Coping with the glut…

Our courgettes are coming thick and fast at the moment and it’s something of a race to use them up before they reach marrow-like proportions – seriously, I swear all I have to do is blink and they double in size! I try to pick them when they’re still quite small and tasty but, if I do miss one or two and they become big and watery, then it’s no great shakes as they’re fine for chutney – which is what I’l be making later today.

One of my favourite things to make with courgettes is ratatouille – primarily because it’s so yummy but I also take great delight in the muddle of colours whilst I’m cooking it. It’s a real feast for the senses!

I thought I’d share my recipe here, in case anyone else is trying to get through their own body weight in courgettes. My version doesn’t contain any aubergine, purely due to the fact that I’ve never managed to grow any successfully and by omitting them, I can increase the quantities of courgettes. If you do want to include aubergine though, simply dice it, place in a colander, sprinkle with salt, weight it down with a plate and can (or something similar) then leave for an hour. Rinse and squeeze out any excess moisture then add to the casserole along with the courgettes.

Ratatouille

serves 4 generously

• olive oil
• 2 red onions, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 peppers – 1 red and 1 yellow, roughly chopped
• 5 – 6 small courgettes, roughly chopped
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes or 10 medium sized fresh tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• a generous sprinkling of herbs – dry or fresh – I like oregano, parsley and thyme
• black pepper
• pinch of sugar

Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole. Cook onions until soft. Add courgettes, followed by the peppers then the garlic, giving everything a good stir between each addition. Saute for 5 mintues. Stir in the tomatoes, herbs and seasoning. Add a pinch of sugar. Cover and simmer for approximately 1 hour. Check occasionally to make sure the ratatouille isn’t sticking – if you need to, add a splash of water or red wine vinegar. When cooked, leave to cool a little before serving – this tastes best when warm, rather than piping hot. It tastes even better the next day and I often make it the day before I plan to serve it. I like to serve it with homemade focaccia bread and brown rice.

Another easy way to use up an abundance of courgettes is to make a courgette frittata. Here’s a basic recipe but you can add other vegetables too – such as onions, tomatoes, garden peas, potato etc – and you can also swap the parmesan for whatever cheese you have to hand. Feta is a particular favourite!

Courgette Frittata

serves 2 – 3

• 2 – 3 medium courgettes, sliced
• 6 large eggs
• 50g parmesan, grated
• olive oil

Gently fry the courgettes in a little olive oil until soft and golden. Beat the eggs and stir in the parmesan. Add the cooked courgettes and stir gently. Turn the heat right down then pour the frittata mixture back into the frying pan. Cook gently, running a spatular or similar around the edge every now and again to prevent sticking and give a nice rounded edge. The cooking time depends a lot on the size of pan your using but the friattata is ready when all the egg is set. If necessary, you can speed things up a little by finishing off under a medium grill. I usually serve this with salad and lots of crusty bread. It’s also tasty served cold.

One final and very simple idea is to roast the courgettes along with some other summer vegetables. This is my basic recipe but again, it can easily be adapted to whatever herbs and veg you have handy.

Oven Roasted Vegetables

serves 4 as an accompaniment

• 1 red onion, cut into wedges
• 2 red peppers, cut into chunks
• 2 – 3 small courgettes
• 4 tomatoes, quartered
• a few fresh rosemary sprigs
• olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200C / Gas Mark 6. Place chopped vegetables in a large shallow tray and pour over olive oil. Mix well then tuck in a few sprigs of rosemary amongst the vegeatbles. Season with salt and pepper and bake for approximately 35 minutes or until vegetable are starting to char a little around the edges. This goes really well with lamb and, if you’re using chops or cutlets, you can nestle them in amongst the veg and cook the whole lot together.

Fresh from the Garden

I might not be getting any broad beans this year but at least I have…

peas! Sugar Ann Sugar Snaps to be precise. We enjoyed them lightly steamed as part of our dinner last night and they were delicious!

Maybe this gardening lark isn’t all that bad after all…….

Eeek! Broad Bean Woes

A less happy garden-themed post today.

Up until yesterday, I took great delight in how our broad beans were coming along. They were probably the healthiest and happiest looking plants in the garden and then the aphids stuck. Now my plants are looking really quite sorry for themselves….

See how the flowers have shriveled and turned black? They look almost as if they’ve been burnt and drop off if you touch them. Also, a few of the plants that have the shriveled flowers also look ‘rusty’ around the base of the stem….

As I’ve never grown broad beans before, I don’t know if this is normal or not but I’m guessing not. I’m not sure if it’s a result of 

a) the aphids 
b) the fact that, upon discovering the aphids, we sprayed them with some soapy water (it was only slightly soapy and I used ecover so I wouldn’t have thought it would damage the plant)
c) something else entirely……

So, can anyone help? Should I give up hope of getting any broad beans from these plants? I’ve now pinched out the tops of the taller plants in an attempt to deter further blackfly infestations but am I too late? I do have some unaffected plants remaining so if it is fatal, can anyone recommend how to save these ones?

