Omelette with cheese and dried cornflower petals

 

It is winter here and no so many flowers in the garden, but I have plenty of dried cornflower petals, which keep a beautiful blue colour and are fun to use in the kitchen.

For the frittata: beat three free-range eggs with a little water and a pinch of salt. Grease a fryingpan with olive oil and when the oil is hot add the eggs. Spread the mixture well (I make four 'cuts' on the sides to spread the eggs well) and sprinkle with cornflower petals. 

Add a couple of slices of Edam cheese and more petals.

Fold the omelette and then cook for one more minute on each side. Then add a few more petals on top.

Serves two. Yum!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Onion weed and Parmigiano fritters

 

Yeah onion weed time again!! Pick some fat one, as many as you can, wash well the juicy bulbs and chop finely, adding some green stalks and a few flowers. Mix three eggs with 2 tbsp of self raising flour and 3 of grated Parmigiano, add salt and pepper to taste and then the chopped onion weed. Fry in olive oil until golden and crispy. So yum!

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Frittata with flowers

Picking a few things from the garden, and the flowers are perfect for a frittata.

Mix eggs, salt, pepper, grated parmesan, fresh basil leaves and a little self raising flour and pour in a skillet greased with olive oil, arrange the cleaned flowers on top (zucchini flowers, impatiens, cornflowers), cover with a lid and cook on low until the base is golden, then tip and cook on the other side. Flip on a plate and enjoy!

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Easiest pavlova recipe ever!

Personally I am not a great fan of pavlovas, but they are so easy to make and a good way to use egg whites, so once or twice a year a make one. This is my easiest recipe so far.

Ingredients: 

3 egg whites 

1 pinch of salt

1 tbsp white vinegar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

200g white sugar

Start the evening before.

The most important ingredient is egg whites, use free range and possibly organic eggs for egg whites that have lots of proteins and beat into perfect standing peaks! Start beating the egg whites at high speed with a pinch of salt. Add the vinegar, then the cream of tartar, then the sugar (I add this in three-four goes, but quickly). Don't need to use caster sugar if you are beating at high speed and if the egg whites are really stiff. Sometimes I forget the cream of tartar so I add it after the sugar, nothing has ever happened. Some people add vanilla, but I like pavlova to smell and taste of meringue, not of vanilla! The vinegar takes away that eggy edge, in case you are worried.

Heat the oven at 200°C or more. It has to be really hot!

Scoop the meringue onto a oven tray lined with baking paper, making a circle. I don't like to pipe the meringue, I prefer the 'spatula' look on a pavlova. Place at the centre of the oven then turn the oven off immediately. Leave overnight and don't open the door (oven door, I mean, you can open the other doors in the house!). 

The day after take your pavlova out and decorate with cream before serving, and with the fruit you like best. I even used my homemade cherries in cognac, they work very well as they are not sweet and very alcoholic and go well with the very sweet taste of the meringue.

And if you are into flowers, well, pansies and violets are edible too, and ever so pretty! These are from my garden, they make every dessert, even the simplest, look beautiful!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Red Beetroot with Wasabi Mayonnaise and Pink Eggs for Easter.

This is a perfect salad or starter for Easter! The eggs are naturally coloured with the beetroot water, and the mayo-wasabi combo marries perfectly with red beetroots.

 Open a LeaderBrand ready-to-serve beetroot packet and save the liquid to colour the eggs. Cut the beetroots into cubes, then add one big tbsp of mayonnaise and a little wasabi (to taste). Stir and refrigerate. If using fresh beetroots wash and boil them  until you can easily pierce them with a knife. Let them cool down and then peel them (keep the peels aside in a bowl with a little water to colour the eggs later on).

Boil 4 eggs, peel and colour by immersing them in a bowl with the beetroot juice and a little water. Serve with the beetroot wasabi mayo salad.

I am entering this recipe into the LeaderBrand ready-to-serve beetroot special competition, dedicated purely to the taste and versatility of one of New Zealand’s favourite vegetables. 

The winner will receive a bumper prize pack containing 5x packs of the LeaderBrand ready-to-serve beetroot, 5x packs of ready-to-serve gourmet potatoes and 5x packs of ready-to-serve sweetcorn. On top of that, the winner will receive a $300 New World voucher and $200 worth of cooking equipment from Stevens. Two runners-up will receive smaller gift packs, containing the ready-to-serve produce and some other delicious surprise foodie treats.

