Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Lovely colourful vegetables from the garden (except the red onions), all ready for a minestrone. From the bottom: red onions, rainbow chard, carrots, yellow beans, silverbeet stalks, celery, green beans, flat beans, kale. Just add water and salt. Wishing you all a colourful week! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I made a dinner for 4 for the garden: fried zucchini flowers ( recipe here ),  borage bread cutlets ( recipe here) , fried sage (just fried the sage leaves  with the leftover oil from the zucchini and borage fritters), fresh salad leaves,  boiled new potatoes and carrots with herbs sauce  (just mixed feta with basil and parsley). It was delicious,  and such a satisfaction to grown my own dinner!                                                                                                               And now, And And now some photos from the Waitakere Ranges, where I live,  and of a New Zealand native bird, the tui, eating nectar from flax flowers. ...

There are a lot of traditional vegan sushi rolls already, like kappamaki, kampyo, takuan, inari-san, and the famous avocado rolls, but sometime is fun to make more varieties, especially since Arantxa received a kit to shape sushi rice shapes from Japan, ready to be topped! And for topping we used some carrots slices cooked with soy sauce and mirin and topped with seaweed (vegan) caviar, and some mushrooms slices sautéed with a little vegetable oil, soy sauce and lemon juice. Well, it was truly delicious! But for even more amazing vegan sushi recipes, and how to cooke the rice, click  here  and  here and  here  and  here   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Yes they do! I have a few recipes with Brussels, but the easiest way to cook them is in a soup, a bit like a minestrone, so that all the flavors from the other vegetables, plus the starch of pasta, 'improve' the distinctive taste of Brussels sprouts. Chop one onion, half a carrot and one celery stalk with leaves, sauté with a tbsp of olive oil and then add 1.5 l of vegetable stock. Simmer until the carrots are soft and then add the Brussel sprouts, a cube of frozen spinach and a handful of small pasta (like  stelline ). Simmer until the pasta and Brussels sprouts are cooked, add a little more extra virgin olive oil and black pepper to taste. Easy and yum!   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I love a nice big pot of lentils, preferibly with some oven fresh crusty bread or a slice of polenta or creamy mushed potatoes. But also as pie fillers, for lasagne, or as a side dish, especially now that the weather is cold in New Zealand. For this recipes wash, soak and rinse 500 g of brown lentils, and then boil them in water with just a pinch of salt until cooked but not too soft or mushy.  In the meantime roughly chop one peeled carrot, one peeled onion, one peeled garlic clove and one stalk of celery with leaves and a few leaves of Italian parsley. This time I also added one green pepper because it was all alone in the fridge, but this is not necessary. Sizzle the vegetables with two tbsp of olive oil until the onions are soft, then add 1 tbsp of tomato puree, and if you like a little smoked paprika or a chili. Stir and sizzle for one minute. Add the lentils and their water and more salt to taste, but not too much as the water will reduce. Cover and s...

Cabbages are cheap and healthy, and when I buy one I can cook with it for a family of four for three days! Usually I start with cabbage rolls, to use the larger leaves, and these can be done in a zillion ways! I have another  good  Vegan recipe here , but today for the filling I used stale bread. But first thing first: Wash the cabbage leaves (the bigger outer leaves, about 15, and steam or boil until soft but not too soft! In the meantime put one onion, one carrot, two celery sticks with leaves and a little parsley in the food processor and mince. Heat two tbsp of olive oil in a pan and sauté the vegetables, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Soak some old bread in water, doesn't matter what kind of bread, I had two white bread rolls and some seed sourdough, so I used those.  Squeeze the water out of the bread and crumble it into the pot with the cooking vegetables. Add a little vegetable stock if necessary and cook everything for about 15 minu...

1 large red beetroot, 6 large carrots, 4 stalks of celery, half a cucumber and 6 pears. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

This is a lovely salad and also a light main, filling, nutritious and full of different textures and flavours! For two serving use: 1 medium Florence fennel, sliced 1 avocado, sliced 1 small carrot, grated A little red cabbage, finely chopped (this is mostly to add a dash of colour, red radicchio would work well too!) 8-10 walnut kernels, crushed A few drops of lemon juice Extra virgin olive oil and salt to taste (optional) Usually I just put the lemon juice on the avocado and the carrots only, and then assemble the salad, and it taste great even without salt or olive oil (avocado and walnuts are full of good fats anyway). Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

The other day I had a crazy craving for gomadofu, the 'tofu' made with sesame seeds. But I couldn't find it anywhere in Auckland! If anyone can help (or tell me how to make it at home!) please do! Anyway, I ended up buying konnyaku, a Japanese starchy-jelly food made from Konjak yam plant. It has nothing to do with gomadofu but perhaps the colour (a little) and to satisfy my  goma  (sesame) craving I thought of serving it with a sesame dressing. You don't need to do anything with the konnyaku except taking it out of the packet and slice it! For the veggies i steamed some cauliflowers florets and carrots (separately) and cooked some spinach. The spinach were rolled in a nori seaweed sheet (like a sushi roll, but with spinach instead of rice). For the dressing, usually I make  this miso dressing , but this time I tried to make  Nami's miso dressing , from  Just One Cookbook , mostly because I have never tried to put rice vinegar in my dressing and ...

