Mediterranean Pickle

This was my first year of growing aubergines in the little polytunnel. I grew Listarda de Gandia, a very pretty purple variety with white stripes, early ripening & very reliable (you can see it in the picture on the right, along with the tomatoes, green peppers & courgettes that went into the recipe. How pretty are they?!)
I also grew Diamond, a Ukrainian variety with clusters of long, intense purple fruits, and Orlando (the unnervingly long, curly purple things skulking under the courgette in the picture)I will be growing both varieties again next year! (and maybe one or two more!)

Rather than chomp them all (mostly in a Spanish style ragout with roasted tomatoes & chickpeas - om nom nom!), I decided to make some pickle, so I could continue to appreciate them in the cold winter months.

Mediterranean Pickle

450g onions, chopped
900g tomatoes
1 aubergine, thickly sliced
450g courgette, sliced
1 yellow pepper, halved & deseeded
1 green pepper, halved & deseeded
300ml red wine vinegar
300g sugar
4 cloves garlic
1 tbs paprika
1 tbs salt
1 sprig each of rosemary & thyme, tied into a bundle with 2 bay leaves

Place the tomatoes, peppers, aubergines & courgettes on a large tray & roast under a hot grill until the skins blister. Leave to cool, and remove the skins from the peppers & tomatoes. Chop the roasted vegetables into even sized pieces, as coarse or as fine as you like (I like them chunky). The aubergines can disappear into this chutney, so if you want aubergine chunks in it, set them to one side, to stir in at the end of cooking. Heat the vinegar in a large pan. Add the sugar & stir until it's dissolved. Add the salt, paprika & herb bundle. Add the onions & garlic, then the roasted veg. Stir gently, so everything doesn't get too mashed up (or stir vigorously if mashed up is your kind of thing) & simmer until the mixture is thick & glossy. This can take as little as 20 minutes, or over an hour, depending on how wet the vegetables are. Remove the herb bundle & spoon into sterilised jars. Leave for at least a month, preferably two.

Goes beautifully well with pasta, sharp salty cheeses, grilled tofu & burgers.

Curried Vegetable Relish

It's definitely autumn here in the flatlands. There's a chill in the air, and I'm starting to ogle shawl patterns on Ravelry*. There's also the frantic rush to get veg from the garden harvested, processed & tucked away safely for winter. Yeah, that's a bit of a clue.
So along with roasting tomatoes & tomatillos for making sauces & pasatta, podding beans for drying, bagging up potatoes & processing beans, beet leaves, chard & courgettes for freezing, I'm also making pickles!

So here's a nice little recipe that's good for using up whatever veg you have an excess of. I used courgettes, carrots, cauliflower & peas, but you can use runner beans, sweetcorn, turnips, beetroot, radishes, aubergines - anything really! The recipe uses Garam Masala, which is a mixture of ground spices. You can buy it ready blended, but you can also make your own. My blend has cumin, cinnamon, fenugreek, black pepper, turmeric & ludicrous amounts of coriander seed. No chilli for a change, as this is a warm, pungent sort of blend, rather than a hot & spicy one. Though you can add chillis too, if you fancy.

Curried Vegetable Relish

225g courgettes
225g carrots
225g cauliflower
225g peas
225g onion
400ml white wine vinegar
170g sugar
1tsp yellow mustard seed
1tsp ground ginger
2tsp garam masala
1tbs salt
1tsp cornflour

Chop the vegetables, as coarse or as fine as you like (I like my pickles chunky). Pile into a colander & scatter with the salt. Cover & leave overnight. The salt will draw the moisture out of the veggies, so they'll still have a bit of bite to them.
Next day, rinse the veg & drain. Blend the cornflour with a little of the vinegarin a small bowl & set aside. Put the remaining vinegar, sugar & spices into a large pan & bring to a boil. Add the cornflour mixture & boil 3-4 minutes, until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat & stir in the vegetables. Pack into warm, sterilised jars & try not to touch for a month.

Goes well with cheese, vegetable fritters, veggie burgers & hot dogs. Yum!

*Turning leaves are all well and good, but nothing says autumn to me quite like the twitching of the crochet hook!

Savoury Bread Pudding

Bread & butter pudding has always been a favourite of mine. There's something about the soft, souffle interior and the crusty brown sugar & cinnamon dredged topping that hits the spot for me. I can't remember when I first thought about making a savoury version, but I'm pretty sure that beer was involved somewhere.

