Vegan Recipes

Quinoa with flowers

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

1 small carrot

1 small cucumber

1 bunch onion weed (or spring onions)

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

juice from half a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

edible flowers

Cook one cup of quinoa with two cups of water for 20 minutes. In the meantime chop very finely a small carrot, a small cucumber and a bunch of onion weeds (or spring onions). Put the still hot quinoa into a serving bowl, add two tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, the chopped vegetables, the juice of half a lemon and salt and pepper to taste. This dish can be served warm or cold (yes, even if it has cucumber it can be served warm!). Just before serving add edible flowers: I used onion weed flowers, marigold, violets and bok choy flowers.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

When times are busy it is good to take out same ready make furikake. Furikake is a Japanese style seasoning, usually used to top rice, but useful for other dishes as well. I found one that I really like: Citrus Furikake from Pacific Harvest, (FYI, I have not been endorsed, payed or given free products by the company, but hey, if you have any free samples - vegetarian of course, do send them this way! :-). I love seaweed and this furikake is a mixture of 5 seaweeds: naturally flavoured kelp, karengo, sea lettuce, ao-nori, wakame, plus sesame seeds and a nice citrus touch. At home usually we sprinkle it directly on rice, or make onigiri (rice balls), or use it on noodles, vegetables, and a variety of dishes. Here are two examples.

Onigiri with furikake

To make the onigiri cook some Japanese (or sushi) rice (rinse it first until the water runs clear). When the rice is still warm wet your hands with water, rub them with just a little salt, and shape the rice balls with your palms. Sprinkle some furikake on top of each onigiri, or roll part of the onigiri onto the furikake for an even covering (but do not cover the whole rice ball with it, furikake is salty, and you just need a little bit).

Soba with Furikake

Super quick lunch: I cooked some bok choy like in here, and some soba like in here, but I didn't rinse the soba under cold water at the end: as soon as I drained the soba I mixed it with the hot bok choy, and then each diner sprinkled a bit of furikake on top. Simple, fast and the kids loved it!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

I have a few fennels growing in the garden and the other day only two were big enough to pick. They were certainly bigger than those 'bambino' fennels I see in the supermarkets here in New Zealand, but not as big as the ones I used to get in the markets in Italy. I had to find a way to make them go ... further! So I decided to cook them with bok choy (the only other vegetable really 'active' in my veggie garden), hoping that the strong fennel taste would take over. 

Go Further Fennels

Surprisingly enough it worked! I guess that this was a sort of 'Fusion' experiment for me, and I wonder if in Chinese cuisine fennels are ever paired with bok choy. Do you Know??

Anyway, for the recipe: I washed and cut the 2 fennels and 1 bok choy and cook them in a pan with just a little margarine, (not olive oil for this dish) then I added some vegetable stock, covered them with a lid and let them simmer on very low for quite a long time. About one hour. Slow cooking is best with fennel (unless you eat them raw), they have to become really really soft, and the bok choy kind of took in the good flavours too. 

Serve hot, as a side vegetable.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Probably in Japan this would look more like a breakfast than a lunch, but not for me (just caffellatte for breakfast!). And dessert was persimmon, the soft type that you eat with a spoon.

All good for Autumn, or Winter.

Any vegetable is good, but I used a few dried shitake mushrooms (2 or 3 per person), bok choy, and carrots. Soak the mushrooms, cut the bok choy in big chunks, and the carrots into fat strips. In a pan or wok heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil with 1 tsp of sesame oil. Add the mushrooms (keep the water aside for later), sizzle for a few minutes, then add the carrots, and after 2 minutes the bok choy (first the white stalks, then the green leaves). Add the cashews (about 2-3- tbsp) and stir. Mix the mushroom's soaking water with 2 tbsp of soy sauce (gluten free soy sauce if following a gluten free diet), 1 tsp of corn flour and half tsp of grated ginger. Add to the vegetables and stir until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately with rice.