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Showing posts with the label Zucchini

Fried zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and basil

I have quite a few zucchini in the garden but not so many flowers yet, and I love fried zucchini flowers (you can find the step by step recipe  here ). So I decided to pick a few little zucchini with the flowers still attached and to stuff them. Clean the vegetables and flower, remove the stigma and the styles. Do not detach from the young zucchini. Mix a few tablespoons of ricotta with a pinch of salt, pepper, roughly broken basil leaves and a drop of olive oil. Stuff the flowers and twist the top to seal. Make a batter with egg, flour, a pinch of salt and thin with a little cold beer of water. Dip the zucchini and flowers in the batter to coat and then pan fry with olive oil, turning them so that they cook on all sides. They should be golden and crispy. Drain on kitchen paper, sprinkle with salt and serve. Use the remaining batter to coat zucchini slices, or sage leaves ( look here! ) or anything you like.   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

More healthy: smoothie: green, croquettes: baked!

Nothing beats a green green green smoothie! Kale, spinach, banana, frozen mango, and coconut water as a base.  The croquettes are zucchini (raw and grated) mixed with feta, eggs, herbs and bread (stale bread soaked and crushed) and instead of frying them, as I usually do, I just drizzled them with olive oil and place them in the oven. Turn over halfway through baking and add more oil in necessary, you will be happy for how good they taste, even if they are not fried! 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  ©

Roasted pumpkin medallions with pumpkin and sunflower seeds, Baked zucchini, Lemon basmati and lentils, Instant hummus and Almond dukka

Roasted pumpkin medallions with pumpkin and sunflower seeds Slice, peel and place onto an oven tray, drizzle with olive oil, salt, smoked paprika, garlic and crushed cumin seeds. Roast until tender. Toast a few pumpkin and sunflower seeds the oven and sprinkle on the pumpkin medallions before serving. In addition I had the last zucchini in the garden, not quite a marrow but quite big, so I sliced it and baked it too: Baked zucchini Wash and slice lengthwise, drizzle with olive oil and salt, bake. That all! To serve I added some basmati and lentils Lemon basmati and lentils Wash and cook the basmati with a small pinch of salt, open a can of lentils, drain from the water and pour the lentils on top of the rice during the last five minutes of cooking. Turn off the heat, add two tbsp of lemon juice and stir. And to top some instant hummus with almond dukka: Instant hummus Open a can of chickpeas, drain and keep half of its water. Blend the ch...

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  ©

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  ©

Fregola with zucchini and halloumi, and over 2000 page views

Yesterday I had another record page views: 2,040. Funny, as I don't have much time to post these days, but I like to thank you all for visiting! Fregola with zucchini and halloumi Ingredients: 2 zucchini 1 garlic clove 2 tbsp olive oil 1 block of halloumi cheese 1 cup fregola pasta 500 vegetable stock chopped parsley lemon to decorate Wash the zucchini and cut into thick strips. Peel the garlic and cut into two pieces. Heat the olive oil and the add the garlic, zucchini and the block of halloumi. Sauté stirring constantly and turning the halloumi often. When the houllumi start to become golden remove from the pan and set aside. Add the fregola and stir with the zucchini until toasted. Add a little vegetable stock, lower the heat and cover. Stir from time to time, adding more stock when necessary, until cooked (about 20 minutes). Cut the halloumi into slices and place back over the fregola, then add chopped parsley and lemon slices. Serve hot. I...

Vegetable Pâté with Salted Butter served with Daikon Slices and Edible Flowers

In my mind  Pâté is something made with leftovers: mince finely and add fat,  and  voilà le  Pâté! But leftovers in this household are very scarce indeed, so I needed to create some! Obviously my p âté has a vegetable base, Kazuyo gave me some runner beans, and I had some green beans myself, so I cooked them with carrot, onion and celery, and water and salt. That was going to be blended into a creamy soup, but I could use some veggies first.  Then in a saucepan I cooked a couple of zucchini with a green and a red capsicum, garlic, salt and olive oil. This ended up on top of a place of potato gnocchi (after keeping a couple of spoons for the p âté). Ok, so these weren't exactly leftovers, I worked in reverse, the main meals were the leftovers from my p âté!   How much to use? Well, a bit of all of the vegetables (without the stock) to fill a 500ml jag, to start with. Then I blended the veggies.  ...