Ingredients: 2 blocks of tofu, frozen for one day and then defrosted 3 tbsp olive oil 1 large onion 1 tsp sweet paprika 1/2 tsp hot paprika (or to taste) 2 carrots 4 large potatoes 1 green capsicum (bell pepper) 1 red capsicum (bell pepper) 2l l vegetable broth Salt to taste If you freeze the tofu and then defrost it it becomes porous and easy to cook in stew without breaking up. Also it will absorb flavors really well! Once the tofu is defrosted cut it in big cubes. Chop the onion and sauté with the olive oil. When the onion is translucent add the paprika, the sweet paprika will give flavour, and the hot one… heat, so use this according to taste. Then add the tofu cubes and stir well. Add the vegetables and the hot vegetable broth. Simmer until the carrots and potatoes are ready, but before the potatoes start to break up. Goulash is more like a soup than a stew. If you prefer a thicker stew just cook it for longer, stirring often and breaking up the po...

 This dish is vegan and gluten free, for the polenta recipe I just use polenta flour, water and salt and follow the packet instructions (real polenta takes about 45 minutes, the instant takes 5!). Usually I make soft polenta, thus adding a bit more water, but packet instructions tend to be for the 'harder' type, the one that you pour onto a wooden chopping board and then cut into slices. My  nonna  (Grandmother) used to make the hard one, and then she cut it with a string attached to the chopping board: no knife needed and even the youngest kids can do it! For the lentils, wash the brown lentils with water and then soak for a little. Soaking is not really necessary but I like to do it so then I can give them another rinse and get rid off possible dirt that 'escaped' in the first wash. In the meantime sauté a finely chop carrot, celery stick with leaves and garlic (or onion) with two tbsp of olive oil, add the lentils and cover with vegetable stock. You can also add...

… plus beetroots from the garden, carrots, apples, and a little ginger. For five juices I used about 1.5 kg of carrots, plus a few local apples, and i picked two beetroots from my veggie garden, they were small but the leaves and stalks are perfect for juicing too (of salad) so nothing get wasted. I used just a little ginger (not all the piece in the photo) to give the juice a little zest. It was really sweet and delicious!   Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

The juice of the day is just carrots and orange. Usually I have this in winter, but I had a couple of oranges to use and it is refreshing (it has been hot!) Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

 First I started with a simple paste made with a small piece of ginger (peeled), one shallot (also peeled), fresh coriander (with stalks), green chili (not too much for me, maybe one or two), and fresh lemon grass (one stick). If you have kaffir lime leaves or rind, the are good too, apparently, but I didn't have any so I added a little lemon juice. Mush with a mortar and pestle or with a blender (I used the blender, too hot for the mortar and pestle!) adding salt towards the end.  Now, the only thing in the paste that came from the garden was coriander, and frozen (from last year) as this year my plant died! I also have lots of frozen chills to use, and a little plant that don't even have flowers yet!  The veggies: 1 carrot, 2 yellow zucchini, a few tomatoes, a few broccolini, borage tips, green capsicum, Thai mint, basil, onion weed flowers  and borage flowers to decorate. then: organic tofu and coconut cream. I cut the tofu and placed it in a ...

Vegetable soup with: yellow zucchini, green zucchini, plum tomatoes, parsley, chives, celery, carrot, silver beet, onions. The onion are really small but I can't grow them any bigger in the bush so I grow them in pots. Chop, add water (rain water for me, so this too is free!) and salt, then cook. You can add a bit of extra virgin olive oil at the end. Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

This is not a quick recipe, but require slow cooking, so if you are in a rush just look at the pictures :-). There are several vegan Bolognese sauces around, mostly using soy or fake mince, and some with lentils, but I wanted to try one with cabbage, which is not a veggie I particularly like myself, but it is highly nutritious. It came out better that I hoped! Ingredients Half a cabbage 1 large carrot 2 sticks of celery with leaves 1 large onion 1 garlic clove A few Italian parsley leaves 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 glass wine (white or red) 1-2 tbsp tomato puree 1 l vegetable stock salt and pepper to taste more extra virgin olive oil to serve With a food processor finely chop the vegetables, then put in a pan with the olive oil and sauté for a few minutes. Then add the wine and stir well. Add the tomato puree, cover and cook slowly, stirring from time to time and adding the vegetable stock little by little. Simmer for one to two hours, the m...

I love the simplicity and clean taste of Japanese side vegetables, it doesn't matter what you use really, the secret is to cook (or better, blanch) the veggies separately so that they retain their own taste. Here I blanched the carrots and snap peas separately, but I kept the two broths and mixed them together as the base for a miso soup (never trow away anything!). I cleaned the mushrooms and cooked them in a pan with a little butter, then I added soy sauce and lemon juice. Then I used the same pan to sizzle some small cubes of mochi (rice cakes) on all sides (the centre becomes soft while the sides pick up the mushroom-soy sauce-lemon-butter flavor). Decoration: Onion weed flowers (edible!). Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Do you get tomatoes plants that die and leave you with green tomatoes hanging there not ripening? I do! What a pity, but even if some veggie are ugly I can still manage to make a soup out of them! I don't know why the yellow zucchini plant is three times more prolific than the green one! Still, I am not complaining, look at the colour! My favourite additions to soups are beans, it is just so much fun shelling them and look at the beautiful colours. Pity that they become all brown during cooking. And here is the minestrone. No recipe, just wash, chop and boil, add salt to taste and extra virgin olive oil at the end. So tasty and healthy! Some of the photos are mine, but the prettiest are Arantxa's! Photos and recipe by Alessandra Zecchini and Arantxa Zecchini Dowling  ©