I'd like to say that over the years I have honed & refined this recipe into the masterpiece you see today (and called it Deconstructed Ploughman's Lunch or something poncy), but no, it's pretty much the same wet-weather or post-pub comfort food, the only thing that changes is the vegetables. I use whatever is in season to make this, so cold & bitter February means chopped kale or shredded cabbage. October is slices of pumpkin & chestnut mushrooms scattered with pecan nuts & crumbled Stilton. Right now its courgettes. This recipe uses round courgettes, because I really liked arranging the thick round slices between the slices of bread, but you can use courgettes of any shape and size.

Savoury Bread Pudding

4 thick slices of good bread (or a stale baguette, or whatever you have to hand)
2 courgettes
2 eggs
200ml milk (or yoghurt, single cream or quark, depending on how decadent you're feeling)
30-50g cheese (I had some Spanish Manchego, so used that, but experiment - goats cheese, Stilton, chedder & mozzerella all work well in this)
salt & pepper
home made chutney (come on, you must have some!)

Preheat oven to 190C/375F/G4. Grease a baking dish.
Whisk together the egg, milk & seasoning. Set to one side. Spread the bread with chutney & cut into whatever size makes them fit in your baking dish (if you're using a baguette, you don't need to do that, just cut into slices). Slice the courgettes thickly. Arrange the bread & courgettes in the baking dish, poking & prodding until you're happy with how it all looks. Carefully pour over the egg & milk mix, making sure you cover everything. Leave to stand for 10 minutes (this allows the bread to soak up all the egg, otherwise you'll end up with bread pudding on an omelettey base. Still tasty, but kind of weird). Top with cheese & bake for 20 minutes, or until golden on top.
Serve with salad to assuage any guilt, and there's no shame in having seconds.

You can use any chutney in this, chunky or smooth. Ploughmans pickle & piccallili are favourites, and cut through the richness of the egg & cheese, but mustard or pesto work really well too.
Om nom nom!

Courgette & Tomato Chutney

MikeyFox & I went to the allotment on Sunday to harvest our onion patch (I've spent years trying to grow onions, and been disappointed with the results. In March I handed MikeyFox a bag of onion sets & told him to try - we harvested boxes and boxes of huge, perfect onions. Jammy sod!) and plant some leeks. One of the committee members sidled up to me & shyly asked if I could donate some chutney to the open day at the end of the month (I seem to have got myself a reputation of the Chutney Maker. Can't imagine why).
So since I haven't posted a chutney recipe in a while, and they're a great way of using up excess courgettes, here's a recipe for a favourite of MikeyFox, King of the Alliums.

Courgette & Tomato Chutney

1 kg courgettes (the seedy middles removed if they're quite large), diced
1kg tomatoes (red, green or yellow, whatever you have an excess of!), chopped
500g onions, chopped
500g brown sugar (you might want to use white sugar if you're using yellow courgettes)
400ml white wine vinegar
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
4-6 red chillis (or green for green tomatoes etc), more for a hot relish, less for a mild one.
1 ts salt
1 tsp oregano

Put the sugar & vinegar in a large pan. Bring to a boil & stir until the sugar is dissolved. If you don't like tomatoes skins in your relish, place the tomatoes in a large bowl & cover with boiling water. Leave for 10 seconds, then drain & plunge into cold water. Slip the skins off, and chop as usual. Add the remaining ingredients & simmer, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon, for 1 hour, or until thickened & glossy (this can take up to 2 hours, depending on how wet the courgettes & tomatoes are). Spoon into clean sterilised jars & leave for 1 month before opening (having said that, we opened one jar straight away and thought it was delicious!)

This chutney is actually more like a tomato relish. It's great on burgers, sausages & fried egg sandwiches. If you like it spicy, add some chopped pickled jalapenos to the recipe too!

Torte de Calabacita (Courgette Torte)

There is a fair amount of confusion when it comes to words like torte, especially when people use it when they mean tart (a baked pastry case with a sweet or savoury filling that is open topped, instead of having a pastry lid). Torte is a Central European term for a round cake rich with eggs but containing little or no flour (and from the Italian torta meaning round bread or cake).

