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.  

Green and Gold Courgettes - Zucchini

My  Harvest Monday blog post this week is not that dissimilar to last weeks, as I have more beans to share of the green and purple variety.

However this week, I also have some green and gold courgettes.    

Every single day, I have been coming back into the kitchen with a courgette. 

I was thinking about booking a day of as annual leave/vacation from work so that I could use up these courgettes, but D had decided that with the school summer holidays starting this week, that it wasn't worth going out anywhere as we would probably be stuck in traffic and we should both stay home and catch up on things.  This was fine with me, he mowed the front of the garden, as I made the most of these courgettes and much more. I know - we lead such exciting lives!

 Here are some jars of homemade Courgette and Apricot Chutney.  

I also made a vegan Lemon and Courgette Cake. See I told you that I make the most of my violas to garnish cakes. 

Please do come back next week when I will show off some of my massive marrows, one of which was used to make this Marrow and Fenugreek Curry.  It was served it with Courgette Rice.

I  am sharing this post with  Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave over Our Happy Acres.  

Cradling Monster Marrows and Zucchini

From my garden is this rather large courgette aka zucchini, its much bigger than the last one.  I did not cook with it, it was too big for us to consume, so I bestowed it upon my sister-in-law who would probably make some kind of curry with it or perhaps even Pakoras. 

And a lovely marrow, that will some time this week be cooked into something delicious I hope.  So as always if you have any lovely vegetarian recipes making the most of marrow, please do let me know. And Mark and Chandra if either of you are reading this, the green nail vanish is really a coincidence.  I had a weekend off from cooking, and like a girly squirly decided to paint my nails. 

Finally here are the only two golden courgettes that were harvested some time last week, but I didn't get round to sharing with Harvest Monday, so thought I would do so today.

I am sharing this small harvest with Daphne Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Handful of Blueberries and Purple Beans

Plenty of runner beans and raspberries still coming from the garden.  These have been cooked and made into various dishes.  Most recently the Runner Beans were cooked in a Sri Lankan Runner Bean Pie and the raspberries in Chocolate  Brownies, 

The other berry fruit harvested from my garden are these blueberries,  barely a handful but lovely.

I also harvested some purple beans aka Blauhilde. These turn green upon cooking. 

I am sharing this small harvest with Daphne Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

I spy with my big Brown eyes

my first 'Gold Rush' courgette of the year. Oh how precious. I also look close to see what other hidden vegetable treasures my garden plot has for me.

I take a look closer at my pea wig wams - can you see him? - my scarecrow! I'm actually looking for some crunchy green things.

I find some peas. Although not ready, 4 of my 10 pea plants are producing. Can I see anything else? This time I had to look at the plot from a different angle - the back and guess what I see...

not one, not two, but three little cluster of broccoli heads. I am jumping up and down. This was certainly an unexpected surprise. After watering the plants and pottering around in the garden, I decided to make a light salad for lunch. As you can see, my courgettes are a little while off from gracing my dinner plate, so I had picked some courgettes earlier from the farmers market. I had plans for it, not just for easy eating but also for this months No Croutons Challenge which is being hosted by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes. This month the challenge is to create a soup or salad with courgette or zucchini. So this is my humble little entry made with grated courgettes, grated carrots, orzo, a pasta shaped like rice or pearls of barley and some seeds for crunch.

I admit this is not going to win any prizes, as it hardly involves any cooking and is pretty effortless. But hey it was good and worth sharing with other fellow bloggers. Sometimes its good to spend more time in the garden enjoying the sunshine and less time in the kitchen. I think this simple salad would also be excellent for outdoor eating too! Go on make it for your next veggie BBQ.

Courgette, carrot and orzo salad

Serves 2 - 4 with accompaniments

Ingredients
100g orzo, cooked according to packet instructions, drained and set aside

1 large courgette, grated

2 large carrots, grated

6 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

4 - 6 tablespoons of toasted sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds; or both

Method.

Stir the courgette and carrots into the orzo. Whizz the olive oil with the vinegar, then drizzle over the courgette, carrots and orzo. Season with salt and pepper. When ready to serve, scatter over the seeds.

Last seasons planting

It’s that time of year that I begin looking backwards and forward – to last seasons planting and crops which didn’t do so well; to the coming year and the hope that we will overcome whatever the weather throws at us, and still have a healthy return for our efforts.

Despite the problems with the weather last year, like many gardeners we managed to produce some fabulous specimens from our plot. Please do take a look.

Turnip purple top milan
Rainbow swiss chard - good in tarts and quiches

Tomato san manzano. Good for pizzas and paninis.

Rainbow carrots - no carrot fly. Yay.

Broad beans, calabrese, nint, courgette ronda di nizza, tri-colour and goldie.
yellow french beans neckar gold
Climbing green beans. I also grew purple climbing french beans blauhilde. Sorry I don't seem to have photos of them. On cooking the purple beans turned green. Tasted fine.

I have quite a lot of seeds left over from last years purchase, but this has not stopped me from flicking through the Organic Gardening catalogue where I order most of my seeds.

MMmm now what else would I like to grow...