Another Vegetable Tagine

Regular readers will note that I have been quiet in relation to blogging, well what can I say.  I have been really busy with work mostly that when I come home, I want the evenings to space out!  

So there has not been much in the way of creative or experimental cooking recently.  All the dishes that I have been made from scratch in recent weeks have been showcased on my blog before such as this Moroccan Vegetable Tagine based on one of my favourite recipes which you can find if you follow this link.  

This Vegetable Tagine though,  was made with the last of my courgettes from the garden. Of course its bulked up with other vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, sweet potato and chickpeas served with couscous. If you look closely there is some dried fruit in it as well, like apricots and prunes, I don't always use dried fruit in my tagine. 

I am sharing my Vegetable Tagine made with the last of the homegrown courgettes with Eat Your Greens which is hosted by The Veg Hog this month.  

Please do join in there is still time and it would be lovely to have your company at the #EatYourGreens veg table.

I am also sharing this Vegetable Tagine with My Legume Love Affair, a monthly event celebrating legumes and my tagine contains chickpeas.  MLLA is administered by Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted every month by a different blogger, this month it is Sizzling Tastebuds. 

Other Tagine style recipes
Cinnamon Vegetable Tagine

Chickpea Tagine with Quince

Ms Marmite Lovers Carrot, Pepper and Red Lentil Tagine.  

Moroccan Tagine with Spiced Seed Confetti

North African Tagine

Pumpkin and Apricot Tagine

Winter Vegetable Tagine

Turmeric Courgette Blueberry Cake

Last weekend was dreadful weather wise and I think it is the same this weekend, weather forecasters have predicted rightly that there is more rain to come and it is falling from the skies as I type.  I have noted that its getting dark in the evenings a lot more quicker and its dark in the morning when I get up 6am in the morning - we seem to have skipped a season.  

I am so pleased that I don't have to get up and go anywhere tomorrow, so can snuggle up at home and watch some films. Well that is what I wish for my weekend, but we have lots of chores and housey things to do, so its not going to be relaxing as I wish, but still better than getting up and going into work. 

Well I made this cake last week, it was around the same time as the Turmeric Yellow Courgette Quiche, so yes I was inspired to stir in a teaspoon of turmeric to this Yellow Courgette Blueberry Cake as well.  

I adapted it from a Courgette cake I have made in the past.  D loved the dense rich buttery-ness.  You cannot taste the courgette as it lends moistness, rather than flavour, but you could definitely taste the turmeric which was pleasant and not overwhelming. 

Follow this link if you want to check out other Turmeric Recipes 

Yellow Courgette Turmeric Quiche

With the weather being so poor over the weekend, I found myself in the kitchen making the most of homegrown vegetable.  

I have made a Courgette Blueberry Cake made with the blueberries I picked last week and another Yellow Courgette Quiche. 

This Yellow Courgette Quiche must be the winner as the most yellowist quiche that I have ever made.  It was enhanced further with a teaspoon of turmeric. Pretty loud. 

We have had  the quiche over three days, served either with new potatoes and homegrown beans or just homegrown salad. 

Crushed Potato, Courgette and Feta Salad

So I was sitting in the garden early this evening minding my own business, sipping on some homemade Hibiscus Cooler (recipe to come), when I saw what I thought at first glance were dead dandelion seeds floating by, but when I paused to look properly - I realised they were flying ants!. Eek.  We seem to have so many different ants in the garden this year and I am not sure why?!.  

Anyway, onto some good food from the garden.

Although we have new potatoes growing in the garden, for some reason D has decided not to dig them up yet - so these are shop bought.  These new potatoes were left over from another meal, so I decided to crush them a little and then throw them into a baking tray along with some of my harvest from the weekend: round courgette cut into wedges, yellow courgette sliced into thick coins and some beans doused with some olive oil and then into the oven to roast a little.