Champagne Zucchini

I made this a while ago but I didn't find the time to post it. I know that zucchini are not in season now, but many of you live in the Northern Hemisphere, so you may appreciate the idea. FYI I didn't buy Champagne especially to make this :-), I just had some leftover, and I didn't want to waste it. Sauté the zucchini and a shallot with one tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt for a few minutes, then add the champagne (I had just over a glass). Don't add water, between the champagne and the water from the zucchini you should have enough! Keep cooking and stir often until all liquid has absorbed and the zucchini are soft (about 20 minutes). Adjust with salt and pepper and finish with some fresh chopped parsley. I really liked it, and now I know what I will do if I ever get some leftover champagne again. Or any other bubbly :-). Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Baked Frittata with Zucchini and Zucchini Flowers

I picked my very first zucchini from the garden, cooked them with olive oil, garlic and salt. I cleaned and flatten the zucchini flowers, and placed everything nicely in a baking pan lined with baking paper. I whipped 6 eggs with a pinch of salt, pepper and a drop of olive oil until really foamy (thanks to my new kitchen aid!!!) Poured it on top of the zucchini, Baked at 160°C for ... 25 minutes? About that ... I got distracted. Anyway, it smelled ready so I took it out. Flipped it over and ecco pronta a gluten free low fat baked frittata! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Lemon Sautéd Green and Round Zucchini

My Aunt Alice is growing green zucchini and round zucchini (which is a sort of 'zuccotto' and can grow quite big). I like the round zucchini! Here how the round zucchini look like sliced. Lemon Sautéd Green and Round Zucchini Slice the zucchini and cut the bigger slices into quarters. Sauté two peeled garlic cloves with a little olive oil, then add the zucchini, lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often. The round zucchini are softer and will mush a little, but they have a great taste. The round zucchini will 'almost' mush, but keep their shape and colour better (the round one turn yellow!). Add salt halfway through cooking. At the end add a tsp of fresh chopped Italian parsley and a few lemon slices (or the juice of half a lemon). It can also be used to to cous cous, pasta and rice. Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Rigatoni with Zucchini and Ricotta

Ingredients 4 zucchini 1 garlic clove 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 pinch salt 500 g rigatoni pasta 200 g ricotta (I used soft goat ricotta) Freshly ground black pepper Slice the zucchini and cook in a large frying pan with the garlic, olive oil and salt until soft but not mushy. Cook the pasta al dente in plenty of salted boiling water. Drain and add to the zucchini. Stir in the ricotta. Finish with freshly ground black pepper. Serves 4-5 Photo by Alessandra Zecchini©

Mafalde Corte with Zucchini

I cannot believe that I bought zucchini! After eating so many from my garden I thought that I would not want to see them for at least six month, instead...I discovered that I missed them! And since I don't have a veggie garden here in Valcamonica, I have to buy my veggies! These are the first zucchini of the season, probably from some hothouse, but at least they come from Italy, not a far away country. I decided to try another of the Garofalo pasta (since so many Italian bloggers talked about it) and I though that for my dish this format, mafalde corte, would work well. And it did!!! Ingredients: 500 g pasta Rock salt for the water. for the sauce: 4 zucchini 2 garlic cloves, peeled 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Salted water from the pasta (very important ingredient, read more later) Freshly grated pepper (optional) Freshly chopped Italian Parsley Wash and cut the zucchini and saute in a large pan with the garlic and olive oil. Stir often, the zucchini should not burn! They actually...

Zucchini Lasagne

Photo by Alessandra Zecchini© The photo is not very good, in fact I thought that I wasn't going to put this recipe here, as it is really basic, but if you have a veggie garden with lots and lots of zucchini you are probably looking at different ways to cook them... I used Barilla pre-cooked egg lasagna sheets. Cut the zucchini (green, yellow or a mixture of both) into slices and place in a pan with a little olive oil and a garlic clove. Cook stirring often and then add salt and a little tomato passata. Set aside and make a white sauce with 2 tbsp of plain flour, 500 ml of milk, 50 g of butter, and then salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg to taste. Put a little white sauce in the bottom of a lasagna dish, add a layer of lasagne, one of zucchini, and one of white sauce. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese. Repeat until you have finished all the ingredients, making as many layers as possible. Put very little white sauce between layers, leave most to put on the top, or the lasagne ...

Making Fregola Sarda

Making Fregola I dug out these photos for my friend Tiziana, who was here with me making fregola, and she is now a vegetarian! Fregola is something between cous cous and pasta, thicker than the former, and finer than the latter. Start with a blend of fine and coarse semolina and a little salted water. Mix mix mix collect the pellets pass them through a sieve and let them dry for 24 hours. We cooked the fregola like a risotto. First chop and saute some fresh vegetables, slowly add vegetable stock and, finally, saffron. Yum!