Decorating the big tree

Photos  by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Melanzane fritte (fried eggplants) and photos of peonies

I love fried eggplants, for a parmigiana, on pasta, on pizza, in a panino, as a side dish… or just by themselves, they are so versatile! Just cut them very thin (I use a bread knife) make them sweat with salt for an hour, rinse them and pat them dry. Fry them a few at the time with plenty of olive oil and a clove of garlic. Drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt. Serve or use as required.

And now a few photos of peonies for my Pinterest board.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Sugarcraft: how to make a tin rose bud in under 30 seconds

I found this 'old' video (almost 3 years ago) of Arantxa making more sugar roses, this time tiny rose buds! They are so simple yet they look great!

Vegan sushi without nori

There are a lot of traditional vegan sushi rolls already, like kappamaki, kampyo, takuan, inari-san, and the famous avocado rolls, but sometime is fun to make more varieties, especially since Arantxa received a kit to shape sushi rice shapes from Japan, ready to be topped! And for topping we used some carrots slices cooked with soy sauce and mirin and topped with seaweed (vegan) caviar, and some mushrooms slices sautéed with a little vegetable oil, soy sauce and lemon juice. Well, it was truly delicious!

But for even more amazing vegan sushi recipes, and how to cooke the rice, click here and here

and here and here 

And now from my garden: I don't know what has happened to my potted mandarine tree, but I got the smallest mandarin ever… lol!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Glad I ate at M.A.K.E. before it closed down, and veg* eating in Los Angeles

I just found out that the famous raw food vegan restaurant M.A.K.E. in Los Angeles closed down, so I am glad I ate there while I was in LA last December, since it was a unique chance to try Matthew Kenney's cuisine. In a way I am not surprised, he is supposed to be such a famous chef with a cutting-edge raw cuisine, several restaurants and a cooking academy, but the place was empty. To tell the truth most of Santa Monica Place mall was empty, we did all of our Santa Monica shopping in the street, not the mall, and I guess this is what everybody else does too, as there are plenty of good shops 'outside' (and I don't  particularly like malls). 

So the closing of this restaurant may only be because of the bad location, but to me it has also another meaning. But lets start from the beginning to give you an idea of what vegetarians and vegans travelers can find in LA.

It was the first time in the US for the kids, and they were really keen to try a 'diner', or similar, and we got to this burger place which offered three different vegetarian and vegan patties instead of meat for all its burgers. The idea is quite cute, you choose the burger combo you like but get the meat free bun instead, and there is also a 'brown' bun as an option. Of course it may take time to remove cheese from your chosen burger, or check about mayo, so Vegans need to spend more time talking to the friendly waiting staff, but the patties were ok (i.e. not fantastic but good enough). The nachos were nothing special and far too cheesy, thus incredibly filling.

Ok, done the burger/diner thing now I was ready for all the juices, healthy, raw, green stuff that I though everybody in LA was eating... but I was wrong! Most people seemed to walk around not with a fresh juice but with a big Starbucks cup... Maybe OK in NY where it was so cold that it was comforting, but here in LA? Even in Hollywood and Venice Beach processed food seemed to rule, and very meaty too! You really need to look around to find places that offer an interesting Veg* alternative. My top choice would then be Asian: most Asian eateries would have at least one or two vegetarian and vegan option, often brown rice, and if South-East Asian (not Indian) some fresh vegetables too. ShopHouse in Sants Monica was great for this, we all managed to have different Vegan dishes too, with lots of greens! (Pictures below). Or you can go to Whole Foods and stock up with juices and healthy food options there.

There is also Mexican food, and we wanted to have some while we were in LA. This is really when you think that being a Veg* tourist becomes a chore: you are in a city for less than a week, you want too see the main tourist attractions, you walk a lot and get hungry... and nearby there food choices seem to be all the same. I am sure that there are some truly excellent Mexican restaurants in the city, and some may even have some great veggie dishes, but for us it was always the same nachos and quesadillas. 