Once the courgettes were suitably soft, I stirred in some of the homegrown peas, a little salt and pepper and chopped parsley. Then covered it with some feta cheese and spring onions.  I returned it to the oven for a few minutes, before serving it.  

Even though this was so simple to put together, D liked it very much.  He especially loved the roasted green courgette wedges. 

I am sharing this simple salad with The VegHog who is hosting #EatYourGreens this month.  Please do join in this month, you have plenty of time to share a vegan or vegetarian recipe made with either a green fruit or green vegetable, including herbs! As well as and Soup, Salad and Sammies hosted by Kahakai Kitchen

Green Beans, Yellow Courgette and Cheddar Quiche

I made this Green Bean, Yellow Courgette and Cheddar Quiche last weekend. with vegetables from the garden plot.  It was served with salad and tomatoes which were also homegrown. 

I was enjoying the quiche very much, then I tasted a papery texture in mouth.  In my head I thought it must be either the courgettes or one of the lettuce leaves and continued eating.  It was only when we finished eating,  I mentioned it to D that it tasted a bit papery in places and he agreed.  It was only on his agreeing that it dawned on me that I had left the baking parchment paper on the pastry when I blind baked it. Yes I made the shortcrust pasty from scratch this time.  I have never done anything like this before.  

As we had only eaten half of the quiche, the following day we were surprisingly able to separate the eggy quiche part from the pastry  and pull out the remaining baking parchment paper.

Now that I have told you this, I might as well admit to you that I made another mistake in my rushed attempt to get this Quiche into the oven.  I was given some eggs by the neighbours, I cracked them one by one into a jug, before adding it to the milk for mixing.  Well, I forgot to add one of the eggs to the mixture.  It was only when I was about to transfer it to the oven for cooking, that my eyes fell upon the egg still in the jug.  Well, I quickly resolved that by whisking it and pouring it over the filling, giving the quiche filling a gentle stir here and there to blend.  It turned out fine, thank goodness.  

Honestly, I don't mess up like this - so this was an unusual day in the kitchen, perhaps my mind was on other things... 

Black Eyed Pea and Courgette 'Crab' Cakes

Since making the Cincinnati Spaghetti from The Superfun Times: Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, I have been perusing the cookbook quite a bit of late.

Over the weekend, I made these vegan Black Eyed Pea and Courgette 'Crab' Cakes as I wanted to start using my tub of Old Bay Seasoning.  I made the recipe from scratch.  Soaking the black eyed peas overnight and cooking it the following day; and blitzing fresh breadcrumbs at home.

This is not a sponsored blog post - I bought this product to try

These vegan 'crab' cakes were nice, but they did not blow me away. I think I would prefer the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Vegan Brunch for more 'fishy' flakiness, as these ones were made with grated courgettes and seemed to impart an element of dampness to these savoury cakes.

Still nothing goes to waste in our home, they were all eaten with homemade Sriracha mayo.

Other Savoury Cake Recipes 

Fishless Japanese Sea Vegetable and Nori Cakes

Savoury Kale Cakes 

Purple and Green Cabbage Potato Cakes

Parsnip Potato cakes

Courgette Potato Cakes

wild Garlic Potato Cakes

Cajun Black Eyed Peas with Summer Vegetables

I  made this a couple of weeks ago on the weekend as we had no plans to go anywhere and it was pouring outside, very much like today.

I had soaked some black eyed peas the night before and boiled them the following day to use for some dishes, including this one - Cajun Black Eyed Peas with the last of the summer vegetables from my garden plot.  

D liked this dish a lot, mostly because it has sweetcorn in it. He likes sweetcorn. I haven't grown sweetcorn as in the past its not done well. However, I did see a number of gardeners who participate in Harvest Monday do very well with sweetcorn this year, but saying that I haven't seen fresh sweetcorn on the cob being sold at markets - so I guess it depends where you are.  I think we have had an interesting summer this year.  So I may give sweetcorn a go next year. The sweetcorn in this dish came frozen. 

