Every year the glut of courgettes hits me with a bang.
I always know I’ll have lots (each season I religiously plant four seedlings) and there’s always too many, but for some reason I can’t cut back!
To try and tackle the mountain of courgettes that is starting to build, I decided that this year I would try lots of new and different recipes to make the most of this wonderfully seasonal vegetable.
I recently put a call out for courgette recipes and received lots of inspiring ideas including courgette fritters, cake, chutney, quiche, risotto, courgetti, omelette and wine.
Before yesterday, I’d used the first few courgettes to accompany main dishes, simply steaming them and then steeping them in butter and pepper. Yesterday, I started my gallop through the new recipes by trying a courgette lemon drizzle cake as suggested by Hempnall Village Bakery.
It was deliciously fresh and zingy and used a whole courgette, a great way to start getting through the glut.
Here is the recipe…
Courgette Lemon Drizzle Cake
Ingredients
- 200 g grated courgette
- 125 g melted butter
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 egg beaten
- Zest and juice of half a lemon
- 200 g plain flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder mixed with bicarbonate of soda
For the drizzle
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 25 g caster sugar
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 150 fan
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Line a loaf tin with silicone paper
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Combine the courgettes, butter, sugar, egg and lemon zest and juice.
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Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder mixture and mix well.
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Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 50-55 minutes until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.
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Leave to cool in the tin.
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Boil the lemon juice and sugar to create a syrup and pour over the cooling cake.
That sounds brilliant. Will have a go. I’ve just made a courgette lasagne. Cheesy bechemel sauce. Pasta sheets and sauteed courgettes, fresh sliced toms and mushrooms. Made and ready for dinner tomorrow. From the book by Elaine Borish, “what will I do with all those courgettes”. Page 103. I made this in 2016 and my notes say Better than Delias! For anyone with this book, I would recommend that you put the cheese in the sauce rather than what the recipe says. I also made Chilli sin carne p 107. Also amazing. Also page 3 zucchini potato soup. V. Good.
I love this comment, thank you for all the top tips! My wonderful cousin has sent me that book so I’ll give them a go, the lasagne sounds delicious…
Let me know what you do and like. I have just made a huge pan of soup for winter with all the veggies that are getting away from us, courgettes, caulis (l have found that if you sow F1 caulies they all come ready together, same size, almost, same shape, almost and they dont keep very well. So this week I have picked four huge, supermarke sized caulies, they are in the soup with four F1 broccoli heads and all the spare courgettes, some wonky onions french beans and harissa. We will have enough soup for most of the winter.
AMAZING! And you freeze it? I’ve tried growing cauliflowers for the first time this year but they are a long way off harvest yet…
Yes we freeze it in 500 ml containers for our flasks. It is delicious. My only advice on caulies is make sure they are watered regularly. Otherwise they blow. We have extreme heat in the UK at the moment and quite a few of our allotment holders are having problems with their cauliflower. Regular watering has made a difference with ours, also our broccoli has been brilliant i have photos on my Instagram catcosmos63
Sorry Kate only just seen this comment about your white fly. Touch wood I have never had this problem so can’t advise you. But we have a mole problem and we can’t catch the b***er it has been through the whole cauli, broccoli and cabbage bed. Not good. We have two traps down but it is a really clever little mole. Any suggestions.
I think in Norfolk you are even drier than we are. We had a weeks holiday in Suffolk two weeks ago and were amazed how dry it was. We have had a couple of showers recently but nothing to make a difference
We’ve had no rain for nearly two months, it’s pretty dire now.
The cauliflowers are watered every day, they are suffering more from white fly than anything else, do you have tips for these critters?! Today we’re already close to 30 degrees and it looks set to continue.
I think what I needed to do was net the plants as soon as they were planted! We’ve had moles too and I think one has met its demise in one of the raised beds. We’ve used traps where we can and have been successful, but new ones seem to appear within days…maybe the problem this year has something to do with the extreme weather?
Got the mole and he was huge! 🙂 dont like killing wildlife but this was necessary.