Saint Valentine's Day Heart Sushi and Onigiri, and a Giveaway

Where is my Valentine?

He is on a plane to Japan!

But we celebrated yesterday, and

will celebrate again when he is back.

In the meantime I am making Valentine

sushi and onigiri, for the kids.

But before the recipe here is my February Giveaway!

Japanese food is my favourite, along with Italian food, of course, and since I am celebrating a Japanese Valentine (I even gave chocolates to my husband, in Japan women give chocolates to the boys for S. Valentine, not the other way round!), I have a little Japanese giveaway for my followers: if you like Japanese food you can use these plum blossom paper napkins, bamboo mini forks and cocktail sticks for your next Japanese dinner!

To enter just become a follower of this blog (if you aren't already, but please make sure that your avatar is on the list of followers of this blog, Alessandra Zecchini, just under the title bar) and leave a comment to this post. I will post the prize to the winner, no frontiers! You have one week from today!

Next, just a few words about the photos. Yesterday I had a lovely lunch with some fellow New Zealand blogger (well, actually one is Indonesian, one English, one Scottish and, with me Italian, I can really say that the New Zealand food blogging scene is quite ... mixed!), and the host, Arfi from HomeMadeS, showed me a new iPhone application to take photos. So this is my first experiment, I am glad for it, since my husband had to take our camera with him to Japan!

The other bloggers present were Mairi, from Toast, and Allison, for Pease Pudding, it was a lovely afternoon, and I am happy that I finally met in person some of the Auckland bloggers!

Are there any more??? Please come forward, I would love to meet you!

And now to the recipe(s). I know that the contest says that I should publish only one recipe, but this is basically the same recipe with two different variations: the first is a sushi roll, and the second just a variation of it, especially for those readers who may not have nori, sushi vinegar of Japanese rice at home. They both look and taste Japanese. Serve with soy sauce.

Heart Sushi for Saint Valentine

I find cooking rice for sushi challenging: you need to buy proper sushi rice and then wash it 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 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 myself!).

To fill this sushi (which is Vegan) I used a combinations of thin carrot sticks and takuan (Japanese pickled daikon) sticks, but you can use what you like!

Place a sheet of nori seaweed on a sushi mat, add the rice and the filling, roll and, once you have your sushi roll, pinch the edges to shape it like an heart (this takes time!!!). The most difficult part is to cut the sushi, as you may loose the heart shape, so gently re-touch your sushi pieces with your fingers.

Heart Onigiri for Saint Valentine

If you don't have sushi rice, nori seaweed or sushi vinegar, or a sushi mat to roll your sushi, you can still try this method:

Cook some short grain (not long grain, basmati or Thai) rice by absorption and then start working it when it is still warm. Wet your hands with water, and rub them with just a little salt, then press some rice into a heart shaped cookie cutter. Add something colourful in the centre, I added a umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum), and then gently press the heart out of the mould into a serving plate.

This version is very easy and effective!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

If Not Now When?

As you may know, on 13 February Italian women and their friends are occupying the piazze of Italian cities to defend the dignity of women and to say to men: if not now, when? It's time to befriend women. For further information visit:

http://senonoraquando13febbraio2011.wordpress.com/

As Italian women in New Zealand, we would like to support this very important initiative. We invite you all (women and men) to take part in the event that we will hold here on Monday, 14 February at 20,30 at the Dante rooms, to watch the brief documentary "Il corpo delle donne/Women's bodies" and to talk about it together. We would like to make our voice heard even from so far away! We look forward to having you with us! Please send this message to anyone you feel might be interested.

Address:

Freemans Bay Community Centre, 52 Hepburn Street, Freemans Bay, Auckland

Telephone: 09 376 3853, Email: info@dante.org.nz

The Dante Team

Wellington, Capital of New Zealand

Everybody goes to the Capital of cool from time to time, even Kiwi farmers with their pets hogs!

One of the things my kids liked best was the city's large museum Te Papa, and of course the winner was the gigantic squid exhibit. I didn't take photo of that, but if you have kids the museum has a cute computer game that you can do from your own home: build a squid!

I liked the Maori meeting house, quite different and colourful!

We had a few great days in the capital, luckily hardly any wind at all, and great blue sky!

What a party town! Look, they even put balloons up in this building (here in NZ they usually put balloons outside the houses where there is a birthday party)

Bye bye Wellington!

No recipe today, but I would like to show you one of my favourite Summer Salad combo:

watermelon and blueberries! I like the taste and I like the colour. The other day I had a couple of Arantxa's little friends for dinner, and to make the fruit salad extra special I cut the watermelon with one of those little scoops that you use to make melon balls. The girls loved it!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Cape Gooseberry Jam

Upon my return from holidays I found that I didn't have a veggie garden but a forest of leaves and bugs! We had so much rain when I was away, and I could hardly see the tomatoes on the plants (full of leaves), the zucchini plants were rotten while pumpkins were crawling everywhere, and golly, the Cape gooseberries were out of control!