The recipe is adapted from the American Soul Food Chef Charita Jones, also known as Momma Cherri.  I have written about Momma Cherri before on my blog - see here when I made her awesome Sweet Potato Pies and Southern Style Okra Gumbo.

I am sharing this dish with The VegHog who is hosting #EatYourGreens this month and this dish has homegrown courgettes; and Beth's Weekend Cooking.  

Oven Roasted Ratatouille

We are continuing to enjoy homegrown fruit and vegetables, because we know it won't last.

So with our homegrown courgettes and homegrown tomatoes, I made an Oven Roasted Ratatouille, and before some of you get all uppity and say its not made this way, blah blah blah...well this recipe comes from a  French woman, author of - if its good enough for her, well who am I to argue.

So who is this French woman, well she is Parisian and it is Clotilde Dusoulier author of the best food blog Chocolate and Zucchini.  She started her blog in 2003.  I can't remember how I stumbled across her originally but I did buy her cookbook also of the same name and from which the recipe comes from.  

For those of you who read my blog regular, will know that I am not that keen on ratatouille, so I am always willing to try different recipes that will encourage me to change my mind, well I think I am onto a winner here. 

Courgette and Black Flame Raisins Muffins

Well its a Bank holiday i the UK and in true British tradition, the skies are pouring with rain.  Its a proper soggy Sunday that I dare not even go out in the garden and pick some fresh herbs for our dinner later today.  

I made these Courgette and Black Flame Raisins Muffins a fortnight ago with courgettes from the garden allotment plot, by the way the courgette plants are still giving. The recipe is from Sarah Beattie cookbook Meat-Free Any Day .  I just decided not to make the icing for these sweet vegetarian muffins as I did not have any cream cheese for the icing. 

 As the recipe makes a dozen, I decided to take some into work to share with my new work colleagues, they have been described as gannets by some of the others, so I had not doubt they would be gone.  But when I went into the kitchen later that afternoon, the number had hardly shrunk, my heart sunk a little.  Someone who did try a muffin and did really enjoy it, said to me it is because they were not smothered in butter cream or sickly sweet icing that the others may have stayed away.   In other words if it looks healthy, steer clear.  I thought it was a bit of a shame. Its the first time, I have taken something in to work, any workplace and its been hardly touched.  Well you cannot please everyone.  

Regardless, we enjoyed them, and the couple of other people in work also liked them too.  In fact, and this is not a word of a fib, one person actually asked for the recipe. 

I am sharing these Courgette and Black Flame Raisins Muffins with #EatYourGreens Vegetarian and Vegan Blog challenge hosted by me this month.  Eat Your Greens is also co-hosted by The VegHog.  Please do join in.  For those of you who have not participated before, please Follow this link on how to join in . There still a few days to join in before the deadline of the 30 August. 

Etsis Turlu - Rich Summer Vegetable Stew

I've been cooking quite a lot of Middle Eastern recipes recently.  It started with the  Iranian Pearl Barley Soup known as Ash-e Jo or Ash-e-Jow  early this year when we had freakish snow and with the unusual hot weather continuing, now I have Etsis Turlu.   

According to the cookbook author this Etsis Turlu comes from Turkey.

With the rain over the weekend, it was the perfect excuse to make a stew more suited for autumnal days and colder evenings, but i have lots of summer vegetables including courgettes, marrows and green beans coming from the garden that I wanted  to make the most of it, even if it is the height of summer.

This stew will last us good three days of the working week and we intend to eat it with couscous, bulgar wheat, rice or crusty bread.  

I am sharing this  Etsis Turlu Stew with Souper Sundays hosted by Kahakai Kitchen. 

Medley of Courgettes - Zucchini

The rain poured from the skies non stop over the weekend and many of us were thankful for it.  

I am harvesting courgettes aka zucchini.  I so prefer calling them Zucchini, but i live in the UK, so it has to be courgettes.  Above we have Tondo de Piacenza.

I scooped the seeds from the middle and stuffed it with some meatfree soy mince.  See the meat free filling recipe here.