This savoury torte is actually a Mexican recipe, and is similar to the Courgette budin I've posted previously. It has a moist, firm texture with less of a quiches 'wobble'. It's also really easy to make, and behaves well in the oven (no bubbling over the dish or refusing to set in the middle). It's also really good topped with a handful of grated cheese before going in the oven, or with 50g of pumpkin seeds or some finely chopped garlic stirred into the batter.

Torte de Calabacita

100g butter
2 eggs
450g grated courgette (see! It uses up lots of courgettes!)
1 cup brown rice flour (or white rice flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease a 1lb loaf tin, springform cake tin, ovenproof dish or whatever you're planning on using (I used a cazuela, being awkward and all).
Beat the butter in a bowl until light & fluffy. Beat the eggs in one at a time, adding a little of the rice flour with they need encouragement. Add the flour & baking powder & mix. Next goes the grated courgette & salt. Mix & pour into the prepared dish. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the torte is firm to the touch & golden on top.
This is traditionally served with creme fraiche whipped with salt & pepper (but then again traditionally this dish also has an unnerving amount of sugar in it too), but tomato salsa & black beans also works well too.

Om nom nom!

Mole de Cacahuate

You may already be familiar with mole (pronounced mo-lay, and has nothing to do with burrowing mammals), the Mexican sauce (from the Nahuatl mulli meaning 'sauce'). When people think of mole, they usually think of mole poblano, the most famous sauce, and an absolute bugger to make, as it contains over 20 ingredients (containing at least 3 types of chilli, cinnamon and chocolate amongst other things). But there are many mole sauces out there, from the Oaxacan* black mole (around 30 ingredients, some of them deliberately burnt) to the vibrant green mole verde (made with tomatilloes). This is the easiest mole recipe I know (easy is a relative term here. Lets just say it's a mole you can prepare while still holding a conversation, or even drinking a cup of tea). Traditionally its served over chicken, but I like to stir into it roasted pumpkin, pinto beans, mushrooms or french beans. For today, it has grilled courgettes & chestnut mushrooms stirred into it.
This makes enough for 6, though the paste freezes well. I usually make the whole recipe, and freeze half the paste once its been blended, then defrost it & heat up in a pan with 60ml of red wine & 250ml vegetable stock (and yes, I have a whole drawer in my freezer littered with little hummus tubs full of mole paste!)

Mole de Cacahuate
2 Ancho chillis, stem & seeds removed
2 chipotle chillis, or 2 tsp chipotle paste
2 cloves garlic
1/2 onion, peeled & sliced
225g tomatoes
2 tbs oil
1 cup peanut butter (this is a cheat, I should say 1 cup peanuts, which are then roasted & ground. If Diana Kennedy is coming over for dinner, do that. Otherwise, peanut butter is less of a faff)
1 slice dry white bread (or 2 heaped tbs panko)
1 tbs red wine vinegar
850ml vegetable stock
125ml red wine (or water)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbs brown sugar
pinch of allspice

If you have time, toast the ancho chillis. If not, put in a small bowl & cover with hot water. Leave to soak for 10 minutes. Roast the tomatoes, onion & garlic cloves for 5 minutes under a hot grill until they start to blacken. Put the tomatoes, garlic, onion, drained ancho chillis, chipotle chillis, bread, allspice & cinnamon into a blender & pulse. Add the peanut butter & 350ml of vegetable stock & blend until smooth.
Heat the remaining 1 tbs of oil in a pan. When hot enough to make a drop of the chilli puree sizzle, add all the paste & stir until the mixture darkens & thickens, which should take about 5 minutes. Add the wine (or water) & stir. Add the remaining stock & stir. Simmer on a low heat for 30 minutes (a good time to prepare whatever is going with it!), adding a little water if it gets too thick. Finish with seasoning & the brown sugar.

This rich, nutty sauce goes well with squashes, grilled aubergines, beans (both green & podded) & mushrooms. Or even grilled tofu or seitan.
Serve with rice, pickled red onions, queso fresco (or quark) or avocado slices.

Om nom nom!
*Yes, Thomasina Miers, that's Oaxaca, not Wahaca. Chump.

