Only Recipes, by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena goes well with fruit, and there is also a Balsamic cream you can buy which is less expensive and ideal to decorate plates.   Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

The original recipes comes from my book Sweet As... ,  my own recipe which doesn't require steam baking in the oven and includes nectarine slices. Plum slices and cherries were also added here, and the result was delicious!  In Italy we also call this  crema bruciata , but  crème brûlée  is most commonly used now as it sounds sophisticated :-). To make the crème you will need one egg yolk for each 100ml of cream and 1 tbsp of sugar, for this recipes I used 5 egg yolks (thus 500ml cream and 5 tbsp of sugar) and I filled 8 ramekins, plus I had a little left to fill three miniature ones. Of course if you don't put any fruit on the bottom you will need more crème. It is up to you how much fruit you put in, generally I just line the bottom of the ramekins with 4-5 think slices, this time I think I overdid it (thus the leftover crème) sicne stone fruit season is not long in NZ, and I wanted to use more fruit than crème! Don't use watery fruit and remo...

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  ©

So yummy: Kiwi, baby spinach leaves and frozen mixed berries, plus some coconut water. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Time for vitamin C! This smoothie is just kiwi, banana and coconut water, a real meal in a glass! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

The Kahikatea trees in the bush are full of berries, and birds are singing happily. The berries ( koroī)  are edible, but the trees are too high to climb for me, so I can only pick what falls on the forest floor. It takes time, but foraging runs in my veins, plus it is a good squatting exercise! After picking you need to wash the berries well and remove the hard blue seeds, another time consuming job! After all this you are left with an handful of berries so it is easy to understand why you don't see  koroī jam around! In fact there are not many recipes with these berries, and this is my third one only (the other two are  Flan with Kawakawa cream and Kahikatea berries , and  Kahikatea Cupcakes .  The berries don't have much taste so I added one tsp of sugar and a tbsp of lemon juice and I let them marinate overnight. They day after they were yummy and ready to put on cereals, but I preferred  making a tart. I use quinces from Oratia, in season n...

The easiest way to preserve fruit, if you like alcoholic fruit, that is! The Cape gooseberries are with whisky, and the cherries and plums with Cognac (I added a bit of sugar to the plums because they were a little sour). I will try them soon!! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Strawberries, nectarines, pears, blueberries and kiwi fruit, a drop of lemon juice and some coconut water. No sugar.  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I love quince jelly, lovely project for rainy days! Wash and quarter some quinces, removing the pips, then boil the lot with lemon juice and a little water until the fruit is soft and mushy.  Put the pulp inside a jelly bag, cheaper if you just use a clean pillowcase (I have one which I use just for jellies) and hung it over a bowl (using a broom and two chairs) for a day and night. This way the juice will drop into the bowl. As a rule if you like a clear jelly do not squeeze the bag! But I confess that I gave it a little squeeze… I wanted to get more out of it! Measure the juice and add the same amount of sugar, then boil again. I had lots, so I put half in a container to set, and added  Fresh As  Raspberry powder to the other half for a quick raspberry jelly. Delicious! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Publishing old photos as the plum season in the Oratia orchards is well finished! But jam recipes are good to keep! I used 1 kg of plum was far too ripe and soft for eating. It happens, sometimes we buy fruit and it is hot so it doesn't keep… but very ripe fruit is sweeter, and it is perfect for jams! I washed and the plums and put them in a pot with a little water and boiled them, then I strained them to discard stones and leftover skin and tasted the paste. I usually add 50-60% of sugar (I don't like the 1kg fruit for 1kg sugar ratio they do in NZ), but this paste was already sweet! So I added just 2 tbsp of brown sugar and a pinch of citric acid (as a preservative) and, fearing that the jam wouldn't set, 1/3 tsp of agar agar. If I were to keep this jam longer maybe I would have added more sugar, but I only made 5 small jars and they went pretty quickly!   Remember that apples and pears are still in season at the Dragicevich Orchard, 556 West Coast Rd, Oratia, ...

 This one is a cute dessert with three ingredients: Passion fruit, sugar and cream. Take two passion fruits, cut them in half and scoop the pulp out. Put the shells in the freezer. Mix the pulp with sugar to taste and let it stand for 30 minutes so that the sugar dissolves, then fold into just enough whipped cream to fill the passion fruit shells. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes then serve. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

This dessert is perfect after a Japanese meal, maybe not a traditional Japanese dish (I invented it, after all, like most of the recipes in this blog) but it taste great and and it is made with only two ingredients: persimmons and agar agar (and a little water). So it is sugar free, gluten free and vegan! All you need to do is peel two persimmons and cube them. Put the fruit in a blender with a just enough water to be able to blend it. Mix half tsp of agar agar powder with 50 ml of water and add to the persimmon 'smoothie'. Put everything in a small pot and bring to the boil. Simmer for just one minute then pour into a mould (rectangular is better). Let it cool down and cut into slices. Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

I made  feijoa  jam using my usual ratio of 60% sugar (i.e. 60g sugar for every 100g fruit - in this case you need to scoop the pulp our first, as the jam is made only with the pulps, not the skins). Most Kiwis seem to use the same amount of sugar as the weight of the fruit (100g to 100g) which I find too much personally, but if this is also your style of jam and you are planning a feijoa jam … think again!! Even with the 60% ratio my jam was so thick that I regretted putting it into jars! It would it been better in a mould, like quince paste. In fact it really reminds me of the guava paste that you can buy in South America (and in some shops here too, in cans). It smells tropical and taste fantastic, sweet and thick and just perfect with a strong cheese. So next time I'll make feijoa 'paste', not jam, and I'll be sure not to put it into a jar! Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

Jam made with plums from Oratia. I removed the stone and cooked the plums with a little water and some jam setting sugar (this was a present, and I wanted to try it). The NZ jam tradition seems to be 1kg of sugar for 1 kg of fruit (or even more sugar if you make raspberry jam) for an Italian this is too much. I go for 40 to 60%, with the latter being my preference if I need to preserve the jam for a long time (it helps agains botulin). You can taste the fruit better with less sugar :-). And our cats, Nikita (left) and Marameo (right) are also enjoying the last of the sun, sleeping outdoors all day long! Marameo is 18 now, an old lady cat    Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

 A fruit lunch box: grapes, melon, watermelon, strawberries and wild strawberries (these are from the garden), plum and apricot, plus some mini pikelets. Easy as! Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini  ©

This is perfect if you: A:  follow a raw diet (or don't know what to give to a raw eater/vega/gluten free/allergic/etc.) B:  prefer fruit to dessert (i.e. no time to make dessert) C:  want to lose weigh or to eat breakfast all day long D:  are in love! All you need is a knife and a hear shaped cookie cutter.  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  ©