How to make perfect rice balls with the plastic Kinder Surprise capsule

This is a good trick, and suitable for onigiri, rice croquettes, supplì... anything really, works with cold and hot rice (the best thing for hot rice is that you don't even burn your hands!!). as long as it is short grain, Japanese of Italian style rice (i.e. for sushi or risotto). 

In no time you will have lots of perfect little rice balls, just look here, it takes 30-40 seconds!

And where did the egg capsule came from? Well, today it was Easter so we had an egg hunt, breakfast with eggs (real and chocolate) and since we are Italian and for us a Easter egg MUST have a surprise inside, the kids got Kinder Surprise eggs (the only Easter eggs in New Zealand with a surprise inside). I used the same trick with smaller Kinder Surprise capsules, but they make very small rice balls (ok for canapés, but not much else...) so I quickly took my chance and used the bigger one from my daughter's egg.

Happy Easter!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Miniature Sushi, every piece is a grain of rice

I find it very relaxing to make miniature food, and I particularly enjoyed making this. 

Could it be the smallest sushi in the world? Each piece is exactly a grain of rice! But it is easier that you may think, just check the video out.

I made the rice like regular sushi rice (recipe here) and for the toppings I just used a variety of Japanese pickles, plus nori and bamboo shoots, so this is actually a vegan sushi. It looked super cute!!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A week of Italian and Māori

Carlo and my friend Suzanne

Yes it was a full week of Italian and Māori things for me! First I got my first case of JK.14 Prosecco and wine delivery, from Veneto to the New Zealand bush! Then Chef Carlo Casoni from Mutti came to NZ (thank you Eurodell for the tickets!), and finally I went to an amazing Italian event organized by Cuisine Magazine at Gusto, with 5 of the most famous chefs in Auckland (Sean, Sergio, Stefania, Giapo and Gaetano).   

Celebrating Cuisine Magazine Italian event!

Māori

Māori Language Week/Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is coming to an end, but let us keep the korero alive, and learn the meaning of Māori place names with Oratia Books fully revised edition of A.W. Reed’s classic Māori Place Names.

This fourth edition gives meanings and origins of over 2300 of the most important and widespread Māori names, and includes the original illustrations by celebrated artist James Berry featured in the early editions of the book.

 

A bit of fun: the movie Poi E, based on the making of the famous hit by the same name, is coming out soon. So I grabbed my 'Italian' poi and went over to the Corban Art Centre for a lesson on poi dancing (and Poi E singing). So cool! I even ended up in the News…  

The original Poi E video 

Happy weekend everyone!

Festival Italiano Auckland Youtube Video

Youtube video of the Festival Italiano 2015

Filming and editing by Duncan Eastwood 

Music by Auckland Mandolinata Orchestra 

playing 'Maria Mari' by Eduardo Di Capua

Sugarcraft: how to make a tin rose bud in under 30 seconds

I found this 'old' video (almost 3 years ago) of Arantxa making more sugar roses, this time tiny rose buds! They are so simple yet they look great!

Gardening for food at home, and New Brighton Community Gardens

Freshly picked from the garden, it doesn't seem much and yet it feeds 4, and for less than the $15 you
would give to a  Supermarket (FYI overseas reader, this $15 is a NZ supermarket campaign )

First course, 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.

Second basket, more tomatoes, basil, cucumber, radish, lettuce and mizuna.

Make a salad. I just add olive oil, salt and lemon juice so the dressing is not that expensive.

Yes there is a main to go with the salad, a frittata made with free-range eggs (60c each at the farmers market, the most expensive thing in this meal, and I used 4). To flavor the frittata I used chives from the garden, and the usual salt and pepper, a bit of self-raising flour, and olive oil to fry.

Frittata before flipping

Frittata after flipping

Well, no much for dessert, only some rhubarb and a few strawberries (regular and wild),
since the season is almost finished for me.

Still, I am not discouraged: I boiled the rhubarb with 1 tbsp of sugar, added a pinch of agar agar and
made a jelly to be topped with a little yogurt, the strawberries and some edible violets.
Arantxa got the biggest strawberry!

I am very lucky to have a little veggie garden, but even if you don't have a garden there are many community gardens where work and produce are shared, and the results are amazing. Just watch this short video to see a truly inspiring community garden in New Brighton, Christchurch. And my father-in-law is featuring too, walking around the gardens! He is having an operation tomorrow so I would like to wish him the very best. Over to the video now:

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Video by The Tindall Foundation

Arantxa making sugar roses with fondant video

This is my second entry, featuring Arantxa, for this month's Sweet New Zealand, hosted by The Kitchen Maid. I hope that you will like it! 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Lunch in NZ schools

Did you watch this? If you didn't you should. It shows you what New Zealand children eat for lunch at school. The first part is a school in a affluent area (not all the food is healthy, but there are a few good lunch boxes), and then there is a school in a poor area. Yes poor, no other words for it. I don't want to say any more because you need to see it, and feel it, to understand it. 

It was also interesting to see what KidsCan is doing to provide lunches in some of the poorest schools, good on them, but I really hope that they are going to include some fresh food there, otherwise everything is either canned (even the fruit) or cames in a packet, and the bread is too white! Of course it is better than eating nothing, but for a Country that bases its economy on agriculture it is unacceptable that fresh produce cannot be given to school children who are, after all, the one who need it most. 

And to keep in theme with the post, here is a photo of a lunch box, mostly salad (and to see the quantities of fresh produce just scroll down, they are lined up in a tray, it isn't much, and yet it is filling and nutritious. The little eggs are quail eggs. The carbohydrates addition are three slices of crostini (just baguette slices brushed with olive oil and toasted in  the oven - my kids love them!). OK, I am a Mum who likes to cut the carrots all pretty and not everybody finds the time for that, but even if you like to cut things differently from me, the massage is the same: 5+ a Day, try to use more colours (I aim for 5 different colour groups, and in winter at least 3), more veggies (not just fruit!), some protein, some carbohydrates. Of course this is just an idea, it depends on what I have in the fridge mostly, for example Vegans can substitute the quail eggs for some almonds, others could have cheese instead. No chips in my kids' lunch boxes!

