A very easy semifreddo dessert for Sweet New Zealand

Because I am traveling in South America, I don't have an oven and I have very little time for cooking, but I really wanted to take part to Sweet New Zealand. So I am recycling an old recipe that never fails to impress, specially because it is easy to assemble and takes very little time. You will need two pieces of sponge cake/trifle sponge. Place one piece in a container and drizzle with your favourite booze. I used Frangelico because I needed to finish the bottle, it has a lovely hazelnut flavour. Other suggestions: Amaretto, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, rum....

Next, mix some vanilla ice cream with some preserved pitted cherries.

Spread the (now pink) ice cream over the sponge cake and cover with the second layer or sponge.

Drizzle some more booze on top, and cover. Place in the freezer for at least two hours. The sponge won't freeze, and it will cut beautifully!

Cut and serve. It really tastes quite professional, so don't tell anyone how easy it is!!! :-)

This recipe is for Sweet New Zealand, this month of April hosted by Monica of Delissimon. 
Please send me a message if you would like to host a month.

Photos and recipe by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Zuppa alla Cipolla Rossa, Timo e crosta di Parmigiano - Red onion, thyme and parmesan crust soup

This is real 'cucina povera', a simple dish made with humble ingredients and leftovers. Chop two red onions and sauté with a couple of tbsp of olive oil and some fresh thyme. Add 1 litre of vegetable stock and one or two crusts of parmesan cheese. Simmer until the onions and the parmesan crusts are soft.

At this point you can either remove the parmesan crusts and cut off the softest parts (to put back into the soup), or keep simmering the lot until the crusts are really really soft (you will need to add another half a litre of water). I usually use only the softest part and then cut the rest of the crust (which is a bit chewy) for the cats. Dogs also love it!  Blend everything with an immersion blender and serve with some home made bread!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Piriápolis, Punta del Este and Punta Ballena

Now is autumn in Uruguay, possibly a good time to visit the famous Punta del Este and the other summer resorts in the Maldonado Department. The weather is still nice but there are no tourists around. This is Piriápolis and we are not on the Atlantic Ocean yet, but still on the delta of the Rio de la Plata.

 From Piriápolis we took the coast route to Maldonado, the road was lined by sand dunes. The sand is beautiful here, and very fine.

 Punta del Este, about 140 km from Montevideo, is like the Montecarlo of South America, with many tourists, especially from Brazil and Argentina, owning luxury apartments and houses. But first I'll show you a few 'old and cute' aspects of the city: the charming blue church Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, located in the same square as the lighthouse.

This is the anchor of the Royal Navy ship Ajax, which took part in the 1939 Battle of the River Plate (Rio de la Plata). Its position marks the place where the Rio de la Plata officially ends (here in Punta del Este), and where the Atlantic Ocean begins. Now the water is no brown anymore, but blue!

Most of Punta del Este is super modern and full of designer boutiques and fancy restaurants, but you can still see old stuff. I especially liked the blue double container for sugar and yerba (mate) below.

The city and beaches abound with modern sculptures, and this is probably the most famous of all: the Monumento al ahogado, by Mario Irarrázabal. The name sounds a bit creepy (English language readers, can you guess the translation?) but it has been called many other things too, some more hopeful, and some just ... easy, like The Hand, or The Fingers.

Many Uruguayans told me that you come to Punta del Este to be seen (this is the resort for the rich and famous after all!) and look at this! Yes, the balconies are swimming pools. I love the idea except that... this building is in front of the port and the city's main street and promenade, basically everybody that passes by can see you in there, just like looking at a fish tank.

On the way back from Punta del Este we stopped in Punta Ballena.

We are back in the delta of the Rio de la Plata now, ready to head back for Montevideo. Next post I will move from the coast to show you a bit of the interior .

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Yerba Mate Class

15 years ago I was in Argentina and I bought a mate and a bombilla to drink yerba mate. I saw many people drinking "mate" in the street and I really liked the look of the mate (gourd) and bombilla (straw), but I never used them. My husband was also presented a set a few years back, time that we learned what to do with it!