Well, I hope to win so wish me good luck! And good luck to all other food bloggers taking part!

How to enter:

All you have to do is concoct a recipe that showcases New Zealand beetroot. It couldn’t be easier! You can email the link to  jennifer@saltandpepperpr.com or pop a link up on the LeaderBrand Facebook Page  

Entries will open 5pm on Friday 20 March and close 5pm on Monday 13 April 2015.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Limoncello Zabaione

My mother told me that to make zabaione one must measure the marsala wine with the egg shell. I.e., for every egg yolk use 1 tsp of sugar and the broken eggshell of the same egg for the marsala. 

And it works, but for this zabaione I wanted to finish the end of a bottle of limoncello. Half an eggshell would it been too much!! So I just used a third of that. Hand beat the egg yolks, with the sugar, then put over a pot at Bain Marie (double booking) and keep beating, adding the limoncello little by little. Keep beating until the 'custard' is light and foamy. Pour into shot glasses (won't need any bigger, I can assure you, it is sweet, decadent and … alcoholic!).

The verdict? Although the taste was great and lemony (taking away that 'egg edge'), the small amount of liquid made this zabaione quite firm! Next time I may water down the limoncello, and go back to the eggshell measuring cup!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Polish Easter Egg Workshop Wednesday 16 April and the recipe of the day: Gluten free and vegan vermicelli with baby corn and Chinese mushrooms

Preserving and celebrating our traditions is at the heart of Slow Food.

 Celebrate a Polish Tradition and Create Beautiful Eggs for Easter

An Invitation from Regina

The Polish tradition is that after fasting for Lent for 40 days a family makes a basket of food to be blessed at Holy Saturday’s Mass.  There is a quiet element of competitiveness with the baskets with most parishioner’s, especially the women, checking out the baskets to judge who they believe has the best one.

The contents of the Easter basket are eaten by the family on Sunday morning, so everything one consumes for breakfast needs to be in the basket, this includes: decorated Pisanki (eggs), kielbasa (Polish sausage), a butter lamb, salt, a babka (pound cake from a moulded tin) or a sweet yeast cake.  A Pussy Willow branch or toy chick is also in a lot of baskets as this is one of the first trees to show signs of the impending and long awaiting Spring and both are a sign of new life.

Every year our family has made an Easter basket with many friends joining us for the decorating of the Pisanki.

We extend a warm welcome to all to join us this Easter!

The Details

Where: Oratia - address available on registration

When: Wednesday April 16th 7pm to 9pm

Cost: $5 Members $15 Guests

RSVP: Anutosh 8349909

RSVP: Slowfoodwaitakere@gmail.com

And now for the recipe of the day:

Gluten free and vegan vermicelli with baby corn and Chinese mushrooms

This is a cold dish, incredibly filling. 

Ingredients

1 handful mixed Chinese dried mushrooms

1 pack vermicelli 

A few drops sesame oil

1 can baby corn, drained

1 small carrot, grated

1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped

Juice from half a lime or lemon

1 fresh chili finely chopped (optional)

2 or 3 tbsp soy or Tamari sauce (Tamari sauce if you are gluten free)

Vietnamese mint fo decorate

Soak and then simmer the mushrooms until they are soft, then drain and cut into small strips. Cook the vermicelli in boiling water (or use the mushrooms' stock) for two minutes, then drain and rinse under cold water, place in a mixing/serving bowl and add the sesame oil. Mix well. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Serve at room temperature, or cold if it a really hot day.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A quick Bibimbap after sailing

Bibimbap is a Koran dish based on rice, and possibly Korea's most famous 'comfort food'. Plain rice is topped with a variety of ingredients, then the diners add chili paste and mix it just before eating. There are many types of bibimbap, some quite complex, other just made with left-overs. This is a very simple one, made quickly after the boy came home for sailing, starving! I cooked some short grain rice, then added some spinach sautéed with sesame oil and a pinch of salt on the side. Topped with a fried egg and some nori seaweed (this nori has been cut to resemble cherry blossom). I usually add some grated cucumber but I didn't have any. To finish add chili paste or sauce to taste, mix and dig in! Quick, delicious and filling!

