This is what happens when you sleep...

Your courgettes get bored and decide to impersonate marrows!

The main reason I grow courgettes is for their flowers.  One of the biggest treats for me are courgette flowers stuffed with a lemony, ricotta, chilli and parmesan cream, dipped in tempura batter and fried, served with plenty of maldon salt and lemon juice.

Each year when I am sowing the seeds I worry nothing will happen and I will be left flowerless, as a result I always end up with too many courgette plants = too many courgettes to get through = courgettes mutating into marrow like forms the size of a toddlers leg.

Our favourite way to get through the courgette glut at the moment is to give them away!  However when we can't foist them onto unsuspecting visitors grating them and mixing with pasta and some sort of eggs sauce  is lovely and quick.  Courgette Carbonara  & Trout & Courgette Linguine

What to do with these that would help to disguise the fact I had been negligent.

Bung one in a cake.

I remembered seeing a recipe on The Butcher, The Baker  and to be honest I can not remember whether I originally did get round to making it or not.  Anyway I had all the ingredients in, other than pistachios, the only nuts I had were plain cashews so they had to suffice.

Courgette & Pistachio Cake

140ml vegetable oil or rapeseed oil, plus extra for greasing - I used groundnut oil
2 eggs
200g muscovado sugar
300g grated courgettes - even then it didn't use up a whole one
100g raisins - mine were a bit old looking so soaked them in some rum
70g unsalted pistachios, chopped (optional) - cashews for us
180g self-raising flour
tiny pinch of salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg or mace
½ tsp mixed spice

Preheat oven to 150°c. Line 2lb cake tin with liners or lightly grease

In a large bowl beat the egg, then add the oil, sugar, courgette and pistachios. Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix until well combined

Fill the tin with the cake mix. Bake for 75 min, or until cake is risen and cooked through.

Jules ices with Lime Cheesecake icing, however as MrP gets some form of cake each week to see him though the working week, icing is only for special occasions in our house:-

 

50g cream cheese, chilled (full fat works best)
50g butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g icing sugar, sifted
1 lime, zest only

Beat together the cream cheese, vanilla, lime zest and butter then gradually add the icing sugar. The icing sugar will stiffen the icing the more you put in, but taste as you go along to make sure you don’t make it too sweet. Once the icing is ready, spread onto cake and leave for a few hours for the icing to harden slightly.

And obviously her photographic skills are much better than mine!

My over enthusiastic courgette plants.  It's no wonder they can sneak up to the size they do!













The runner beans getting ready.  I was late planting them this year so they aren't as high as they could be.

In fact I was late or completely amiss with veg planting this year.  Wedding planning does tend to take over things no matter how determined you are not to let it.

This weekend I am intending to sow some pak choi, fennel and have a sort through the other seed packets to see what might stand a chance this late in the year.





This was my little haul from the weekend.  Carrots, including some random purple ones.  Courgettes of a more manageable size.  Peas and broad beans.