Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I have beautiful sage leaves in the garden now, big and fat, perfect for frying! Make a batter with egg, flower and a pinch of salt, add some cold water to thin it down and coat the sage leaves. Fry in hot olive oil, drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt. Serve with aperitivo. you can also fry sage leaves without batter, just as they are, they are delicious! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Red capsicums are so nice fried in olive oil, and then sprinkled with a little salt… this time I tried a different pairing though: sage! And it works really well. Of course I really like fried sage, so I guess that that help. (In the background I have some fried eggplants for the parmigiana, but you all know how to make that right?) :-) Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

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  ©

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  ©

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. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

A recipe from the  Forage to Feast  event held by  Slow Food Waitakere  last year: onion weed dip. Foraging is healthy and environmentally friendly, and foraging onion weed in Auckland and Waitakere is easy - remember that onion weed is, in fact, a weed, so it can be removed safely! Onion weed freezes well, just wash and cut into pieces. Every part can be eaten: bulb, stem, leaves and flowers, just make sure that it has not been sprayed or been near busy roads and dogs. To make this dip you just need some creamy feta cheese and onion weed (fresh or frozen). Blend, adding a tiny little bit of water (or olive oil if you prefer) to thin the sauce down if needed. No salt is required as feta is already salty. Refrigerate for a couple of hours and then serve as a dip or spread. Onion weed can be collected in Spring and stored in the freezer for months. It can also be used in cooking in place of onions, spring onions, chives, leeks and garlic.   Photos and...

I wish this was one of my creations, but I cannot take the credit: it is in fact an appetizer (but also served as a cheese course, or with a good  vino da meditazione  (meditation wine) that I first tried in my village in Italy ( Sestola , an excellent Parmigiano producing area) about 20 years ago. It was very fashionable then, and it may be still now for all I know, I am not sure, but it is definitely very original, and too good not to share! All you need is real Italian Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio (over 30 months aging), good quality creamy honey and good ground coffee (espresso quality). If you cannot find 30 month old Parmigiano, look for a 24 month, or you can try with a younger Parmigiano, but really, here you have only three ingredients, and the better they are, the best the end result. Cut the Parmesan into bite size chunks, spread with honey and sprinkle with ground coffee. The pairing of these three flavours really works. I used Airborne Bush Honey  be...

These are much better than asparagus rolls (although I confess that I don't like asparagus rolls, I only eat them if I have to, i.e. I go to a 'high tea' and the only vegetarian sandwich are... asparagus rolls! High teas are not very imaginative in this part of the world). So yes, I like to boast that these are 100 times better than asparagus rolls made with buttered white bread!  I got the idea after doing  this  (another invention of mine :-)) and I though of adding a lightly steamed asparagus to each roll, and just a little Halloumi. For each roll you will need only one sheet of filo pastry, roll it up like a spring roll (closing the ends), brush with water (you can use melted butter or olive oil, but water is fine and no fat!) and bake until golden. Easy to make and I can assure you that these will go like hot cakes! Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Tonight's dinner,  gnocco fritto  with the stracchino  Massimiliano (il Casaro)  made! First stracchino made in NZ, Max approves! Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

You can see them in the deli department of all the supermarkets, little red peppers stuffed with feta, and they are not cheap! But mostly, if you have a big party they go too quickly! But for a fraction of the deli price you can buy a couple of jars of sweet pickled peppers and a block of creamy feta, and then you just need a few herbs from the garden, and a little milk to thin down the feta. And a bit of patience! Cut the feta (goat or cow) and place in a bowl, then with a fork start to mix it, adding some milk until you have a paste as thick as Greek yogurt. If you cannot find feta cheese, or for a milder flavor, use cream cheese. Chop some herbs like basil, dill, chives and/or parsley (or what you have fresh in the garden). You can use just one herb or a mixture of herbs. Or you can use an already flavoured feta, or dried spices like black pepper and cumin seeds (a combo that I particularly like with cream cheese).  Mix the herbs with the feta mixture. In th...

 I just wished that I have thought of this before!)  We eat quite a bit of halloumi at home, easy to prepare and serve on a bed of sautéed vegetables or couscous, or with a salad. But I thought that there must be another way instead of always grilling it or pan frying it! So I cut it into slices and rolled it in filo pastry, a bit like for a Chinese spring roll. I brushed the pastry with water (this way it doesn't brown too quickly), and baked it! Some leaked a bit, but remained compact (unlike Edam that runs everywhere and burn!), and it was so delicious and easy to do that it is going to become a staple at home (also because it is nice cold too, and the kids had it in their lunch boxes!). Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

When I started these mushrooms were three times this size (I used the 'breakfast' Portobello type) but never mind, the flavour was all there and this is a great way to cook them! Clean the mushrooms and remove the stalks (set them aside) and top skin if you can (discard). Place the mushrooms on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cap side down, sprinkle with salt and a drop of olive oil and bake on medium for 15 minutes. Turn and bake for other 10 minutes. In the meantime clean the stalk, chop the very end bits off and discard, and them chop the rest with a couple of garlic cloves and plenty of Italian Parsley leaves. Add one egg to the mixture (vegans can omit egg and add a little more oil instead), a pinch of salt, a tbsp of olive oil and enough breadcrumbs to get a malleable consistency, like for croquettes. Remove the mushrooms form the oven and stuff with this mixture pressing down well at the top. Place back into the oven and bake until the tops look golden and...