Courgette & Lavender Cake

I love the use of vegetables in cakes (not just because you can claim that a slice is one of your 5-a-day, but because shredded carrot, courgette, beetroot or pumpkin gives such an interesting texture & moistness to a cake) this is a recipe I've been fiddling around with for a while now. I originally made it with parsnips, but the combination of parsnip & honey made it prone to burning if left in the oven too long (and I mean 20 seconds too long, not 5 minutes or anything!), so here is a version made with courgettes instead. It's not a cake as we know it, as it's made without butter or margarine, the fats coming from ground almonds instead, which along with the courgette gives it a rich, moist texture.

Courgette & Lavender Cake
200g courgette, grated
100g honey
2 eggs
75g spelt flour (or rice flour if you want a gluten free cake)
50g ground almonds
juice & rind of 1 lemon
1 very heaped tbs lavender flowers
2 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/G4. Line a 1lb loaf tin with baking parchment.
In a bowl, whisk together the eggs & honey until light and fluffy (it should only take a minute or two, no endless whisking this time). Add the remaining ingredients & whisk until well combined. If the batter looks runny, add 1 tbs spelt flour (courgettes can vary in their water content). Pour the mixture into the tin & bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.
Remove from heat & leave to stand in the tin for 5 minutes or so before attempting to extract it.
If you're in the mood for a drizzle cake combine 3 tbs sugar & the juice of a lemon in a small pan, warm through & pour over the cake (though I like the cake just as it is).

Om nom nom!

Stuffed Baked Zucchini

I usually use the word 'courgette' (finding certain celebrity chefs obsession with Italian cuisine a bit tiresome), but as this is a recipe from my Italian penpal Gio, it seems appropriate to go with zucchini for once.
This recipe uses round courgettes - gah - zucchini, though you can get away with using the long varieties too.

Gio's Stuffed Baked Courgettes
4 zucchini or summer squash
1 tbs olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 tomatoes, peeled, deseeded & chopped (or 1 cup of passata or leftover tomato sauce)
1 cup cooked rice (or spelt, wheat berries or a blend of grains)
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
salt & pepper

Preheat the oven 200C/400F/G6. Halve the courgettes & scoop out the centers. Chop them coarsely & set to one side. Place the courgette halves on a baking tray & cook for 10 minutes. While the courgettes are cooking, fry the onion in the olive oil in a pan. Add the chopped courgette flesh & tomato & cook for about 5 minutes. Add the rice & stir until warmed through. Add the paprika & season. Fill the courgettes with the mixture, and return to the oven for 20 minutes.
Serve with salad or as a side.

This is a really good way of using up leftover pilau, Mexican rice, paella, risotto or any other grainy dish.
Om nom nom!

Gluttony

It's August! Already! Which means only one thing - courgettes everywhere!

So if you planted one too many courgettes in your garden, you might be running out of things to do with them (tell me about it - including the pattypans & summer squashes, I have 21 of them in my garden!) You can freeze them for the months in the year where they're overpriced & watery in the supermarkets, which is a doddle. Just chop them up (remove the seeds of the big 'uns so they don't collapse into a watery mush during cooking) & fry them in a little oil, or roast them in a hot oven for 20-30 mins. Leave to cool & tip into plastic bags or containers & chuck in the freezer. In the grimmest parts of January, they'll still be perfect for pasta, risotto, lasagna or whatever it is you like your courgettes in. (or you could just do what my Mother-in-law does & give them to friends, family & anyone too slow to work out that you've just dumped a carrier bag of marrows on them!)

So over the next few days I'll be posting some recipes & ideas for what to do with them all. For starters, here's something really simple. So painfully simple I hate to even call it a recipe

Lemon Roasted Squash
3-4 courgettes, pattypans, summer squashes, you get the idea (I used crookneck squash, which I grow because they're so damned pretty)
1 lemon
1 tbs olive oil
50g diced feta
2-3 small bulbs of garlic (optional)
salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/G6. Halve the courgettes (if you have round or bulbous squashes, scrape the seeds out to leave a hollow for the feta) & place in a shallow baking dish with the garlic bulbs. Add the oil, the juice of the lemon, salt & pepper & toss until the courgettes & garlic are well coated. Scatter (or tuck into cavities) the feta over the top & bake for 30 mins, or until the courgettes are tender & the feta browned. Halve the garlic bulbs & squeeze over the courgettes. It will be buttery & sweet, and nothing like fried or raw garlic.
For a bit of variety, scatter with a handful of chopped oregano, mint or parsley. Or use mozzerella or goats cheese, or combine grated hard cheese with panko or breadcrumbs & scatter over the top before baking.

