Strawberries with orange and cinnamon (perfect for Xmas) and Sweet New Zealand

This is the 40th consecutive edition of Sweet New Zealand, and I will be hosting it from this blog.

Last month (October 2014) our host was Lesley from eat, etc. so check out her round up here for some ideas. And I am also entering the first recipe: Strawberries with orange and cinnamon. This is a prelude to the Xmas Season, strawberries are the traditional Xmas fruit in NZ, but being from the Northern Hemisphere I cannot renounce some more traditional and festive winter flavors, like orange and cinnamon. 

Just wash and cut the strawberries (two punnets), add the juice of one orange, a cinnamon stick and one tbsp of sugar. Let the strawberries marinate for a few hours at room temperature, and then a few more hours in the fridge. Serve cold, with cream, or yogurt, or ice cream, or just as they are!

Now it is your turn to enter Sweet New Zealand!

1. This event is open to all bloggers living in New Zealand (even if you’re not a Kiwi), as well as all Kiwi bloggers living and blogging overseas.

2. You can enter anything sweet: cakes, biscuits, slices, desserts, even drinks. You may submit as many entries as you like, including old posts if you want.

3. Your entry must contain the phrase Sweet New Zealand, the Sweet New Zealand badge (choose your own size), a link to the host, and to this post – so if you are submitting an older post remember to update it accordingly.

4. To submit your entry, email me at alessandra (at) clear (dot) net (dot) nz by 28th November 2014 with:

• name of recipe with the link to the post you’re contributing 
• a photo from your post (not more than 250 kb if possible)
• your name, your blog name and a link to your blog
• 
  
• A roundup of all the entries (with links and photos) will be published at the beginning of December. Leave me a message below if you have any questions. 

I look forward to your sweet entries!

Ciao

Alessandra

Photo and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Refreshing orange and carrot juice, garden produce and flops

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!)

In the garden: we ate all our first corn, and it was sweet and delicious, but I now would like to ask a question to all gardeners out there: when can I pick the second ears of corn? The are still so small...

Zucchini: the ratio in my garden seems to be three yellow for every green one! This happens every year, I wonder why the yellow plant produces lots, and the green one doesn't!

Tomatoes: after a good start only the cherry tomatoes are doing well, the plum tomatoes and beef tomatoes… well, both plants got sick and only gave me a few tomatoes in the end (and the beef are quite small). Maybe I should plant them in boxes in the sun next year! Fortunately I have a zillion plants of cherry tomatoes (mostly self seeding) coming up now, so I am picking about a dozen a day now and the harvest should increase in the next few weeks. The yellow and black cherry tomatoes are not producing yet, but I did plant them later, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for a few more weeks of summer!

Off topic, but let's celebrate, I got over 150,000 page views in the last month :-)!

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©