Kiwi fruit: green, gold and ruby red

Well, it may seem silly but I never seen kiwi fruit disappearing so fast as when they were served this way! And I swear that they taste better sliced like this that eaten with a spoon...

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Vegan and sugar free chocolate mousse

I am on a diet but really wanted some chocolate for Mother's Day, something mostly raw, low carb and healthy. This dessert is so easy and delicious that I made it two days in a row, once with hazelnuts and once without. I'll share the basic recipe:

12 dates

a little water to cover the dates

1 heap tsp cocoa (I used Dutch cocoa)

half tsp vanilla essence

1 firm avocado

berries to decorate

Remove the stones from the dates and place in a nutribullet or blender and add enough water just to cover them. Soak for 20 minutes, then add cocoa (a real heap tsp of it) and vanilla. Blend. Add the avocado, sliced, and blend again. Divide into three serving bowls or glasses, top with berries (frozen ok) and refrigerate until serving time. Decorate with edible flowers if you like, I used Alyssum here. If you want to add hazelnuts you will need about 8, toasted and grounded, to add to the date mixture. 

My husband couldn't believe that it was made with avocado and no sugar! The texture is just like a mousse, you can increase lightly the cocoa for a more bitter-chocolate flavour, increasing the dates (or using dates that are too big) will make it sweeter but may give out more of a date rather than cocoa flavour. If the mousse is too thick add a drop of water and mix again.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

 

Green smoothie with feijoas... and more flowers from the garden

Like most people in New Zealand I am loaded with feijoa this April. A good way to use them is in smoothies, and this is a particularly good one: feijoa, banana, spinach leaves and coconut water. Quantities to taste!

And now some flowers from the garden for my Pinterest board!

  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Banana blossom and carrot salad

 

I usually just have the banana blossom 'heart' for salads, but this time I have included a few of the little flowers that are found under the Petals. Cut the banana blossom from the bunch of bananas (leave them on the tree if they are still green) and peel off the outer pink petals, collecting the little blossoms and dropping them in cold water and lemon juice (I added some to the sink). 

Prepare another bowl with water and lemon juice and cut the banana 'heart' into small slices, dropping them quickly into the lemon water so that they don't brown. If you want to add the flowers you will need to remove the style and stigma, and the papery outer part of the flower. This takes a long time and this is why I only do it for a few of the most tender flowers. The more central flowers, which are completely white (no pink) can be eaten whole.

Rinse well and drain, then place in a bowl and add lemon or lime juice, about 2 tbsp, soy sauce, about 1 tbsp, and half a tsp of grated ginger. Press down with a plate or a second bowl and place a weigh on top (you can find an image in this recipe here). Leave overnight, or even a couple of days (like I did, it was perfectly fine!), then rinse under cold water, shake well and place in a clean bowl. Grate one large carrot and dress with lemon juice, salt and olive oil, then fold in the banana flowers. Mix well, taste for salt, and scoop into the banana petals for serving. I also decorated mine with Vietnamese mint flowers. 

It was very good, but next time, if I have the patience and time to clean all the little flowers, I'll tray to cook them. The 'heart' is definitely much nicer! 

 Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Black boy peaches with kawakawa and Honeydew

I am a bit behind with my posts and have accumulated so many photos and recipes that I am not sure I will have the time to post them all. This easy recipe is a bit out of season now in New Zealand, but if you like peaches set it aside, because it is easy and delicious! I use black boy peaches, which have a beautiful colour, cut them in quarters and peeled them, and then drizzled them with honey. I used beechwood honeydew from J.Friend & Co.. Then I added a few fresh leaves of kawakawa, foraged from my bush garden, and a few drops of lemon juice. The peaches and kawakawa should marinate in the fridge for a few hours for better result. Serve the peaches cold, with cream if you like (don't eat the kawakawa leaves, they are there just for flavour, although I love to lick the honey off - not at the table of course! 😅)

And now more posies from Instagram!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Beautiful Fruit Plates and Fruit Salads

Fresh pineapple, kiwi, banana, raspberries, mango, mandarin, blueberries and strawberries

Nothing better than a colourful fruit plate for breakfast, dessert, or snack! 

Berry fruit salad: strawberries, blueberries and raspberries

Tropical fruit salads: pineapple, banana, mango and kiwi

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Yummy green smoothies and first produce from the garden

I am addicted to my new Nutribullet, here three of my favourite smoothies so far:

Baby spinach, kiwi, coconut water

Celery (add a few leaves), frozen mango cubes, coconut water

Baby cavolo nero, banana, spirulina and natural apple juice

And here are the first goodies from the veggie garden: strawberries, rocket salad, pan choi and radishes. The baby cavolo nero in the last smoothie was also from my garden but I blended it before taking a photo. More photos coming up soon :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Cherry tomatoes with raw nut cheese and edible flowers

After the raw vegan mushroom and nut macaroons here is another cute raw vegan appetizer! Make a cross incision at the base of cherry tomatoes, stuff with some raw vegan nut cheese (recipe here) and decorate with herbs and edible flowers. They taste so good and are incredibly pretty!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Raw Vegan Mushroom and nut 'macarons'

White button mushrooms are delicious raw, and they are vitamin rich, apparently they even have vitamin B12. These little savoury mushrooms 'macarons' make a tasty appetizer, and they look really fancy! All you need is mushrooms and some raw vegan nut cheese (recipe here). Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and peel off the top 'skin', the clean them well with a damp paper towel (do not wash). Fill with a little vegan nut cheese and close together like a macaron.  