Om nom nom!

Son of a Gun, We'll Have Big Fun on the Bayou

For those of you unfamiliar with Hank Williams*, I'm talking about Jambalaya.
Jambalaya is a Creole dish of rice, vegetables and meat, influenced by the Spanish paella. There are 3 styles of Jambalaya; Creole or Red Jambalaya, which is made with tomatoes, Cajun Jambalaya, which is made without tomatoes but has onion, celery & green peppers, and the less common White Jambalaya, where the rice & meat are cooked separately & combined at the end. This is a much quicker method, and where's the fun in that?
There are a lot of stories as to how the name came about, but it's most likely origin is from the Provencal word Jambalaia, meaning mish-mash.

What I love about Jambalaya is that it is a one-pot whatever-you-got dish. As long as you've got the Holy Trinity of Creole cooking; onion, celery & green peppers, you can put pretty much anything in there, so it's a really good way of using up a glut of something from the garden. Like courgettes!

Courgette Jambalaya (oh-me-oh-my-ah)
1 onion, diced
1 sweet green pepper, diced
2 sticks celery, diced (okay, so there's a theme developing here)
2 courgettes, (say it with me) diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can red kidney beans (or any other beans really)
1 400g pack passata/tin of chopped tomatoes/fresh tomatoes, chopped
350g/2 cups long grain rice (brown or white, rinsed in cold water. Brown will take longer to cook, though)
950ml/4 cups vegetable stock
Anything you fancy - a handful of green beans, chopped, a scoop of peas or sweetcorn, a couple of diced carrots...
2 bay leaves
1 tsp each of thyme, oregano & paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
A little oil
Salt & pepper

In a large casserole dish or pan, saute the courgette, onion, celery & pepper. Add the garlic & rice. Stir for a minute or two & add the passata/tomatoes. Add all your herbs, red kidney beans & the vegetable stock & bring to a simmer. Leave on a low heat 15 minutes, and then add any other veg you fancy (it will steam on the surface of the rice, so still have some bite to it). It will need another 10-15 minutes on a low heat (or until the liquid is absorbed & the rice is cooked. Add more stock or water if you think it needs it). Let stand for 5 minutes before stirring & serving up.
This can also be cooked in the oven. Cover with a well fitting lid & bake at 190C/375F/G5 for 30 - 53 minutes. It will need 5 minutes to stand when it comes out of the oven.


Om nom nom!

*Gotta love him for having the gumption to rhyme 'bayou' with 'me-oh-my-oo'

Hot Tamale (Bake)

Tamales, if you're not familiar with them, are a masa (dried ground corn*) dough, usually stuffed with cheese, chile or meat, wrapped in a banana leaf & steamed. They are the ultimate in comfort food, and if I could, I'd eat them all day, every day. The thing is, they take sodding ages to make! And you don't make them in batches of two or three, you make them by the dozens. It's an afternoons work at least. So what if you're craving some tamales, but don't have 3 hours spare to make the batter & wrap all those little parcels up? You make Tamale Bake!

This is one of those stand-by recipes that I've done so many times, I don't even think about it anymore, my hands seem to remember what to do, while my mind drifts off to things like seed catalogues, chutney, crochet - y'know, the usual stuff that floats around in there.
Of course the downside to this is when I'm cooking & not paying attention, Tamale bake is what comes out. I'll start out making a curry, or lasagna, or quiche or something, and by the time I've stuck it in the oven, it's starting to twig that the veggie sausage casserole or the cholent has gone south, so I should quickly knock up some guacamole & pretend it's what I meant to do all along (luckily Mikeyfox loves Tamale bake, and is no stranger to the It-Started-Out-As-Lasagna-But-Now-It's-Frittata approach to cooking I have). You can use any veg you have lying around for this recipe, I've been using courgettes, as it's a good way of getting through a glut, but broccoli, french beans, carrots, peppers, chard, mushrooms, runner beans, turnips, spinach, pumpkins or peas work really well (believe me, I've tried almost everything in it!)