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A Japanese gadget for fancy eggs

I brought these egg moulds in Japan, you just need to put inside a boiled egg (peeled), close the mould and place it in a bowl filled wit water (cold) and after 15 minutes your eggs are shaped like a bunny and a teddy bear! So cute! I also got some small ones for quail eggs, can't wait to try them, the kids love them!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A present

A present from Harriet, from her chucks, from Spring. 

Aren't they beautiful?

 Just perfect, 

they look like Italian Confetti (sugar almonds). 

Have a wonderful day!

(or night...)

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Inspirational pins for Easter

From Party Food for Girls, eggs colored with natural vegetable dyes,

recipe by Alessandra Zecchini (in the April Dante Newsletter), photo by

Shaun Cato-Symonds

Alessi-mania, a serious talk about eggs, and breadsticks instead of soldiers

Iced animal biscuits for Ester

Bunnies? Fondant and marzipan, or sushi?

Natural: quail and chicken eggs are beautiful enough as they are, and for an interesting touch,
eggs decorated by the children with Italian prehistoric patterns

Wow, a full Easter page without Chocolate! What do you think?

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Salad bento with quail eggs and the big Avondale spider

Did you ever see the blog Cooking Gallery? It is on my blogroll and among my favourite blogs to visit because it is full of fantastic bento ideas! And my kids like it too, but they cannot really take proper decorated bentos to school, it is not practical in NZ, so they usually have a sandwich, some fruit and when possible some raw veggies too, all stuff that can be eaten with fingers or with a bento pick. So bento tend to be fun meal to eat at home! 

And just for children? No! Yesterday I was at home alone for lunch and I thought that I should eat more salad. Kazuyo gave me some of her quails' eggs and inspired by Cooking Gallery pretty 'faces' and figurines I made a fun bento just for myself.

To be honest with you if I had made this for the kids I would have taken out all my flower cutters to cut the veggies like flowers and so on, but here I limited myself in making a little sleeping doll. Of course I would like to have a set of nori pounchers like these (I tried to cut the nori with scissors but it is hard), but I haven't seen them in New Zealand (let me know if you do!!) so I used some caraway seeds for the eyes and mouth. In the bento there are young spinach leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, cannelloni beans, olives, quail eggs, baby carrot and avocado. Dressed with lemon, olive oil and salt. If you don't have quail eggs, you can use bocconcini, or for a vegan version a small new potato.

And now to the spider... maybe the photo doesn't give it credit, but it was a big one! For some reasons these big Avondale spiders always make lots of appearances when my husband is away, so I have to deal with them. It was around midnight and I was just turning the light off to go to bed when I saw it next to me! Aghhhh! I run down to the kitchen to get an empty jar (1 liter plastic yogurt pot), but usually these creatures are on the floor or wall and I manage to catch them by 'cupping' them with the jar and sliding a piece of paper underneath like I did in this post; this time it was on an angle and I had to get it in and quickly put the lid on. Tap tap tap ... It kept patting around the jar like mad with its legs and pincers and it was quite difficult to take a still photo!

I let it free outside in the garden, and run back inside locking an bolting the door! I know that Avondale spiders are not dangerous, but I just didn't want to sleep with one next to me..... creeeeeepy!!

Are you scared of spiders?

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Leftover rice: two Tians

When I have leftover risotto I make croquettes, when I have leftover short grain rice I make fried rice, and when I have leftover long grain, Thai or Basmati, I make tians. I am not sure why I only use long grain rice to make a tian, it is one of those thing that looks logical to me, maybe because long grain is not sticky enough and so I need to add an egg? Anyway, this is my classic tian recipe:

I grease a terracotta round pan with olive oil. Mix the leftover rice with some cooked spinach (or similar green leaves), add one or two eggs (depending on how much rice I have) and then salt, pepper and nutmeg. Put everything in the terracotta pan and bake until the top is crispy. A bit like a baked rice frittata really!


The other day I had some rice left, but no greens. Also, the rice wasn't Jasmine or Basmati but standard long grain and it was a little sticky. I thought that I could make a tian without egg, a pizza tian!



