Vegan Recipes

I love chopping colourful veggies, what a treat! 

For this stufato (like a casserole) I used red onions, celery, red, green and yellow capsicums and carrots. Gently sauté the vegetables with olive oil, then add plenty of tomato passata and salt to taste (or an organic vegetable stock cube). Cover and simmer on low for a long time (the longer the better), adding a little water if needed.

A couple of minutes before turning off the heat add some fresh basil leaves and a little more olive oil, plus salt to taste. Enjoy hot or cold.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

This recipe is also about not wasting food!

It is very common to find capsicums (bell peppers) staffed with rice, but couscous can be as good. First boil wash well and the whole capsicums for 5-10 minutes to soften. In the meantime place a cup of instant couscous in a bowl that you can cover with a lid, add some olive oil, salt, and a mixture of dried and semi-dried tomatoes, cut into stripes. Cover with boiling water (and here you can use the capsicums water, if you want to save it!). Cover with a lid.

remove the capsicums from the hot water (use for the couscous) and cut the top off (careful, they will be hot!) and if it peels off easy, the skin. Keep the skin aside. When the couscous is nice and fluffy use it to fill the capsicums. At this stage you can add more things, like tempeh, tofu or anything you like. 

Place the capsicums top on and bake for approx. 30 mins.

You can also roll out the skins, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and then bake until golden.

They will come out like thin crisps, super delicious, and perfect as an aperitif or as a garnish to your stuffed capsicums. A good way to use the skin of tomatoes and other vegetables too!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

This is one of those creations that happened while using up leftover vegan pastry and a bit of peperonata I had in the pot. The resulting dish was so pretty and delicious that I decided to share it,

Capsicum pastry rolls

Yu must use some cooked capsicums (bell peppers) for this recipes, and I had some peperonata ready:

Peperonata

To keep the rolls nice and round I place them in a mini-muffin pan, and used some mini-cupcake cases. I sprinkle the top with salt and dried herbs and baked everything at medium heat until the pastry was golden and puffy. Serve hot or cold.

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, but you all know how to make that right?) :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

  For this dish I cooked a packet of Israeli cous cous (but fregola pasta is perfect too) with just water and salt, then I drained it and rinsed it under cold water to cool it down and separate the 'grains'. I added extra virgin olive oil, a few drops of lemon juice, and finely chopped herbs and garlic. Then I mixed it with the char-grilled eggplants. Finally I filled some char-grilled capsicums with it. It needs to rest for a few hours at room temperature, so that the cous cous gets more flavour. Easy and quick, and it makes such an impression!

And now just some pretty things I saw: loved this wallpaper with plates, + real plates!

 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 pot with the coconut cream plus one can of water (to rinse the coconut cream can). Added the green curry paste and simmered the lot for 10 minutes and then I added the rest of the vegetables in this order: carrots, borage tips, capsicum, zucchini, broccolini, tomatoes (leave a couple of minutes between each vegetable). To stir I used a lemongrass stalk. Then I tasted for salt then I added the herbs and onion weed flowers (because they were frozen), turned the heat off and cover the pot with a lid for 5 minutes. Then I added the borage flowers.

Actually, the curry paste took longer than the curry to make! Serve hot with rice.

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©