Until a week ago I thought that Argentinians were the biggest consumers of mate, but apparently the Uruguayans drink more of it. The kids and I took a class (offered by our Spanish language school La Herradura), it isn't a drink that children usually drink because it is very bitter, but it has no caffeine, and they could try a sip. In Uruguay they say that a kid becomes an adult when he/she brew his/her first mate tea alone. But is is mainly a convivial drink: everybody "sucks" the tea from the same straw, and there is a bit of a etiquette to follow.

After the class I went straight away to buy some yerba to take home (it is well packed so I guess that they will allow it into NZ), and now I just need to find a good thermos for the hot water, so I will be able to offer you a mate. :-)

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Faina de zapallitos, a recipe from Uruguay

A couple of days ago I showed you a market in Montevideo and introduced the zapallito, a vegetable that looks like a round zucchini. Today I will show you a recipe we made during an Uruguayan cooking class (offered by our Spanish language school La Herradura). Faina is like a flan, but be aware: this is not like the faina that you get in pizzerias here (which is more like an Italian farinata made with chickpea flour - lots of immigrants from Liguria here!). These fainas are different and based on eggs an flour, plus different ingredients for flavor. A part from the faina de zapallitos we also made a faina de queso (cheese) and Arantxa and Max made a salchichon de chocolate (just like the Italian salame di cioccolato).

Faina de zapallitos

500g zapallitos

half onion

2 eggs

3/4 cup oil

1 cup milk

12 tbsp flour

1 tsp baking powder

salt and pepper to taste

butter to grease and breadcrumbs to sprinkle

Chop the zapallitos and onion, then put in the blender with the other ingredients. Blend. Grease with butter a 23 cm flan dish, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Add the mixture and bake at medium temperature for about 25 minutes. Check by inserting a toothpick to see if the faina is cooked. Let it cool down before cutting. The colour was beautiful! 

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

You can also find the recipe for the faina de queso in the school's blog, just click here.

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Fruit and vegetable market in Montevideo, and where feijoas (guayabas) come from

There is a market on Tuesday morning, 10 minutes walk from home, and the prices are much better than the supermarket, of course, and the choice much better. It is quite similar to an Italian market, possibly with lightly less choice, but still many more varieties that you can find in NZ. This post's photos where taken by Arantxa.

Among the fruit we found some feijoas,  The name in Uruguay is guayaba (or guayabo like wikipedia says, the fruit seller told me guayaba and I will use this name), which I also take to be as a generic name for all guavas, although these are the first I have seen here (I guess it is the same season as New Zealand: Feijoa season!). Anyway, feijoas/guayabas are originally from this part of the word. Of course I bought some guayabas, and granadas (in the photos) and hongos (mushrooms, fubby enough they sell lots of Asian style mushrooms here!), and I am learning a few more names for fruit and veggies. One thing that here abound is rocket salad, probably the Italian immigrants brought it here!

The round 'zucchini' you see below are called zapatillos, they taste like a mixture between a zucchini and a cucumber and they can be eaten raw or cooked. I didn't know them, but I had a cooking class here and made something really yummy with them: Faina de Zapallitos, an original Uruguayan dish. But this will be the next post :-).

Photos  by Arantxa Zecchini Dowling ©

Two easy and filling Italian style vegan dishes: quick Fregola (or Israeli couscous) di verdura and quick Risotto di verdura

These recipes are so simple that I wasn't even sure if to publish them, but sometimes we need simple, quick and filling food, and since these dishes taste great and are very healthy too, I thought that some readers may like them. Also FYI, in NZ it is very difficult to find fregola, but Israeli couscous is readily available in many shops now, and can be a great substitute. 

Quick Fregola di verdura

1 small onion

1 capsicum (any colour)

1 celery stalk with leaves

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

400 g fregola (or Israeli cous cous)

1 cup Italian tomato passata

1.5 l vegetables stock

Parsley and cherry tomatoes to decorate (optional)

Chop the onion, capsicum and celery, then sauté with olive oil. Add the fregola and stir, when hot add the Italian tomato passata and then, ladle by ladle, the vegetables stock, stirring constantly like when making a risotto. When the fregola is cooked and all the liquid absorbed serve, decorated with parsley and cherry tomatoes (optional).