Tamale bake
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbs Chipotle paste (or ground chipotle. Or a chopped red chilli)
2 courgettes, chopped
1 can red kidney beans (or chickpeas. Or pinto beans. You get the idea)
200g sweetcorn
1 carton passata (or a tin of chopped tomatoes)

Topping
100g Masa de harina (I used blue masa, because I'm Peculiar. Polenta flour works just as well too)
1 egg
100ml vegetable stock
25g cheese (mozzarella is nice, as is cheddar. Wensleydale is surprisingly yum. Any cheese you fancy, really!), grated or crumbled
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/G6. Fry the onion & garlic in a pan. Add courgettes & stir around until tinged with brown. Add chipotle/chillis & passata/tomatoes. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add kidney beans & corn & season to taste. Pour into an ovenproof dish (a cazuela makes it look pretty, but any dish, any shape, will do) & set aside.
Now, the topping. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the egg & stock & beat into a smooth batter. If you're using masa, you'll need to add extra water, a little at a time, until you have something a little more spreadable. Pour over the bean mixture & spread evenly. scatter the cheese over the top & bake for 20 minutes, or until the topping is set & golden.
Serve with anything you like, really (I went for runner beans stir fried in more chipotle paste, but steamed veg, salad, guacamole, refried beans or shredded carrot tossed with a little vinegar are all delicious too!)


Om nom nom!

*Or maize. I'd call it sweetcorn, but it's actually field-corn, which is a taller, tougher variety of corn. Whatever you call it, it's soaked in lime (the chemical, not the citrus fruit), dried & ground into a fine flour which is used to make tortillas (which can be used to make burritos, fajitas, tostadas, nachos and whatever other combination of beans & cheese you can come up with), hominy, pozole, tamales, pupusas... okay, so you get the idea.

Milpa Chile

Milpa (a Nahuatl* word meaning 'to the field') is an agroecosystem of growing crops throughout Mesoamerica based on the ancient Mayan agricultural system where several complementary crops are planted together in a cleared area of forest, and cultivated for two years, then leaving the land fallow for eight years (allowing for natural regeneration of vegetation & a habitat for birds & mammals). But the milpa system isn't just about growing a lot in a tight space, it's a sacred act that brings together families & communities, the core of Mesoamerican society. It's also a system that is self-sustaining, doesn't require pesticides or fertilisers, and the planting of a wide variety of crops sustains their genetic diversity. A milpa will usually have multiple varieties of sweetcorn, beans, squashes & chiles (many will have other crops too, such as amaranth, avocado, jicama, sweet potato & tomatoes).

The Native American 3 Sisters method of companion planting (growing squash, sweetcorn & climbing beans in the same place, where the sweetcorn supports the beans, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil, and the dense groundcover of the squash suppresses weed growth) is a well known example of a milpa system. Pretty cool, huh?

So if you're growing your own veg, a milpa system is well worth a try. I plant squashes & pumpkins at the base of my sweetcorn, tomatoes & beans, where they keep the roots cool & moist, and block out light & suppress weeds. It's also a good way of getting a few more crops out of a small space. Say, if you only have room for a wigwam of runner beans, why not plant a pumpkin or squash at the base, and encourage it to grow around the base of your wigwam. Small climbing squash like acorn can happily work their way up the lower parts of bean frames without affecting your lovely legumes.

So all this is a pretty long winded way of explaining why this recipe I came up with the other day is called 'Milpa Chile', using a few veg from my own little milpa (and it's another courgette recipe)

Milpa Chile
2 Ancho chiles (dried)
2 courgettes
250g sweetcorn
100g green beans (or runner beans), sliced
1 onion, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tsp epazote (or coriander leaf)
50-100ml vegetable stock
salt & pepper

Remove seeds from the ancho chiles & soak in boiling water until soft (this will take 5-10 minutes). Put ancho & garlic in a blender or food processor (have a taste of the soaking water. Sometimes the chile gods frown upon us, and the soaking water tastes bitter & unpleasant. When the chile gods favour us, the soaking water is spiky, spicy and yum. If it isn't bitter, add it to the blender. If the spicy ones frown upon you, add a little water instead. And make appropriate offerings of chocolate hobnobs, and unlikely promises). Wizz away, adding water until you have a smooth puree. Set to one side (incidentally, this puree is lovely with sweet potato wedges. Just toss them in the puree, add a squeeze of orange juice & bake in the oven - yum!). Fry the onion & courgette in a pan until browned. Add the sweetcorn& beans & give it a quick stir & add the ancho puree & stir. Add your vegetable stock (this is a personal judgement thing here, add stock until the sauce is a thickness you like. If you like your chile quite dry & intense, don't add any at all, if you like it quite wet, so the juices soak into the rice, add more). Simmer for 5-10 minutes (5 if you like your beans with a bit of bite, 10 if not. Add water or stock if it's looking a little too dry). Season with salt & pepper, and the epazote/coriander. Serve with rice (I went for arroz amarillo - it's yellow!) & a wedge of lime. Avocado is good too.

