This is as easy as it is delicious!

For the sauce you just need chives, salted cashew nuts, olive oil and cooking water from the pasta. Blend the lot and stir into the spaghetti (or any pasta). Decorate with chive flowers, if you wish.

Everyone is always amazed at the taste, and no one guesses that it is chives until I tell them. The colour is beautiful too!

The sage is flowering, and the flowers are edible!

I love to make a creamy pasta sauce with pumpkin, and sage is the perfect herb for it!

Cut about 500 g of pumpkin, into cubes, big and small. Sauté with olive oil for a few minutes, then add about 400 ml of vegetable stock and simmer for 20.

When the pumpkin is soft add about 200ml of cream, sage leaves (save the flowers for later) and black pepper. Simmer for other 10 minutes.

You can use the sauce immediately, or let it sit for a while, covered, to absorb even more sage flavour. I also like to break some of the bigger cubes with the spoon, for a creamier sauce (but always leaves enough pumpkin cubes visible).

Toss the cooked pasta in! I used 500g of fusilli here. Stir well to incorporate the sauce, and then top with the sage flowers. Not only they are beautiful, but they also taste great!

For the pasta: 

200 g flour

2 free range eggs

Mix the flour with the eggs to make a smooth and elastic dough. Divide into 6 pieces and pass them through the pasta machine, in turn, going from the largest setting to the second thinnest (or thinnest, depending on how thin you like your pasta). Then pass through the taglioni setting and create some nests. Set aside.

For the zucchini:

4 small zucchini

1 garlic clove

2 tbsp olive oil

salt to taste

1 tbsp butter

a few fresh basil leaves (or chopped parsley)

Parmigiano Reggiano to serve

serves 3/4

Wash and cut the zucchini into strips. Rinse and pat dry. Peel the garlic clove, cut into two and then sauté with the olive oil. Add the zucchini, a few at the time, with a pinch of salt, and sauté on both sides. You will need to add less and less salt as you work. When you have finished put all the zucchini back in the frying pan with the butter and basil (or chopped parsley)and keep warm, while cooking the pasta. The tagliolini will need to boil for only about 2 minutes, then drain them and add them to the zucchini. Stir and serve immediately, decorated with fresh basil or parsley, and with plenty of grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Remember those pre-lockdown trips to the supermarket where shelves were bare? A lot of people complained that it wasn't really possible to 'shop normally' because 'normal' things weren't available. 

In fact I couldn't find any frozen spinach from Talley, but never mind, all the kale was there, sitting alone among the empty spaces previously occupied by frozen peas and mix veggies. I wonder why, I always thought that frozen kale was one of the best frozen veggie out there after mine got all eaten up by bugs! So, lucky for me :-). I use kale in the same way as I would use spinach, and silverbeet too (fortunately still alive in the garden, but either too young or too leaf deprived (by me this time, not by the bugs) to use now. Of course lasagne with kale taste different from lasagne with spinach (or silverbeet) but I love them (btw, to me lasagne is a plural noun, lasagna is just one sheet a pasta).  At the same time I could use the Barilla lasagne I scored when all the other pasta was not available! I usually make fresh lasagne, but I have to say that these ones are super easy to use and quick, and give good results. I wouldn't use any other brand in fact.

Start by cooking the kale. Place the kale in a bowl and let it defrost at room temperature (one pack is 500g, I use it all). Chop a couple of shallots (if you don't have shallots substitute with an onion), and sauté in olive oil, add a little salt and then the defrosted kale and stir well. Cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time and adding more water when needed. Towards the end of cooking add more salt to taste. Let the Kale cool down completely. I cooked mine the day before so I stored it in the fridge overnight. 

Then make a white sauce. Easy version: mix two tbsp of plain flour with a little full cream milk taken from 1 litre to make a paste with no lumps, add most of the milk and 60 g of butter. Bring to the boil stirring constantly, when it is creamy add the rest of the milk and stir well. Add salt, pepper and freshly grated nutmeg. If you like the more traditional version melt the butter, mix in the flour and then add the milk. Procede as above. 

To layer: place a small amount of white sauce at the bottom of a lasagne dish, cover with sheets of pasta, breaking up some to fit your dish perfectly. Add some kale, a little more white sauce and some grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Add more pasta and continue to layer as above, making sure that you have as many layer of pasta as possible: good lasagne have many layers, so keep the kale/white sauce layers very very thin!! Make sure that you keep enough white sauce for the last layer which is just pasta completely covered with white sauce and grated Parmigiano.

Bake at 180℃ for 45 minutes, or until you get a nice crust. Cover with tin foil or a lid and let it sit for 20 minutes (in the warm oven if you like) before serving. Or if serving later on in the day keep covered and then reheat in the oven for 20 minutes.

Easy to cut and I love a bit of crunch on the crust and the creamy white sauce just underneath!  

I also used kale to make Palak Paneer, just in case you don't like Lasagne :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

A few pics of my village in Italy, Sestola, in the province of Modena, Emilia Romagna. Usually I go back in winter or spring, very occasionally in Autumn, but this time I made it in summer, and it was great, and hot!

The symbol of the village is La Rocca, the castle, here a few pics.

Picking flowers in the fields or working on the 'shabby chic' decor of the house.

Or foraging! No mushrooms this time but I found lots of berries!

Then I love walking in the mountains, here is Lago della Ninfa, a little lake above Sestola.

There are several tracks for hikers, and I don't pick flowers here, I just take photos!

Finally there is the food, fresh pasta is a must, especially if you find people who make it with you (because they are always making pasta anyway, like Agnese!)

My favourites are taglatelle and tortelloni with ricotta and spinach, served with sage (from the garden) and butter and Parmigiano made in the local dairy (1km away from my house!)

And of course crescentine and gnocco fritto from one of the many good restaurants and trattorie in the area (there are dozens!!)

And to finish a simple cake with nocino. 

More photos of Sestola here!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

This should be with tagliatelle really, but I didn't have tagliatelle and I was home eating alone, so I didn't feel like making some either. And so I used spaghetti, which is strange for me as I never have spaghetti with butter. But it was quick and delicious, and the poppies in the garden were calling me...  I have planted a few (from seeds) in different post all around the house to have splashes of red, but petals don't last long, and I didn't want to raid all the poppy flowers in the garden for a full family meal.  Next year though I will plant many more, to eat both the spring leaves and the flowers.

For one:

Collect petals from a few poppies, about 8-10, and clean well with moist tissue paper. Cook the spaghetti (or tagliatelle) al dente, drain and add salted butter to taste, plus half a tsp of culinary poppy seeds (you can buy these in the herb section of the supermarket), and most of the petals, keeping aside a couple to top the dish. Stir and serve immediately, decorated with the remaining poppy petals.

I almost forgot to take a photo, so the plate looks a bit messy (I was already eating), and it was really yum!

And now some photos of other flowers from the garden, and posies, for Pinterest :-).