Some marrows aka Summer Squash in other parts of the world and courgettes: gold rush and a stripey variety, whose name I have forgotten.  I have made another Marrow Curry, but this time with the addition of chickpeas. It will be our dinner for three days of the working week.

As for the courgettes, they have been used mostly for lunch.  I haven't taken many photographs of my courgette dishes this year, as they have featured on my blog before such as courgette pasty, courgette cake, courgettes flapjack and pasta salad.

The climbing beans are dwindling.  In fact these are the last.  I may have mentioned in a previous blog post that some of my bean canes have been infested with black fly, its been particularly bad this year. So I will be pulling out the bean frames - wigwams next weekend, clear the ground and sow some fenugreek or salad leaves - I can't quite decide which of the two, unless readers have any other suggestions.  It just feels such a waste not to make the most of the space whilst the weather is still relatively kind. 

Well the purple and green beans may all be gone, but...

Ta'dah!  We have cherry tomatoes coming from the greenhouse, these are the first of many we hope....

I was also tempted by these vegetables from the greengrocers at the indoor market when I was in Cardiff last week.  I made a Middle Eastern dish called Etsis Turlu with these aubergines and two tone pepper. Come back tomorrow if you want to see the final dish which also includes some of my homegrown marrow. 

If not, please do come back next week when I will show off some more of my homegrown tomatoes instead - there will be lots of them.  I  am sharing this post with  Harvest Monday which is hosted by the lovely Dave over Our Happy Acres.  

Zucchini - Courgette and Apricot Chutney

The rain from the skies came pouring down this weekend, and most people looked up at the sky as if they had forgotten what rain looked like?!  It was kind of funny, well I thought it was.  

Anyway, here is a link to some of my homemade jams, chutneys and preserves. The reason I am sharing the link is to highlight how surprised I am at myself in that I have never blogged a Zucchini - Courgette Chutney recipe, considering its the one vegetable I grow every year.  

I have also bookmarked these from Pam Cobin Spicy Courgette Chutney and Courgette Jam. I would have made these too, but I am running out of jars. By the way, do you have a courgette chutney recipe to share?

Courgette Marrow Aubergine and Spicy Ground Chorizo Pizza

I made this Courgette Marrow Aubergine Spicy Ground Chorizo Pizza a few weeks back.  It is a little reminisce of Lahmacan. dubbed in the English speaking world as the Turkish Pizza, but of course this one is vegetarian as it is made with soya mince in place of minced meat.

I really, really loved it.  

The base is not traditional tomato, but spicy ground chorizo made with soy mince and all the flavours associated.  It was a little old fashion way of making vegan chorizo, but it was delicious and I will make it again . The courgettes in this recipe were bordering on becoming marrows, hence the reason that I have named the recipe so.  

The spicy ground soy mince chorizo base recipe comes from Mo Wyse and Shannon Martinez of Smith and Daughters in Australia. I was recommended the cookbook Smith and Daughters That Happens to Be Vegan by the Green Gourmet Giraffe.

Marrow, Manchego Cheese, White Beans and Sage Pithivier

I made this Marrow, Manchego Cheese, White Beans and Sage Pithivier with some of the marrow that was left over from the Marrow Conserve recipe (featured in the photograph) next to the jars.

I have to admit, I was not overly impressed with the filling whilst I was making it.  It looked a bit simple and boring.  I was also unsure what cheese to use and still had some remnants of Manchego cheese left over from Griddled Summer Vegetable Tart with Manchego Cheese Tart and added that to the mixture when it had cooled down. The puff pastry was filled, folded into pasties and then baked to taken into work the following day for lunch. 

Well surprising  these Marrow, Manchego Cheese, White Beans and Sage Pasties were delicious.  I have to concur with my husband that I too also enjoyed it. 

The following day, I  used the last of the filling to make some into pithivier style, but you can also just top puff pastry sliced like a flat tart or pizza.