Sorry for all the questions but I’m a desperate woman! 

a colourful first harvest…

Radishes from the garden – destined for tabbouleh for tonight’s dinner – although I couldn’t resist scoffing a couple fresh from the ground with a light sprinkling of sea salt. Delicious!

How does your garden grow…

When we first moved here just over a year ago, the garden had recently been ‘landscaped’ to be one of those gravel-covered ‘low-maintenance’ ones. Not our scene at all! We set about gradually making it productive and last year managed to grow a handful of plants with varying levels of success. This year, we decided to get a bit more serious about our growing and so my husband built a number of raised beds out of old palettes scavenged from a nearby builders yard.

I think having all these wonderful beds went to my head and our growing plans became somewhat ambitious for novice gardeners such as ourselves! Many of the things we’re growing this year are firsts for us – we’ve got the usual runner beans, tomatoes, leeks and carrots – but we’re also attempting to grow cabbages, cauliflowers, courgettes, peas, broad beans, aubergines, radishes and squashes. 


Sadly there have already been some fatalities…..as we don’t have the room or money for a greenhouse, we bought a little plastic-covered growhouse. At the time I thought it was a great solution. However, when I returned home one day to find it had blown half-way across the garden, scattering seed trays and seedlings here and there, I was less enamoured… luckily we were able to salvage some of the plants and I also had some ‘reserves’ inside on the kitchen windowsill. My mum was also able to donate a few seedlings that she had spare so all was not lost. It has put paid to my hope of growing any cucumbers this year though…

As usual, we’re also having problems with the dreaded slugs. Last year we lost about 10 runner bean plants to them. We finally managed to halt the onslaught by using beer traps but this year we’ve opted for slug pellets. In the past I’ve steered clear of pellets but these ones claim to be safe for children, pets and wildlife and suitable for organic gardening. I guess only time will tell how effective they are…

By far the most successful things in the garden at the moment are the broad beans…. …which is good because I adore broad beans. Oh – if you’re wondering why everything has netting over it at the moment, it’s our desperate attempt to stop the neighbourhood’s cats using our raised beds as giant litter trays! So far it’s proved fairly successful but the runner and pea beds (which have no netting) seem to be getting more feline attention as a result…. our solution has been to put down lots of orange peel as I’ve heard this can deter them. It seems to work when it’s dry but when it rains I think it must dampen the citrus scent and the cats quickly revert to their usual antics… still, as a cat-owner and nature lover, I can’t really contemplate using any chemical repellents. I guess we’ll just have to eat plenty more oranges!

Something else that seems to be doing well are our potatoes. We don’t have much space so we’re growing them in big sacks. So far so good….

The strawberries I propagated from runners last year are about to flower…

The runner beans are shooting up….

and my herbs are flourishing…

So…hopefully, in a few months time I’ll have some pictures of lovely homegrown fruit and vegetables to show you! Fingers crossed….

Beetroot and Apple Soup

Inspecting the veg patch today, I found that some of the beetroot were getting ridiculously large. I’d pulled half the crop a few weeks ago and pickled it but today I was in the mood for soup. I looked through my recipe books for a recipe that would be suitable for all three of us (baby included) and one that wouldn’t require a shopping trip. Not having any luck, I decided to invent my own recipe.

Beetroot and Apple Soup

 

Serves 4

6 medium-sized beetroot
2 onions, peeled and sliced
2-3 potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 large bramley apple
olive oil
1 litre vegetable stock or water
1 bay leaf
juice of 1 lemon
creme fraiche
freshly milled black pepper to taste 

Scrub the beetroot and remove the stalks. Grate the beetroot into a large bowl.

Heat a little olive oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion until soft.

Add the beetroot and potato. Peel, core and chop the apple into chunks then add to the pan. Season well with black pepper.

Pour over the stock, add the bay leaf and simmer for approximately half an hour or until the beetroot is soft.

Remove the bay leaf and puree the soup using a handheld blender.

Add the lemon juice and stir well. Serve in warmed bowls with a generous blob of creme fraiche. 

 

And the verdict……..

A resounding success! The soup had quite a complex taste – earthy but also refreshingly sharp. The apple and lemon countered the sweetness of the beetroot to just the right degree. I only wish I’d made more! I’ll definitely be making this again and, yes, the baby is eating her dinner with no clothes on – it seemed the only sensible way to feed her beetroot!

Beans, beans and more beans….

We’ve had something of a bumper crop of runner beans this year and they’re still going strong. I’ve served them as an accompaniment to most of our meals, have thrown handfuls into whatever casserole or pasta dish I happen to be cooking and have filled the freezer with them. On the weekend, desperate for something new to try, I made this:

Its runner bean pickle made using a recipe from the WI book of Jams, Pickles and Chutneys by Midge Thomas and is a lovely, simple recipe which made two 0.5l kilner jars of pickle. Obviously, I haven’t tasted the matured pickle yet, but even straight from the pan is tasted pretty darn good! If you don’t have the book, however, you might want to try this recipe for Spiced Runner Bean Pickle instead. Oh, and if anyone has some inspired ideas about what to do with lots of runner beans, do let me know!