Disappointing (food-wise) was Disneyland: compared to Tokyo Disneyland the quality of food was poor! Of course you may say that one doesn't go to Disney to eat, but I disagree. Everywhere you go (and spend an entire day, plus lots of money) you should also be able to find good food! For vegetarians there was very little, it was too expensive, and the whole place seems very much built on sugar. 

I will be very happy if Disneyland pays me to get back there and design a Veggie (and a healthy) menu for them and, of course, my kids need to come too :-).

So this bring me back to the famous raw food vegan restaurant M.A.K.E.

The boys went to the NASA centre and the girls went shopping, and since Arantxa is also interested in food I though that we two should have at least one famous food experience in a proper vegan restaurant! Raw food is still quite unknown in New Zealand (a part from the Little Bird cafes in Auckland) and there is still too much processed and packaged food even for Vegans.

Not that I am on a raw food diet myself, but I do like to have a good percentage of raw, and I like to try new things. Well, the setting here was lovely, the prices high, but that was to be expected, and the food was good, with just a few reservations. 

Arantxa had the ramen with kelp noodles, chickpea miso, shitake, kimchi, nori and sprouts. It looked beautiful and was very filling, but even with all those ingredients listed it tasted a little bland... it lacked unami perhaps? Plus Ramen soup needs to be piping hot, this is mandatory in Japan, it was not the same having a lukewarm broth...

I had the flatbread pizza with smoked almond ricotta, black olives, tomato marinara sauce and basil. The flat bread was definitely the best raw bread I had tried so far, the almond ricotta was lovely, but the tomato marinara sauce was far too salty, which is a real pity as it spoiled the overall effect.

Raw cuisine is really suited to desserts: this raw pecan pie with maple ice cream was fantastic and definitely the best of the three dishes. This makes me think that, after all, my diet has raw food mostly in terms of salads/dips, juices/smoothies, and desserts! I am not one for raw noodles and raw pizza, good to try it of course, but I could not eat it everyday. Some food is meant to be raw and some ... well, it won't taste as nice, with desserts being the great exception. For restaurants like M.A.K.E. to survive you need a dedicated clientele, and maybe a few more decades of 'experiments' to perfect the art of raw.

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

An Italian in a pasta shop is like a kid in a candy store

If you are in Auckland you must visit Stefania Ugolini's new pasta shop and restaurant in Mt Eden, Pasta & Cuore. Stefania is an expert pasta maker from Bologna, the Italian capital of fresh pasta, and she has bough a slice of that wonderful Italian city to New Zealand. Fresh pasta is made on the premises every day, and you can see Stefania and her team in the shop window folding tortelloni and tortellini, cutting fresh pasta into tagliatelle and tagliolini, spaghetti alla chitarra, or making gnocchi. She also makes delicious sauces ready to take home, cakes and biscotti for the cafe, and tigelle, a traditional bread from Emilia. You can eat there or buy your pasta and sauces to take home to cook, and from next month there will be cooking classes so that you can learn to make your own pasta. 

This is a truly beautiful place, stylish, filled with Italians and complete with a backyard al fresco area and vegetable garden. A real pearl for Mt Eden, and for the Italians living in Auckland, like me, it made me very happy being there, just like a kid in a candy shop.

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Japanese Vegan bento

Leftovers from Japanese dinner make good a bento (lunchbox). Here from the bottom right there is tofu, pan fried with vegetable oil and sesame oil, then finished with soy sauce (gluten free, use tamari) and lemon juice. The Asian eggplants had a similar treatment (minus the sesame oil): at home we just love the soy sauce + lemon juice combo! Next to it some seaweed salad, this was bought ready made, something that I would happy do more often if I didn't think that they overdo it with artificial colouring! But I love seaweed and you can use the dried types - dried wakame soaked in water will make a nice salad. Finally there is leftover rice, topped with vegetable, nori and sesame seeds furikake (Japanese seasoning for rice, look for it in Asian stores, and choose the one without fish or other animal products).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©