Om nom nom!

*A group of languages & dialects around central Mexico & Mesoamerica (the chunk of South America that stretches from Mexico to Honduras & Nicaragua. Nahuatl words that have been adopted & adapted into English include 'Chocolate', 'chile', 'coyote' & 'tomato. The word 'Nahuatl' means 'a good, clear sound'.

A Surfeit of Squash

If you grow your own courgettes (or Zucchini, if you're so inclined), you'll probably be well into the annual excess of edibles - I know I am!

This year I've been growing an obscene amount of squashes, though I've never thought of it as a 'glut' (Mikeyfox has a theory that vegetarians don't get gluts of home grown veg. I just assumed we were greedy). The picture above is some pickings from the garden; the yellow round Summer Ball (possibly the bestest courgette I've ever grown! It's a fairly compact variety, needing about a square meter of space, but produces staggering quantities of beautiful round fruits that can not only be picked when apple-sized onwards, but can be left to mature into pumpkins. How cool is that?!), green round Tonda Chiaro di Nizza (fancy name, but needs more space to ramble around, and doesn't have the insanely high yields of the Summer Ball), long yellow Atena Polka (a Polish variety, good yield on a fairly compact plant. A real favourite, plush yellow courgettes are much easier to find amongst all those green leaves!*). The big fellow in the middle is a Black Beauty from my Ma-in-Law (because I can't say no to free veg!)

So I'm hoping to post a bunch of courgette recipes for folks out there with more courgettes than they know what to do with.
I'll start you off with something quick & simple, a courgette & lettuce salad.

If you grow your own courgettes (or Zucchini, if you're so inclined), you'll probably be well into the annual excess of edibles - I know I am!

This year I've been growing an obscene amount of squashes, though I've never thought of it as a 'glut' (Mikeyfox has a theory that vegetarians don't get gluts of home grown veg. I just assumed we were greedy). The picture above is some pickings from the garden; the yellow round Summer Ball (possibly the bestest courgette I've ever grown! It's a fairly compact variety, needing about a square meter of space, but produces staggering quantities of beautiful round fruits that can not only be picked when apple-sized onwards, but can be left to mature into pumpkins. How cool is that?!), green round Tonda Chiaro di Nizza (fancy name, but needs more space to ramble around, and doesn't have the insanely high yields of the Summer Ball), long yellow Atena Polka (a Polish variety, good yield on a fairly compact plant. A real favourite, plush yellow courgettes are much easier to find amongst all those green leaves!*). The big fellow in the middle is a Black Beauty from my Ma-in-Law (because I can't say no to free veg!)

So I'm hoping to post a bunch of courgette recipes for folks out there with more courgettes than they know what to do with.
I'll start you off with something quick & simple, a courgette & lettuce salad.


I'm afraid it's not really a recipe. Just thinly slice courgettes (I use a speed peeler - those Y-shaped things, though a knife will do the job) toss the slices with salad leaves & whatever else you have lying around (I went for young french beans & a drizzle of mustardy salad dressing, but thinly sliced or grated carrot or beetroot is delicious, or cucumber, or radishes). Yum!

*If, like me, you tend to stumble across zeppelin-sized specimens lurking under the lower leaves.

I'm afraid it's not really a recipe. Just thinly slice courgettes (I use a speed peeler - those Y-shaped things, though a knife will do the job) toss the slices with salad leaves & whatever else you have lying around (I went for young french beans & a drizzle of mustardy salad dressing, but thinly sliced or grated carrot or beetroot is delicious, or cucumber, or radishes). Yum!

*If, like me, you tend to stumble across zeppelin-sized specimens lurking under the lower leaves.