I greased my terracotta pan with olive oil, pressed the rice down, topped with Italian tomato sauce (recipe here), then mozzarella and oregano. Another drop of olive oil and into the oven to bake!
Certainly a bit more difficult to serve because it doesn't cut perfectly like a tian made with eggs, but nevertheless my kids, who like everything that smells like pizza, gulped it down in no time! Maybe a good gluten free variation to a pizza??

Happy weekend everyone!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

My Max likes...

... eggs and soldiers on Saturday morning, but even better if instead of 'soldiers' made with toast strips, we have thick grissini :-). Actually, I have to agree with him, I like them with grissini too.

And he likes boats and sailing, so two weeks ago he started a sailing course at the local sailing club, and it was so sweet to see all the little boys and girls going into the water with their little boats, they looked like little nut shells from afar! New Zealand is a great place for kids to try different sports and have outdoors experiences, where I come from is not so easy (or affordable) to get into a sailing club, and I am sure that this is true for many other countries, so today I feel particularly happy about living here. And I just felt like sharing this with you, especially with those of you who asked me about life in New Zealand :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

3 Quail Eggs

Today is Black and White Wednesday, organized by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook. 

My photo is: 3 Quail Eggs

I am really busy cooking and baking for the book launch tomorrow, I will keep you posted, and hope to see some bloggers there. Please remember to enter my blog candy to win Party Food for Girls, the instructions are here. Good luck!

Win this book

Photo  by Alessandra Zecchini © 

Japanese Bento Basket

This is a three layer picnic basket, and I use it as a family size bento box. I got it from the Trade Aid shop and it is perfect for Japanese food: I put napkins, sake cups (or other drinks) and fruit in the bottom basket, then small plates and wooden Japanese bento picks in the middle basket (no chopsticks today, this is all food that you can eat with your fingers, but you can use the picks for the omelette), and the food in the top tray. There is a lid for the top and a handle to carry it. It looks very stylish.

Picnic giapponese in cesto a tre piani

To line the baskets I used some bamboo leaves from my garden, I cut some patterns in some of the leaves to make them more interesting. The food is: Ume Onigiri, Salad Sushi rolls, Nori Omelette, Edamame beans and garnishes.

Salad Sushi Rolls

Wash the sushi rice (or Japanese rice) several times in cold water, until the water runs clear, and then cook it by absorption. The doses are about 1 and 3/4 (three quarters) cups of sushi rice for 2 cups of water, but that depends on the type of pot. You need a pot with a good lid, or you will loose too much steam. I kind of regulate myself by ear now, since I know my pots and pans. Bring the pot to boiling point, lower the heat and simmer until all the water has been absorbed. Once the rice is ready pour it into a bowl and stir it with a wooden spatula, cooling it with a fan if you can. I then add some ready made sushi vinegar, about 2 tablespoons, but this is my personal taste. If I don't have sushi vinegar I use 2 tbsp of rice vinegar, a little sugar and a little salt (to taste, and I don't like to use too much sugar or salt!). Roll the rice with nori seaweed and the filling of your choice: I used carrots, takuan (Japanese pickled daikon) and rocket salad).

Foglie di bamboo come tovagliette

 Onigiri

To make the rice balls cook some Japanese (or sushi) rice as explained above but do no dress with rice vinegar, leave it plain. Start working it when it is still warm: wet your hands with water, and rub them with just a little salt, then shape the balls with your palms, sticking a whole ume (Japanese pickled plum) in the middle while you are working. This time I put the ume not inside but on top, for visual effect, and added a violet (edible) for decoration.

Omelette alle alghe, palle di riso, sushi e fagiolini giapponesi

Nori Omelette 

Beat 4 free range eggs with 1 tsp of vegetable oil and 1 tsp of soy sauce. Heat a large frying pan greased with vegetable oil and pour in the eggs. Lift the sides gently to allow all the egg mixture to run trough and cook. When the omelette is ready to be rolled place one or two sheets of nori (cut it to fit the surface of your omelette) then roll it put. Cut and Serve.

The edamame beans are just boiled, I have been promising the kids that I was going to get them some Mameshiba since they saw them in Cooking Gallery Blog (I love her blog and the kids do too!!). Well, any kind of bean and nut can be a Mameshiba now, but edamame are the best mameshiba for me!

Carrots flowers, takuan slices, pickled ginger and little containers for soy sauce complete the first tray (and a wasabi tube is also in the bottom tray, in case we need it :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©