Quiche with spinach, parmigiano and cumin seeds

This is an easy dish using two of my favourite ingredients: Parmigiano and cumin seeds. For the base I use some frozen short crus pastry, topped with chopped and cooked spinach and chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano and sprinkled with cumin seeds. Then I mixed eggs, cream and a pinch of salt, pour it over and baked the quiche until golden on top and with a crispy pastry. The Parmigiano and cumin seeds pairing worked really well, definitely something to make again!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plant based recipes for an Autumn evening

Brrrrr it is getting cold! Time to prepare some filling, comforting and easy dinners :-).

Greg gave us a long pumpkin from his garden, I love it as you just need to slice it and peel it and you have a nice pumpkin medallion!

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 chickpeas, water, two peeled garlic cloves and the juice of half a lemon until smooth. Add salt to taste and a little olive oil.

Almond dukka

Toast half a cup of almond, a few sunflower and pumpkin seeds and 1 tsp of cumin seeds. Add a little rock salt, a pinch of paprika or the spice of your choice. Grind and use to top the Hummus.

Well, that was easy, the kids loved it and got eaten in no time!

And remember that May 15 is Food Revolution Day! Sign the petition here!

#FoodRevolutionDay

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

No knead flat bread with seeds (sesame and cumin)

My motto is "when in doubt bake some bread!" Not cake but bread, my kids like bread over cakes, which is good, since I like it too! This is easy, a mixture between flat bread and focaccia really: place 300 ml warm water in a large mixing bowl, add 2 tsp active yeast granules and 1/4 tsp raw sugar. Wait 5 minutes then add 400 g high grade flour and 1 tbsp wheat gluten flour, plus a good pinch of salt. Mix with one hand (sticky!), then dust with four, cover with cling film and let it rise for 2 hours. After 2 hours flour your hands and then pick up the dough and divide into two pieces which you will pull to make two long loaves (like in the picture). 

Place the loaves on a long baking tray (I have a 90 cm oven) or make 4 smaller loaves if you have a regular oven. brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and then with seeds. I used sesame seeds on one loaf and cumin seeds on the other one. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200° C for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until you can see that the bread is baked on top and on the bottom (lift to check). Eaten warm is fantastic, but it keeps well for a couple of days, or at least, it would, but we tend to eat it pretty quickly! The kids prefer the cumin seeds, and so do I actually, but it is nice to have the sesame seeds too, once the cumin seeds is all gone!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©