but I can't grow them any bigger in the bush so I grow them in pots. Chop, add water (rain water for me, so this too is free!) and salt, then cook. You can add a bit of extra virgin olive oil at the end. Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Detox! Celery, rhubarb, cucumber and apple juice

This juice tastes good and feels good! For four glasses I used seven stalks of celery (no leaves this time) half a telegraph cucumber, two stalks of rhubarb from the garden (yes, raw!) and then topped up to taste with natural apple juice (no sugar added). The apple juice is optional, of course, but I like it ;-). For a change in my weekly bouquet from the garden I picked some parsley flowers. They look quite pretty actually, and there is no parsley smell around (I was a bit worried about that!). Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Raw juice magic: celery, lemon and apple juice

I am so into juicing these days, and the kids drink all sort of vegetable and fruit juices, the greener the better! This one is particularly good: for four glasses I used half a stalk of celery (I use the stalks and only a few leaves - mostly to give it colour, usually I keep the leaves for cooking) then half a lemon and  to top a little (about 10-20%) natural apple juice. I will make this again and again, too good! And now for something completely different: Nearly bought this one… :-)   Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Vegan Cabbage Bolognese Sauce

This is not a quick recipe, but require slow cooking, so if you are in a rush just look at the pictures :-). There are several vegan Bolognese sauces around, mostly using soy or fake mince, and some with lentils, but I wanted to try one with cabbage, which is not a veggie I particularly like myself, but it is highly nutritious. It came out better that I hoped! Ingredients Half a cabbage 1 large carrot 2 sticks of celery with leaves 1 large onion 1 garlic clove A few Italian parsley leaves 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 glass wine (white or red) 1-2 tbsp tomato puree 1 l vegetable stock salt and pepper to taste more extra virgin olive oil to serve With a food processor finely chop the vegetables, then put in a pan with the olive oil and sauté for a few minutes. Then add the wine and stir well. Add the tomato puree, cover and cook slowly, stirring from time to time and adding the vegetable stock little by little. Simmer for one to two hours, the m...

Vegan and gluten free: Minestrone with veggies from the garden

Do you get tomatoes plants that die and leave you with green tomatoes hanging there not ripening? I do! What a pity, but even if some veggie are ugly I can still manage to make a soup out of them! I don't know why the yellow zucchini plant is three times more prolific than the green one! Still, I am not complaining, look at the colour! My favourite additions to soups are beans, it is just so much fun shelling them and look at the beautiful colours. Pity that they become all brown during cooking. And here is the minestrone. No recipe, just wash, chop and boil, add salt to taste and extra virgin olive oil at the end. So tasty and healthy! Some of the photos are mine, but the prettiest are Arantxa's! Photos and recipe by Alessandra Zecchini and Arantxa Zecchini Dowling  ©