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Raw Vegan Nut Cheese

This is commonly called Vegan cheese or nut cheese, although to me it feels more like a very 'intense' dip. Full of protein and spreadable, it stores well for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Ingredients:

120 g cashews

80 g macadamia

1 small shallot

2 tbsp lemon juice

water (just enough to blend the nuts)

salt and pepper to taste

Soak the cashews for 4 hours, drain and place in a food processor (or use an immersion blender). Add the shallot, peeled and chopped, lemon juice and a little water. Blend until smooth, adding more water if necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste (I do this little by little while blending).

Store in the fridge.

Happy Weekend!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Raw and Vegan Lunch by Megan May of Little Bird Unbakery and Vitamix

Yesterday I attended a lovely raw vegan lunch hosted by Vitamix for the launch of the Professional Series 750. As a vegetarian I rarely go to these events as they tend to be sponsored by meat and fish brands (especially here in NZ) but this time the menu was designed by the NZ queen of raw food, chef Megan May of Little Bird, so thank you Vitamix for the invite, finally an event I could attend (and eat everything!). Megan also demonstrated three recipes with Vitamix, my favourite was the nut cheese (pictured below on the raw cracker) made with soaked cashews, macadamia, water, onion, salt and lemon, plus some herbs (parsley, chives and dill) added after the blending of nuts.  

The first time I got into raw food was in 1991, I was living in London then, and I had been a vegetarian for a few years already. A friend suggested this book, which was already old by then, I immediately got it from the library and read it cover to cover in no time. The appeal then was never a complete raw diet for me, but just the fact that I felt that the local (British) vegetarians didn't eat enough raw salads, fruit and veggies, while I was looking for something more. In fact the local vegetarians seemed to eat even less vegetables than a carnivorous Italian male would! If I was eating a salad people would come up to me and say that my meal was wrong because it lacked protein, while their baked beans on toast were perfectly balanced. I just could not accept this, a part from the fact that canned baked beans on toast do not appeal to fussy Italians like me, I felt that this obsession with certain types of protein in every meal was too heavy on my stomach, and that greens gave me something more, like a 'life force'. The book, entitled Raw Energy, had some good points, but sadly the recipes were not my cup of tea - they lacked fantasy and taste, and I didn't see the point in most of them. 

Raw food has definitely developed since then, and there are more ingredients available now. Still, before launching myself on the platter of starters that reached out table yesterday I did ask around if there was any meat or fish in them, a sad by necessary habit of mine, and one of the diners told me, matter-of-fact, that it was all raw, i.e. vegan. This proved to me that there are still a few misconceptions about the raw diet: raw veganism may be the trend now, but I have met raw foodists who eat (raw) meat and fish. Raw food is not uniquely vegan or vegetarian. But fortunately for me Little Bird's food is, in fact, all vegan, and organic too!

And of course raw food is not just salads and juices, as Megan showed us on the day. At the end of the meal I was so full that I didn't need dinner, just one of the dishes, or even the opening smoothie (which I forgot to photograph) would have been enough for me, since I don't eat that much. But I just had to try everything and then wait for dessert, a luscious chocolate and hazelnut tart!

These days there is plenty of raw food on my table, (if you are looking for raw vegan recipes click here) but I don't use a dehydrator or practice low temperature cooking; when I cook I cook (and bake and fry and all that) and when I don't I am all for salads, dips, juices and smoothies and raw desserts that tend to be more like traditional raw recipes, and mostly made with cheap everyday seasonal local produce, rather than anything fancy. And like most people I have a juicer, a blender, knives and mortar and pestle, although now I may just need a Vitamix to make that nut cheese :-)!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Beautiful beetroots!

I love making fresh juice with red beetroots, it tastes great and the colour always cheers me up. Then the other day my friend Alan from Dream of Italy gave me an Italian beetroot from his garden, I think that it must be this one. Well, when I cut it I though that it looked so pretty that I didn't want to juice it! So I just cooked it al dente, and then cooled it under cold water and added extra virgin olive oil, lemon and salt. Unfortunately the cooking took the colour away, but it still looked really pretty (scroll down for the photo). Next time I'll get another beet from Alan I'll try it raw, cut into very thin slices.

And then I used a 'normal' red beetroot for my juice!
1 large red beetroot, 6 large carrots, 4 stalks of celery, half a cucumber and 6 pears.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Crunchy Bean Sprout Winter Mediterranean Salad

I love beans and lentils, but I also love salads and raw food, my body feels like it needs them!

I usually mix cooked beans with raw salad vegetables, but when I remember I get some bean sprouts, and I particularly like this crunchy bean combo from Sproutman. I can just eat the sprouted beans as they are, with a drop of olive oil and lemon juice, 

These crunchy beans are quite filling and with the addition of a few more goodies with just one packet of the packet bean combo I made a salad for 4! It is winter here in New Zealand so there aren't many green leaves around a part from iceberg lettuce, quite bland for my taste, but ok to give 'volume'. No fresh tomatoes either, so I used some semi dried tomatoes, and added more Mediterranean flavors: salted capers, and mixed olives. A salad like this really fills you up, even without carbs or animal protein. The dressing was just extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice, with a pinch of salt.

And now some photos from Nan's garden in Christchurch, to add to my Pinterest flower board!

I told Nan that most of her flowers could be eaten, but promised that I would not ;-).

 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©