My problem is that I am not very good at 'thinning' plants. I don't have the courage of killing a seedling just because it gets to close to another one... and the result is this: a mess! I almost felt like removing all the cape gooseberry plants at once, but then I remember the Italian bloggers saying that cape gooseberries are so expensive in Europe... so I picked some and made a jam, on the same afternoon that I got home, even if I was tired from the trip.

Ingredients:

700 g cape gooseberries

Juice of half a lemon

500 g sugar (I used cater sugar simply because I just had that in the pantry, having being away so long!)

1 big apple

Wash the freshly picked fruit and place in a large saucepan with a little water and the lemon juice. Bring the fruit to a gentle boil. When the fruit is simmering add the apple, cut and cored but not peeled (the peel contain pectin, which will help your jam set) and the sugar. Stir often and cook for 30 minutes, then blend with an immersion blender. Cook for 10 more minutes, at this point the jam should start setting (check by picking up a little with a metal spoon).

Place the hot jam in sterilised jars, dried in the oven. Either seal the jars with cellophane covers (available in all supermarkets) and secure with an elastic band, or use capsule lids (I use Quattro Stagioni brand).

If using capsule lids, seal the jars well, place in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the jars. Let the jars cool down in the pot overnight and when they are cold make sure that the capsule has popped by pressing gently on the lid. Properly sterilised jars will keep for over a year.

The jam turned out to be great, possibly one of the best jams I have made recently :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Happy Chinese New Year with Rabbit Biscuits, and a bit of the South Island

Happy Chinese New Year to all. After the rabbit sushi and the sugar bunnies I made some rabbit biscuits and iced them :-).

Quick post today, I'll just show you some images from the South Island, we travelled by car from Christchurch to take the ferry to go to Wellington. It was a lovely day and a beautiful drive.

Kaikoura

Can you see the seals on the rocks?

Marlborough (wine country)

Picton

On the ferry to the North Island

The Queen Charlotte Sound

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Silver beet Paneer e due paroline alle signore dei blog

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage, ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach.

One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer, spinach with paneer (or panir) cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet.

I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them.

In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds:

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric

1/3 tsp ground chili

then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet.

I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content of the pot with an immersion blender.

I added the paneer, cut into small squares (Vegans, you can add tofu), and cooked everything for 5 more minutes, tasted for salt, and served.

It was amazing, almost as good as the palak panir made with spinach!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Con questa ricetto supporto l'iniziativa Liberiamoci del maiale!

E adesso due paroline in italiano:

Quando ho cominciato questo blog non conoscevo molte bloggiste italiane (a parte Enza) e non mi sono mai preoccupata di tradurre, o di scrivere in due lingue (non comincerò a farlo ora, ho veramente poco tempo e mi piace venire qui per … rilassarmi!).

Ma vorrei dire una cosa alle bloggiste italiane: siete delle signore! Dove vivo la gente è sicuramente riservata e chiusa, ed a parte pochissime eccezioni (e guarda caso si tratta quasi sempre di neozelandesi di provenienza estera) non c’è molto scambio. Tutti guardano, leggono, a volte me lo dicono pure quando m’incontrano di persona che curiosano quotidianamente, eppure a parte qualche commentino su FB, veramente pochi offrono opinioni o commenti sul blog. Su nessun blog neozelandese infatti, a meno che non sia un blog di un giornale dove si parla di qualche cavolata sociale e allora tutti a buttare opinioni (spesso anonime) tipo “lettera al redattore”.

Naturalmente ci sono abituata, e poi pian piano ho cominciato a conoscere più bloggiste italiane, e ho notato subito la differenza: cordialità, voglia di esprimersi, interesse… insomma signore, nel mondo dei blog secondo me voi primeggiate!

Un saluto coridale alle tre civette golose che mi hanno appena passato questo award.