Quick Risotto di verdura

1 small onion

1 small carrot

1 celery stalk with leaves

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp chopped parsley

400 g carnaroli rice

1 glass white wine

1.5 vegetables stock

1 portion of frozen spinach

4 tbsp frozen peas

Chop the onion, carrot and celery, then sauté with olive oil. Add the parsley and rice, then a glass of white wine. Add the vegetable stock ladle by ladle, stirring constantly. Halfway through cooking add the spinach, and 5 minutes before finishing add the peas. Serve hot.

And now for something completely different: I visited the Teatro Solis in Montevideo today, April 10, and Chris Terrio was the special guest. Just in case you wander, no I didn't meet him.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

We are in Uruguay now, based in Montevideo. On Sunday we drove to Colonia del Sacramento (but usually referred to simply as Colonia), a small city with a beautiful historic centre. Colonia is the oldest city in Uruguay and has been both a Portuguese and a Spanish colony. I was here over 15 years ago, during my first visit to Uruguay on a day trip from Argentina, and I was really keen to come back with the kids, as it is a really relaxing and charming place full of history.

The drive from Montevideo was quite easy, in many way Uruguay reminds me of New Zealand, lots of empty roads (in the countryside, not the city!!) and big farms. But here there are also gauchos on horses! Before arriving to Colonia we were greeted by a long long long line of palms (photo taken from the car).

Colonia is full of old buildings, and the weather was beautiful, although for the first time this year I felt Autumn approaching, possibly because the streets here are lined with platano (plane) trees with leaves falling on the cobble streets.

To add to the charm there are old cars all around, and charming little shops and restaurants.

We found an Italian style trattoria (many Italians came to Uruguay, so pasta and gnocchi are very common in this part of the world). And like in Italy, we sat outside to eat al fresco.

We had gnocchi, ravioli and omelette for lunch.

Colonia is on the very large delta of the Rio de la Plata (river Plate), so it looks like the sea, but it is still a river, and the water is brown. We went up the old lighthouse, which provides great views, and you can easily see the tall buildings of the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

There were a lot of Argentinian tourists around, and it is easy to understand why: you can take a ferry from Buenos Aires, a busy city of 12 millions, and go back in time into quiet and relaxing Colonia! I learned that many porteños (citizens of Buenos Aires) even have a house here to come over for the weekends. 

 And the houses look lovely! Of course I got a few more photos of doors ad windows for my Pinterest boards :-). Bye Bye Colonia, good to see that nothing has changed in the old district in 15 years!

Photos  by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Postcard from Santiago, and meeting a food blogger from Chile

We only had one day in Santiago, so the sightseeing was a bit rushed (and it is a big city!), but we still managed a stroll in the city centre in the afternoon, a museum the morning after, and a special dinner with a Chilean Food Blogger (scroll down for more!).

Check out was at 12 so we went to La Moneda Palace, which was very close to our hotel (el único hotel de Chile que cuenta con una escuela de boxeo de primer nivel en sus instalaciones - the only hotel in Chile with a boxing school and gym... not that I used it, but fancy that, I didn't know that there were hotels with boxing facilities... in Chile or anywhere in the world!). Anyway, back to La Moneda, they hold different exhibitions there and they had one one about textiles. It wasn't planned really, initially we wanted to go to the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, but it is closed for some major renovations (and not mentioned in their website). Still, I love textiles and there were some great examples of Mapuche weaving, like the ones below.

Most of the textiles were from different Latin American countries, and I was particularly taken by some Mexican embroidery...

... so colourful and expressive! I am traveling with my own embroidery, maybe these images will be of inspiration, or at least, they will push me into work more on my piece!

In the evening we went to a nice part of town called Providencia to meet Gloria (from the blog Canela kitchen) and her family at this Vegetarian Restaurant. One of the best things about blogging is that you get to meet a lot of lovely people from around the world, and it war really special to have Gloria in Santiago (actually, she lives outside and came to town just to meet us!).




Thank you Gloria for the lovely evening, and it was great for my family to meet you and your husband and kids! And thank you for the beautiful marzipan fruit! Que le vaya bien!

Photos  by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Valparaiso through Arantxa's lens

Street Art

Artists love cats...

...and dogs!

Buildings

Doors and windows

Stairs

Sweets treats

 Photos  by Arantxa Zecchini Dowling ©