Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I have three banana plants with flowers this year, so I know that I will be eating banana flowers at least three times! Such a satisfaction! How to prepare a banana blossom for eating? First you need to remove the pink/mauve petals (and small banana florets under each petal) from the blossom until you get to the pale centre. Keep the petals though, they are good as containers or decorations. You can find the step by step photos on how to peel and cut a banana blossom  here . Then cut the centre and mix immediately with lemon juice. Put into a bowl and add more lemon juice and a couple of tbsp of Japanese soy sauce. Put another bowl on top (inside the first one to press down the content) and fill the second bowl with something heavy (a rock, for example). Keep the cut blossom pressed in this marinade overnight, in the fridge. This is necessary or the banana blossom will taste too astringent. The day after, cook the noodles and drain. Rinse under cold water, and place into a bowl....

Ingredients: Two blocks of soft tofu 1 shallot 2 fresh red chillies  1 can coconut cream 500 ml vegetable stock 1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger fresh coriander fresh Vietnamese mint (or basil) Drain the tofu and cut into slices. Finely chop the shallot, and roughly break up the chili, discarding the seeds unless you like your food very spicy. Place everything in a pot with the coconut cream and vegetables sock and simmer for 20 minutes. Grate the ginger and add to the tofu, finish off with some fresh coriander and Vietnamese mint leaves. If you don't have Vietnamese mint use fresh basil. Serve with Thai rice or noodles. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

The original recipe is  here , but this time I didn't roast the pumpkin because... I had time to cut it! (I don't like cutting pumpkin...). Also I had some celery so I put that in too, plus one carrot and one onion. I added water and organic veggie stock ( Rapunzel ), and when the veggies were soft I blended them with an immersion blender.   At this point I usually add the coconut milk/cream, but I didn't have any, so I used this coconut powder my husband brought me from a trip to  Hainan  in China (the place is famous for coconut!). he was told to place the content of a sachet in a cup and add hot water to make a hot coconut drink. We did, and it is ok, basically it is just coconut... but I am not really used to drink hot coconut milk, so I added 4 sachets to the soup instead (we still have plenty more). I simmer everything for a bit longer and then added coriander and Vietnamese mint to flavour. I love this soup!! Photos and Re...

Some of you may remember that I showed you my banana plant a few weeks ago. Well, there are green bananas now, I read somewhere that it is good to cut the flower off, and wrap the bananas with blue plastic. I did just so, thinking that it is getting cold here, and maybe I won't get any bananas... and then I thought of, at least, eating the flower! I looked in all my books but I could not find a recipe, and yet I remembered eating banana flower salad ages ago, somewhere in Asia... I checked on the net, I found a few recipes, and the one that I most liked was this one . Of course I did a few variations, according to my taste. Banana Flower Salad Ingredients 1 banana flower Juice of 2 lemons 1 clove of garlic 1 fresh chili 2 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt A few leaves of Vietnamese mint A few leaves of coriander 1 large potato, peeled and cubed First juice the lemons and keep the juice at hand. Start peeling the flower, removing all the purple and pink petals, and the flowers that you will fin...

Ingredients: 1 tbs green curry paste (see recipe here ) 1 can coconut milk 1 couliflower, cut into florettes half carrot, sliced (I sliced it in the shape of flowers) 1 block tofu, cut into pieces 1 large broccoli, cut into florettes 1-2 chili peppers Thai or regular fresh basil leaves Thai or Vietnamese fresh mint leaves Place the paste in a pot with the coconut milk, the cauliflower, carrot, and the tofu. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the broccoli, cover and simmer for 5 minutes (I like my broccoli to be still green and a little crunchy). Add the chili peppers and the fresh herbs, cover and simmer for 5 more minutes. Add salt to taste and serve with Thai rice. Serves 4 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

This is Vegan, gluten free, fat free, light, and yet fully balanced and filling (or at least, it is for me :-)). Best consumed with beer, or with a glass of chilled Cracroft Chase Pinot Gris (please scroll to the end of this post for another Christchurch earthquake update). Vegan Thai Salad Rolls On Saturday I went to the Oratia Farmers Market and bought some smoked salt and garlic. The smoked salt is really nice and mixed with a few spices and herbs, so I thought of using it to marinate some organic tofu to put inside my Thai salad rolls. I cut the tofu into thin strips and then I sprinkled the salt on. After 30 minutes I turned the tofu slices over and sprinkled the smoked salt on the other side too. After other 30 minutes I lightly fried the tofu slices with rice bran oil. I put it on some kitchen paper to remove the excess oil, and set aside. I used Thai rice paper wrap, which are gluten free. You need to soak the rice pape...

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 ...