And of course it goes without saying that before going to school a good breakfast is needed :-). Please watch the video and share your thought with me.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Five Mile Town, my Birthday, BWW, and the Winners of Fresh As

Five Mile Town - Saturated

Today is my Birthday, and I have a lovely song and video for you. This is from a young NZ band, and one of the boys is my husband's cousin (well, the kid of his cousin... a bit younger than us!). His Mum put the video on my FB wall this morning with her birthday greetings, and I love it! Please share it and support Five Mile Town!

Photo and Recipe by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Because it is my Birthday I hope you will forgive me for doing a mixed post here, and publishing a lot of things together. I have also decided to add my image for Black and White Wednesday, a weekly blogging event created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and this week hosted by Brii of Brigg is Home. The title of the photo is:

styling an egg for a photo shoot

I also have a couple of presents for those who entered this week competition, two sets of Fresh As products (2 x 1 strawberry powder, 1 strawberry slices, 2 mandarin segments), so, here I go to 

http://www.random.org/.... 

The winners are the first two names randomized from http://www.random.org/

Well, can you believe it that it is Mairi's birthday too, so I am very happy for her to win, and then Matteo, I hope that your pregnant woman will be happy! Please get in touch with me so that I can arrange to send you the goods.

List Randomizer

There were 35 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Mairi
2. Matteo
3. Vanille
4. Waiau
5. Martina Dante
6. Sophie
7. Sue
8. Anna
9. Frances E
10. EasyFoodHacks
11. Kitchen
12. Pease
13. Frances E
14. Couscous
15. Kristin
16. Martina
17. Sugar&Spice
18. Mairi
19. Nardia
20. Kitchen
21. Jo
22. Sophie
23. Kitchen
24. Nardia
25. Mara
26. Penny
27. Nardia
28. Alli
29. Frances
30. Dan
31. Ginger
32. Aftertaste
33. Ganda
34. Mairi
35. Melissa

Timestamp: 2012-04-29 00:20:45 UTC

Making easy royal icing flowers' video tutorial, ed un premio!

This is my first ever video, made with Arantxa's ipod, we are in our kitchen and she is making easy royal icing flowers. Then our woofer Jacob helped me load it on Youtube (everyday learning something new!!!) and here I am sharing it with my blogger friends!

It is super short, so I hope that you will watch it, and I would love your opinion :-). And of course feel free to share it, in fact I would love that!

Thank you!

Alessandra

E adesso un po’ in italiano:

Prima di tutto vorrei ringraziare Artù per avermi passato questo premio, che a quanto pare si assegna ad un blog che:

1. E' aggiornato regolarmente

2. Mostra la passione autentica del blogger per l'argomento di cui scrive

3. favorisce la condivisione e la partecipazione attiva dei lettori

4. offre contenuti ed informazioni utili ed originali

5. non è infarcito di troppa pubblicità

Le regole di "Il blog affidabile"sono disponibili a questa pagina http://www.gliaffidabili.it/a/altro/il-premio-il-blog-affidabile (ironicamente piena di pubblicità), e magari io non le ho seguite correttamente, ma in fondo non mi dispiace non essere 100% affidabile!!! (n.d.r. qui dovete ridere).

Difficile però decidere a quali 5 blog passare il premio, ne avrei molti di più infatti che sarebbero, per usare le parole di Artù,

una risorsa utile per gli utenti della rete e meritevoli di essere conosciuti da un pubblico più ampio. Comunque, eccone 5, e ovviamente questa non deve essere una catena di Sant’Antonio quindi se non li volete io di sicuro non mi offendo :-).

Correndomi Incontro

(come non potrei, questo premio sembra fatto per B.!)

Galline 2^nd life

 (idem con patate a ciò scritto sopra!)

Il blog di Max

 (un gentiluomo in cucina, le signore saranno daccordo con me)

Il Blog dell’Alligatore

 (mi piace troppo il suo Avatar!)

La Signora dei biscotti

 (anche se ho appena passato loro un altro premio, Franci e Vale curano molto il loro spazio e meritano di essere conosciute!)

E visto che sto scrivendo in italiano, se non lo avete ancora fatto per favore guardate il mio primo video su youtube, tanto è cortissimo! Mia figlia (12 anni) fa i fiori di glassa reale, giratelo, postatelo. Twittatelo, FBookatelo, metteteci un commentino, fate il LIKE, quello che volete (se vi piace ovviamente, e se non vi piace faccio l’offesa e batto i piedi e trattengo il respiro fino a che divento viola tiè!! Lol! ) perché voglio vedere se vale la pena farne altri, visto che abbiamo solo un ipod per registrare e 0 esperienza!

Grazie e Ciao

Alessandra

Party Food for Girls in the media, and YouTube

The Western Leader Newspaper came to our kitchen the other day, you can read the story here (there is also a chance to win the book, if you live in NZ), and then they took a video of Arantxa making fondant roses. I didn't quite realize that I was going to be quite so much in the picture... ops, and no make up! Arantxa spoke really well, I think, and this was her first (and only) take! Watch it on YouTube for a better picture.

Another review of Party Food for Girls is on Happyzine (click to read it online), and recently we were on Taste magazine and the Tatler magazine. More to come, I am trying to collect it all to send to my Mum in Italy :-).

Here to stay, Italians in New Zealand

Click here to watch the TVNZ programme

(available to New Zealand viewers only)