Per meritarmelo dicono che devo dire 7 cose di me:

1 Sono nata a Milano, madre bellunese e padre modenese.

2 Sono cresciuta a Sestola, in provincia di Modena.

3 Fin da piccola l’unica cosa che ho sempre desiderato è stata viaggiare.

4 A 19 anni ho lasciato il nido e me ne sono andata a Londra da sola, (e senza soldi!)

5 All’università ho studiato arte e tessili giapponesi del periodo Edo.

6 Mi sono sposata in Giappone con un neozelandese, che ama viaggiare.

7 Abbiamo due figli, adesso siamo in quattro che amiamo viaggiare!

E poi dovrei passare l’award a 10 nuovi blog conosciuti, che sono pochi se devo scegliere per merito (un’altra caratteristica dei blog italiani è che sono tutti molto belli e curati), comunque, senza offendere nessuno, ho messo i 10 nomi dei blog italiani che si sono appena iscritti come miei followers:

Pasticci e Pastrocchi, Duck, La Gaia Celiaca, Cardamomo & Co., Candy Floss, Gatti fili e farina,

, ti cucino cosi, viaggiare come mangiare, A la merenda sinoira, e cuocidicicuci

So che non tutte amano questo tipo di award, quindi non sentitevi obbligate a riceverlo e passarlo ;-)

Un forte abbraccio a tutte!

Alessandra

Christchurch, Earthquakes, Ron Mueck and... Pinot Gris

It is always lovely to visit the city of Christchurch, and family and friends (including meeting for the first time in person a fellow food blogger, the talented Bron Marshall).

Sad to see that earthquakes are still very much present, the after-shocks are set to continue for a while longer and we felt a few ourselves, the biggest being a 5.1. Some buildings still show the signs of damage from last September, but everybody is grateful that there were no casualties.

One of the highlights for me was to visit this: Ron Mueck's work is realistic, emotional, and strong and fragile at the same time. I have a few images here, some sculptures were small, some huge, some really looked at you.

We had a big tremor while we were inside the gallery, no damage, but everybody stopped talking, and then all talked together again, nervously.

And of course no visit to Christchurch would be completed for us without visiting our friends Wilma and Alessandra Laryn. Wilma and Alessandro are Italian and moved here several years ago; they planted grapes, and started making an excellent Pinot Gris. This is their vineyard.

In New Zealand Pinot Gris tends to be quite 'sweet' and fruity, but Cracroft Chase Woods' Edge Pinot Gris is more like an Italian Pinot Gris: drier, just as I like it. If you are into wine, a few years back I wrote and article about the Laryns in Cuisine Magazine, you can read it here.

Wilma and Alessandro also make Grey Pearl, a lighter off-dry café-style Pinot Gris. For more info check their website

Pilaf Rice with Chickpeas... and the winner is...

Thank you to all of you who took part in my little giveaway. I copied your names (53) on a list in order of appearance and put them through a list randomizer.

So the winner is Mairi!

Congratulations Mairi, please get in touch to let me know your address (I will also contact you, just to make sure!)

Sue at Couscous and Consciousness and Sasa from Sasasunakku, you came second and third, send me your addresses too, I will send you a little consolation token :-).

List Randomizer

There were 53 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Mairi
2. Couscous
3. Sasasunakku
4. Astrofiammante
5. Colleen
6. Fantasie
7. Merendasinoira
8. Pommer cannelles
9. Manu
10. Barbara
11. Red Nomad OZ
12. Sunflowers8
13. Barton
14. Barbara GF
15. Swati
16. Sweet Snow Flakes
17. Madama Bavareisa
18. Lucy
19. Jennifurla
20. Ananda
21. Agnese
22. Cinzietta
23. Nigel Olsen
24. EliFla
25. Marydap
26. Bhumika
27. Victor
28. Rosemary
29. Francesca
30. Natalia
31. Jodi
32. Pam
33. Eleonora (B&M)
34. Lusks
35. Elena
36. Tami
37. Turista di mestiere
38. Laura
39. Holly Springett
40. Ambra
41. Koralee
42. Michelle
43. Eleonora (Peggy)
44. Civette
45. Ilaria
46. Mary
47. Claudia
48. Saretta
49. Zoe
50. La Gaia Celiaca
51. HeyHarket8
52. Duck
53. Adelina

Timestamp: 2011-01-31 00:39:38 UTC

To all others, it was great to read your messages, and to meet new people, keep in touch and I will do another giveaway next month too! And now for the recipe:

Pilaf rice with Chickpeas

I am still very ‘timid’ when it comes to Indian spices: I am always scared to burn them, or to use too much, or too little. In particular I am so used to have cloves and cinnamon in sweet dishes that I never know how much to use in savoury dishes.

For this pilaf I just filled up a tbsp of spices, as you can see there are plenty of cumin seeds, but just a little cinnamon and a few cloves, plus a few cardamom pods), still, just the right amount for me to flavour a pilaf for four.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp mixed whole spices (cumin seeds, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom)

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 generous pinch of salt

300 g basmati rice

1 can chickpeas, drained

1 Wash the rice and soak for 30 minutes.

2 Heat 1 tbsp of oil, sizzle the whole spices and garlic.

3 Add turmeric and salt.

4 Add rice, chickpeas and water (just enough water to cook the rice by absorption)

5 Cover and simmer for 10-12 minutes.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©