Festival Italiano in Auckland!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Festival Italiano in Newmarket tomorrow, 29 September!

The Italian Festival Season in Auckland has started!

Last night we celebrated the opening of the Italian Film Festival and the Festival Italiano Season in Auckland with a Gala Opening at the Rialto Cinema in Newmarket, presided by the Italian Ambassador to New Zealand. After drinks and speeches we watched the movie "Welcome to the North" and ended the evening with a yummy after-party at Gina's.

Check out the Festival Italiano website festivalitaliano.co.nz to find out more, and click here to see some of the wonderful Festival Italiano events.

Party Food for Girls a finalist in the 2013 Culinary Quill Awards

Thank you New Zealand Guild of Food Writers, and congratulations to the other finalists in the Book Quill Award:Glenda and Claire Gourley, Annabel Langbein, Allyson Gofton, Penny Oliver, Lesley Christensen Yule and Lauraine Jacobs.

The "buongiorno kiwi"

designed by Ester Monti 

Please support the Italian Festival in Auckland by liking our FB Page! Thank you, grazie!

Lemon Pudding and Raspberry Pudding

Two types of puddings with one recipe (and using yolk and whites separately)!

For the Lemon puddings I used 2 free range egg yolks, 3 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of flour  500 ml of milk, 20 g butter and the juice of one organic lemon. Stir the first 4 ingredients and the, once then custard is thick, add the following two, stirring well. Turn off the heat and pour into 4 glasses. Refrigerate before serving.

For the Raspberry puddings I used 2 free range egg whites, 3 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of flour  500 ml of milk, 20 g butter and 2 tbsp of Fresh As Raspberry powder. Stir the first 4 ingredients and then, once the custard is thick, add the following two, stirring well. Turn off the heat and pour into 4 glasses. Refrigerate before serving. Top with raspberries if you like.

I am entering these recipes in Sweet New Zealand, the monthly blogging event for Kiwi bloggers. Our September 2013 host is Carmella from Easy Food Hacks, click here to enter.

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Gnocco fritto con lo stracchino del Casaro

Tonight's dinner, gnocco fritto with the stracchino Massimiliano (il Casaro) made!

First stracchino made in NZ, Max approves!

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Spring soba with nori tagliolini, onion weed and salted sakura (cherry blossoms)

Just cook the soba and top with the rest of the ingredients. To serve just add a drop of soy sauce.

To make the nori tagliolini ... well look here! For the onion weed... just forage it, wash and cut (you can eat the flowers, stems and bulbs... the lot!). I bought the salted sakura (cherry blossoms) here, I love them, a bit like salted capers really!

 Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Cutting nori seaweed with a pasta machine!

I had an idea! Instead of cutting nori seaweed with scissors (like I usually do) I tried with a pasta machine, with the tagliolini setting. And it works really well! Next time I'll show you how I used it, but for now I just wanted to share the idea! Anyway, great to top rice, soba, soups, salads... so pretty too!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Linguine with broccoli... and some semi-dried tomatoes and feta too!

I love pasta with broccoli, but for this dish I just felt like adding some colour... and fancy that, it looks like the Italian flag! This is not a combo I would do every day, or with all my broccoli pasta (which I prefer plain) but it seems to go very well with Kiwis, who are still keen of having several things on their pasta (never understood why...), and it is easy and tasty too!

Cook the linguine al dente, In the meantime clean the broccoli, cut the stalks into small pieces and the florets in fork size pieces. Heat some olive oil in a pan and add two cloves of garlic, peeled (chopped if you like a stronger garlic flavour). Sizzle the add the broccoli stalks. Stir, after one minute add the florets. Stir for a couple of minutes, add salt, cover with a lid and simmer for two minutes, then turn the element off but leave the lid on: the broccoli will cook in their steam. Cut the semi-dried tomatoes into strips and cube the feta. Drain the pasta and place in the pan with the broccoli (you can add a bit of water from the pasta or a bit more olive oil to mix everything well together. Top with the tomatoes and feta. Serve immediately. 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Vegetarian in Montevideo, Uruguay

We miss Montevideo, we were living there only a few months ago and it already seems like years. So it is good to go back to the photos while doing this Veg* guide. But first a bit of sight-seeing: this is Palacio Salvo and we were all fascinated by it, especially Max. It looks like something out of a movie, or the tower of terror in Disneyland, or a great place for ghosts... anyway, we never got tired of looking at it!

Montevideo is a very livable city, we walked a lot and loved the old buildings and details (click here to see some of beautiful doors of Montevideo). Less should be said about the pavements, always broken and full of doggy poos :-(. The air in the centre is quite polluted too, and the traffic slow, but all in all this must be the most relaxed and safe capital city in South America.

But how about being a vegetarian here? I googled a few veg* restaurants while there, but they always appeared to have 'dsappeared" or were too far, or difficult to find. I guess guides need to be updated, so here there are only a few suggestions, mostly about places that seem established or food to buy in shops (after all we were mostly cooking at home).

But I was quite surprised to find veg* options in most city centre restaurants. We stopped at El Copacabana, in the main pedestrian street of the city centre, as it had quite a big vegetarian menu. The kids had pizza, and I had the veggie milanesa with salad. To be honest I am not a fan of fake meat, and this wasn't the best, but I was quite grateful to find it.

If you like this kind of meat replacements I found similar food in the large supermarket in Punta Carretas (a former prison successfuly transformed into a shopping centre). Even if you don't speak Spanish it is pretty easy to understand what the packets say. Sadly I didn't like any of them: these are the sort of things that I prefer making myself but, once again, it is good to know that they exist.

Much much much better are the veggie burgers (two types plus two veggie sausages with buns too) at the Bulebar. Our were tasty and full of roasted veggies, with a side of regular and sweet potato fries. And the smoothies are good too. Fun place, the kids loved it!

Then of course there are good market with fruit and veggies, see a few pics here.

And this is Martin, our local baker, we went there almost everyday after school to buy our daily bread (and a few pastries too). There is some good bread in Uruguay, but be careful with the pastry and pies, they may have pork fat, so remember to ask first! Our daily shopping also included the local supermarket, nothing special but it did have tofu, and soy milk, and carrot juice ... as well as many types of pasta, olives, different types of beans, dried fruit and fruit pastes, and nuts.

For a raw energy kick, one positive thing about Montevideo (and South America in general) is the great variety of fresh fruit smoothies - (mostly vegan). Here a few yummy juices (and other drinks) not only in Montevideo, but also in the rest of Uruguay, and also in Chile, Argentina and Peru.

In our Spanish school, La Herradura, they also do cooking classes, and for us they had a special meat free cooking class!

Clockwise from left: Making faina de zapallitos, a zapallito, salchichon de chocolate, fainas de queso (yellow) and de zapallitos (green).

A final note is for Italian restaurants: they are very common, with pasta and pizza everywhere, but please note: they tend to be very "creamy" and "cheesy". Most of the pasta we had was so cover with a cream sauce that the ravioli were swimming in it. The only vegan dish is usually spaghetti with tomato and basil...

Well, I hope that this was useful to you, and if you know the city feel free to add your additions in the comments :-). I miss you Montevideo, and hope to be back one day!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Do you agree?

Flowers from Nan's garden in Christchurch

Last week I went to Christchurch, I want to share with you some flowers from nan's garden, 

aren't they just lovely? 

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©