I could almost call these  mini parmigiana , but there is no Parmesan, so I am not quite sure. Still, same principle, but they are little individual portions, and they look quite good for a party, entree or fancy dinner. Slice the eggplants and 'sweat' with salt for at least an hour. Rinse and pat dry. At this stage you can either fry the eggplant slices (with olive oil) or grill/bake them. If you fry them they are tastier, but a bit greasy (remove excess oil with kitchen paper) and it does take time! If you decide to grill them or bake them just put them on a baking tray lined with kitchen paper, brush with olive oil and add a pinch of salt. Place under the grill or in fan oven at 180°C until they look cooked on one side, turn them over and cook them on the other side. The grill is quicker, the oven tends to dry them up, so when I turn them I also cover them with more baking paper so that they keep some 'steam'. I prefer the baking method but for special o...

Ingredients spinach feta egg breadcrumbs Olive oil for frying thyme (optional) Wash and cook a big bunch of spinach, then chop as finely as you can/wish. Place in a bowl and add some feta (about 100 g for each bunch of spinach), one egg and as much breadcrumbs as you need to make a mixture that can be shaped into small walnut size balls. Pan fry in olive oil turning them often until cooked. Place on some kitchen paper lined with fresh thyme (if using) to remove excess oil and give the polpettine a hint of thyme flavor. Serve hot, or even cold. My kids love them! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Photo and Recipe by Alessandra Zecchini  © My thin cut roast potatoes looked like Matryoshka dolls, so I decided to "dress them up".  What do you think?

Prawn cocktail is something I remember from the 80's when I was living in London, but I don't eat prawns, of course :-). But I eat celery, and when you cut celery stalks they have that 'c' shape a little like prawns. I also remember very well from working in a coffee shop in Oxford St where we made lots of prawn cocktails that the sauce was a simple mixture of mayonnaise and tomato ketchup! So I mixed my celery with that. I remember the cocktails in glasses, on slices of bread, or even in melons (yuk, not for me) but I think avocado works well here: just cut, remove the stone and sprinkle with lemon juice. And then fill with the celery mixture and top with freshly ground black pepper. This is so basic that I wasn't even sure if it was worth publishing, and yet sometimes the most simple things are the ones that some readers appreciate, especially when they are so quick, easy, and don't even require cooking. What do you think? ...

A daikon is quite a lot to go through, really. Initially I got one to grate a bit for a tempura sauce, then I made  this salad , then I used it  here ... and I still had half left. So today I decided to eat more in salad, with red beetroot. I used a Japanese plum flower cutter, and a small heart cutter. I just added a drop of olive oil and salt before serving. Sill have lots of daikon left, maybe I could make Chiarina-ina  rawvioli  (the cutting with a biscuit cutter is the same, in fact when I saw it today I thought, modestly, two great minds think alike :-D), or maybe I can cook the rest in a Japanese broth... any ideas? Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

In my mind  Pâté is something made with leftovers: mince finely and add fat,  and  voilà le  Pâté! But leftovers in this household are very scarce indeed, so I needed to create some! Obviously my p âté has a vegetable base, Kazuyo gave me some runner beans, and I had some green beans myself, so I cooked them with carrot, onion and celery, and water and salt. That was going to be blended into a creamy soup, but I could use some veggies first.  Then in a saucepan I cooked a couple of zucchini with a green and a red capsicum, garlic, salt and olive oil. This ended up on top of a place of potato gnocchi (after keeping a couple of spoons for the p âté). Ok, so these weren't exactly leftovers, I worked in reverse, the main meals were the leftovers from my p âté!   How much to use? Well, a bit of all of the vegetables (without the stock) to fill a 500ml jag, to start with. Then I blended the veggies.  ...

I really really like the fried tofu parcels used to make oinari-san, I wouldn't know how to make them, a Japanese friend told me ages ago, but it seemed quite involved... maybe one day, but for the time being they can be bought in Japanese/Asian stores :-). This pack contained 16 tofu parcels.  The parcels are usually filled with sushi rice, but they can also be uses as "containers" (see the image on the packet) and I really liked this brand: not a single parcel broke when I was opening it! I decided to used them with rice and asparagus. The asparagus were simply steamed, and then I cut them and placed then in a bowl with the liquid of the tofu parcels (they are sealed in an sweetish sauce which I thought was a waste to discard). 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...

Bored with the same side salad? Can’t get the kids to eat it? Maybe you need to roll it up! I did this because I had a few sheet of rice paper to use, just about a dozen, not enough to make a meal, but enough for some fun side veggies. Ingredients: Cooked green beans Cooked carrot sticks Mesclun salad Rice paper Sweet chili sauce to serve Follow the instructions on how to soften, fill and roll the rice papers  here . Btw, these were a hit with the kids, they like salad, but they had more fun eating it this way. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©