Garden Harvest

These blueberries were mostly eaten for breakfast, either with homemade waffles or stirred into Greek yoghurt.

We thinned out the beetroot and carrot pot. The carrots are not worth mentioning at the moment, but the baby beetroot was excellent. We have begun digging out some potatoes. The green and dwarf yellow beans are beginning to dwindle and we don't have much in the way of runner beans this year. There is also plenty of tomatoes coming from the greenhouse. 

 The courgettes are coming thick and fast.  If i miss one, you can guarantee the next day or two, they tease me having becme overgrown marrows, but i've been fortunate as my mother and sister in law are requesting the marrows to accompany a meat dish they make.  

I'm not being overly inspired with courgettes to be honest, adding them to mostly to pasta dishes. 

This is a tweaked Chilli with courgettes and sweetcorn in place of the usual peppers or carrots.

And this is one I actually made last year, but failed to blog about it. It's a Courgette Casserole.  I sliced 3 medium courgettes, crushed 6 cloves garlic, sliced 4 spring onion, stirred in 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of olive oil along with salt and pepper to taste and a handful of fresh parsley.  Then stirred well. Before pouring over 3 -4 large tomatoes roughly chopped to create a sauce of sorts.  Stirred again, before transferring  to a baking dish.  Transfer to preheated oven gas mark 4/180oc for 45 minutes.  It was served alongside some boiled new potatoes.  

These green beans were used in this recipe called Piccalilli Spiced Rice. It also incudes cauliflower, red onion, carrots and red chillies

The recipe was bookmarked from Meera Sodha's cookbook East.  I must admit, it's perhaps one of my most used cookbook from the past year or so. 

The Piccalilli Spiced Rice dish was really good, we topped the dish off with some mango chutney. 

Lovely homegrown tomatoes. 

I made a few dishes from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's cookbook Jerusalem.

 Mixed Bean Salad with red peppers and Spiced Chickpeas and fresh vegetable salad. 

I am sharing this blog post with Dave over at Happy Acres who hosts Harvest Monday. 

Ending with these poppies from the garden, they are all gone now burned from the heatwave, but they were lovely to see while they lasted. 

Courgette Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

It's been a bit of an unusual week.

The first part of the week I was really unwell.  I don't know what the cause was, but i was suddenly struck with feeling of being nauseas. I can only pinpoint it to going out to the supermarket for the first time and being surrounded by so many people in a way that i have not been accustomed to the past four months, so perhaps I may have picked something.  I could not remains off work for the rest of the week though, as I had a number of deadlines, priorities to meet and that may have also impacted on my stress levels. So who knows, what it was.  I am feeling much better, but still tender and as always thankful for restful weekend for a sleep in and recharging.

Again, i had planned to spend some of the time in the vegetable garden plot, but I am not kidding you - the weekends seem to bring rain. 

We have small patch in the vegetable plot where we sowed some wild flower seeds.  Poppies are coming up, but they're fragility to the elements mean they don't last long and the delicate red tissue papery petals crumple.

Food at home this week has been light and simple all this week, because of my sensitive belly. 
The natural flavours from the vegetables and  fresh herbs came through in this Courgette and Tomato Pasta.  I also liked that the courgettes retained a bit of crunch.  Even though I was enjoying this colourful plate, I was struggling to eat everything on the plate, so the remainder was decanted into a tub and put in the fridge, either for later in the evening if I got hungry again or for the following day for lunch. 

So how has your week been?! And what have you been eating for lunch?

I am sharing this Courgette Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce  with Soup, Salad and Sammies hosted by Kahakai Kitchen. 

Courgette Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

Serves 2 - 3

Ingredients2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium courgettes, diced small
3 - 4 cloves garlic, crushed
12 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
2 tablespoons basil, thinly sliced
Salt to taste
4 medium courgettes, halved then sliced lengthways
Method
Bring a large pot of water to the boil, Cook the pasta according to packet instructions. In the last 3 minutes, add in the sliced courgettes, bring to a boil. then drain well and set aside.
Heat the oil in a side pan, over medium heat.  
Add the diced courgette and coo k until browned. 
Then stir in the garlic and cook for a minute.  
Stir in the tomatoes and herbs and salt and pepper to taste.
Carefully toss the cooked pasta and courgette slices, stir gently to combine.
Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve. 
Adapted from A Well-Seasoned Appetite: Recipes from an American Kitchen by Molly O'Neill..

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.