courgette glut what to do with them all

[mothersmilk]

iv just taken 8 courgettes out of the garden im over run what on earth can i do with them apart from the obvious

Try this as a hefty main course salad or side dish:

Toast some pine nuts lightly in a pan then add oil and fry a chopped onion. Once starting to soften, add thinly sliced courgettes, chilli flakes (to taste), zest of a lemon, and a 1-2 chopped cloves of garlic.

Serve it mixed with couscous to which you can add a lemon dressing - lemon juice, olive oil and a bit of soy sauce (add some chopped coriander or parsley if you like too). If you want it as a main, top with some cooked prawns/slices of roasted/grilled chicken.

An easy quick pasta dish I do is just the courgettes, lemon, chilli and garlic served with spaghetti and a bit of parmesan cheese.

Add diced courgette to pan of pasta 1 min before end of cooking time when making spag carbonara.

Fry sliced in olive oil and add vinaigrette for a salad.

Make quiche with fried slices and strongly flavoured cheese.

Cut out the middle man; put them straight on the compost heap.
Seriously, eat as many as you want, give away what you can, then chuck the spares away. Otherwise, before very long, you won't be able to get into the kitchen.

Cut down the middle , stuff with blue cheese and walnuts, goats cheese and raisins, whatever you fancy. Brush with olive oil and wrap in foil. Bung directly on to the bbq coals and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Courgette soup: Saute onion and courgettes, add stock, whizz, stir in cream cheese (garlic and herb is particularly delicious)

Grate courgettes (squeeze out excess liquid if necessary), fry in butter with garlic

Super quick version: Cut courgettes into rounds, cook in microwave with glug of olive oil and crushed garlic, cooking dish needs to be well sealed so they steam.

I've eaten lovely courgette cake (think recipe is a bit like carrot cake) but never made one: something like this or this

Nigella's Courgette cake is lovely, honest - just don't tell anyone what it is until they've eaten it.

There's a nice courgette & feta fritter recipe in Nigella's Forever Summer book.

I use them a lot to add a bit of variety to green salads. Wash the courgette, top & tail it and then run the veg peeler down the courgette vertically to get thin ribbons. Keep going all round it until you reach the seedy core part and then chuck it.

I sometimes just dress a big bowlful of these ribbons with a lemon vinagrette and some toasted seeds, or you could mix them in with a variety of salad leaves.

Rachel Allen has a recipe for Rigatoni with Courgettes, Lemon and Basil which I made last week - very nice but only uses a couple I'm afraid. It's on her website.

I also use them in curry - onions, chicken, courgettes in chunks, tin of chickpeas, tin of tomatoes and curry paste.

DO NOT PUT ON COMPOST HEAP!!!!

Courgette cake is delicious.... you could blizt it up and use instead of marge in a vicky sponge

Roast them whole in the oven with cheese on?

Nice in baked beans

Give them away...... Just go to someones house with a pile of them. I'd be over the moon!

Dice them and shove them in the back fo the freezer for meaner colder times?

Send them to me!!! My one courgette plant has not yet flowered

Choccypig - like your suggestions!

We too have a glut and I am now getting fed up of eating them.

There are only sooo many courgettes you can eat in a day!!

Am going to make the courgette cake I think and then send it to DH's work.

am just about to go and bake courgette cake - am using jamies carrot cake recipe and substituting

i LOVE courgettes, will also be having them lightly sauteed with spinach and cauliflower cheese for tea

Add them to a veggie curry, lasagne etc.

grate them and add to double choc chip muffins

MIL's courgette bake: Slice and layer courgettes in a dish, wish some pre-fried onion, cheese and tomatoes. Whisk up one egg with a little milk, pour over and bake in the oven. Serve as a side dish to accompany meat (gammon is lovely) or as a veggie alternative to meat.

Pancetta / bacon pre-fried and sprinkled through it is lovely too if making for non veggies.

Ooh, thanks for this thread, you can only eat so much ratatouille.

some other ideas;

courgette & brie soup.

Courgette & bacon & cream pasta sauce.

roasted veg with couscous

TBH I put them in most of the pasta dishes we eat.

I adore courgettes, we eat them all the time.

What about courgette FLOWERS

Anyone got a recipe for some sort of stuffed fried flower as I am sure I have heard about it.

Ratatouille is always yummy served with a crusty baguette.

I love courgettes fried in butter and sprinkled with black pepper.Yum.

I've got an American recipe for zucchini/courgette cheese bread that I really liked. It's from a recipe book produced by a little hotel we stayed in, in Georgia (so American style cup measurements):

4 eggs
Half cup of honey
Quarter cup of butter (melted)
1.4 cups of sour cream
3 cups of grated courgette (not peeled)
4 cups of wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon of salt
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of grated parmasan cheese

Pre-heat oven at 180C, grease 2 x loaf tins

Beat eggs in bowl with honey, butter zand sour cream. Stir in courgette and stir well

Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda in a seperate bowl and add grated cheese, then add dry ingredients to the wet and fold gently.

Bake for 45-55 mins until the loaves are browned and sound hollow when tapped.

Cool and remove from tins after 15 mins

p.s. the recipe is headed "Everyone I know who grows zucchini in the summer needs a new way to use it. This is a lovely savory bread which freezes and is great with soup or salad or toasted"

zanz1bar the only recipe for flowers I know is battered and deep fried. yummy though

I second Nigella's courgette cake - scrummy. I made it the other week and didn't have quite enough courgette so added a bit of carrot to make up the weight. Scrum. And Used just ('just') cream cheese icing inthe middle with a layer of lemon curd instead of hte mounds of icing in the middle and the top that she recommends. Purely for the sake of my children, you understand.

We often do pasta with griddled courgettes, bacon and chilli flakes.

And there is a book called something like 'What shall I do with all these courgettes' - here it is.

at all these courgettes. We have had 3 and at the moment we have about 10 male flowers. From 5 plants.