Tuesday 12 August 2014

Cooking with courgettes (zucchini)

Last week, I was kindly given a large courgette or maybe it was a marrow from our neighbour's garden before they left on holiday. A couple of days later my veg box came with courgettes in it and the same day, a friend came over for dinner and brought (among other things) some courgettes from her father's allotment. So we had a lot of courgettes (zucchini) in the house!

My husband and I quite like courgettes but they are not our favourite vegetable. My children will eat them if they are grated but are not huge fans of them overall. It was time to get creative and think of some ways to use them up!

I regularly make these savoury muffins, courgette mozzarella muffins so I made a batch of those and froze half. My children enjoy them for lunch with some salad bits on the side. One evening I made a courgette risotto for the children (admittedly, only one of them liked it!) and for my husband and I, this wild fried rice dish using diced courgette.

After asking for suggestions on Twitter, someone told me to google, 'savoury marrow bake'. I did and found this recipe, which sounded a bit different so I gave it a try. We had some for lunch and it went down well with the children. Again, I froze half.

I know I can always use some in a rice bake, which the whole family really likes. I also plan on making a melanzane parmigiana, substituting the aubergines (eggplant) for courgettes. Sometimes I stuff them with a bit of cooked rice, finely chopped onion, red pepper, mushroom and topped with cheese. We love these cheesy courgette and carrot balls and I tried these courgette and feta fritters recently, which the adults liked!

In the event you too face a glut of courgettes, I hope this post gives you some ideas of what to do with them. What do you make with courgettes? It would be great to have some more ideas from you in the comments.
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photo credit

2 comments:

  1. Courgette and parmesan soup is very tasty!

    Just stumbled across your site - any chance you could update your 'about' page? - sounds like life has moved on a bit and I'd like to know how old your older 2 are now! Mine are 4 and 7.

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    Replies
    1. I like the sound of the soup and especially as the temperature has cooled off a fair bit here now!

      Thanks for the reminder about updating my 'about' page. I will get straight to it! Not quite worked out who you are....;-)

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