Courgettes like triffids - help! Recipes please, advice on freezing.....

[liath]

I am being over-run! I love courgettes but the kids won't eat them. I was thinking of grating them and freezing them in bags to add to stuff like cottage pie. Will they freeze like that do you reckon? And any good recipes gratefully received.......

My courgettes are flowering but not fruiting, so I'm the opposite boat.

When/if my plants DO produce, I'm going to make delicious Courgette & Rosemary soup.

Feeds about six

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
3 large-ish courgettes, chopped
2 handfuls fresh rosemary
Stock

Fry onion and garlic v gently in olive oil (add a bit of butter and/or white wine if you want it extra naughty but nice.)
When translucent, add courgette and rosemary, and cook until courgettes have softened.
Add stock and simmer
Whizz up

The other thing I do is add grated courgette to spaghetti as a weight-watching trick. It bulks up the spag and feels like you've got a massive portion! And the kids won't notice it.

I chuck 2/3 courgettes in my bolognaise sauce, once it's pureed up you can't tell what veggies are in it! Both my boys love it.

3 onions
4 large cloves garlic
3/4 red/ yellow bell peppers
2/3 courgettes
2 tins chopped tomatoes
veg or chicken stock

Chop it all up, sweat off onions, add pressed garlic, add courgettes, then peppers, then tinned toms and a pint or so of good stock.

Once it's cooked down (about 45 mins) blend it up and chuck in your meatballs and serve with pasta/ spaghetti.

Enjoy

Thanks! Those look great.

have the same problem here! I make courgette cake (a la nigella), courgette souffle and do the same as Rioja and DC/DH will eat all those receipes but it has to be hidden otherwise it will end all up on my plate.

Looks like we have an avalanche of beans coming as well plus loads of rocket & swiss chard

I have two teeny courgettes that are too small to even call cornichons.

pickie, I think there'll be an avalanche of beans here too. Makes up for having had about 5 peas so far... I am so excited, I've never grown veg before .

Courgette cake sounds good. I've a recipe for courgette & chocolate muffins but dd now spots the "green bits" and refuses to eat them. Ruddy kids.

same here, first year and Dh made 2 really nice raised beds and so far nearly everything I planted has taken (grown all from seeds)other then cucumbers and chili peppers. But we have loads of chard, beans, rocket, lettuces coming up and hopefully later this summer loads of tomatoes, butternut squashes and sweetcorn. Also have loads of parsnips but not sure when to harvest them as they say after the 1st frost!

Sounds fab .

Hope the weather perks up a bit, though. Could do with a long spell of warmth to ripen my toms.

Roasted veg:
cut ito chunks any assortment of courgette, onion, aubergine, carrot, sweet potato, ordinary potato, squash etc. Place in roasting tin, add garlic and olive oil. Roast in oven. Easy to do and good with barbequed food, sits in oven until you're ready for it.

You can also tip in a tin of chopped plum tomatoes halfway through cooking, they reduce down to almost a puree sauce, like a sort of ratatouille. Add mediterranean herbs if liked, thyme, rosemary, basil. Or use home grown toms.

We are inundated with courgettes too.I am eating a chocolate courgette cake at this very minute.

I freeze them by slicing them up first & find it works very well.Have also made quiches with them,soup,fried them after dipping them in a spicy batter,roasted them and eaten them raw in salads.As soon as the tomatoes ripen,I'll be making ratatouille.

LOL. I knew this would be you liath!

I used to grow them when we had a big garden, but I only had two plants so didn't get over run. I don't remember doing anything with them other than eating them as veg, so sorry don't have any tips.

I do have a lovely green tomato chutney recipe though, which you will probably need given the weather we've had.

Stuff them? Slice them in half lengthways and scoop out the middle bit to make a channel, then fill them with bolognese sauce or tomato sauce and bake in the oven.

add some couscous to girlywhirly's roasted veg recipe, and then stir in some fresh pesto. can use up/cheer up endless amounts of veg. lovely with grilled chicken

Fry courgettes and chorizo in a pan and add tinned chopped tomatoes and then some herbs and tabasco as a pasta sauce.

Is yummy and quick and easy.

I stupidly grew about 10 plants this year and I am now in a kind of denial about how many courgettes I need to deal with NOW and FAST!! Courgette cake is down on my list for today. Then I guess I'll have to start the pickling again - I'm thinking of making lots of curry courgette chutney this year, to be used as a base for a sauce.

The courgette and feta fritters from the Hairy Bikers Cookbook are absolutely delicious and a big hit with vegetarian friends - makes quite a posh lunch!
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/courgetteandfetafrit_81427.shtml

Here's a really easy pasta recipe you could try:

Cook some penne pasta, and three minutes before it's ready, throw in some courgettes that have been chopped up so they're the same size as the penne. Drain when the pasta is tender, and save a little of the cooking water.

Gently fry some garlic and chilli, toss into the pasta/courgettes, then add some crumbled feta cheese, fresh basil, a couple of ripe tomatoes that have been diced, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Add a little of the cooking water if it all looks a bit dry. Season well.

courgette and parmesan soup is lovely - I used the recipe off the BBC food website. I added an onion as well just for a bit extra flavour. It can't have been that bad as someone at hubby's work asked where he bought it from!

My courgettes are now marrows. I am just about to put some of them outside the front gate with a "please help yourself" sign, like I do every year. When will I learn that two courgette plants would probably be enough.

Brie and courgette soup ? it's fab!!! It's pureed so the kids won't know what's in it.

Here's a recipe.

chopped courgette in a spaghetti carbonara is also delicious.

lots of ideas here

Courgette cake? Bit like carrot cake, kids would like it and it freezes well (without filling or icing.)

Adapted from the recipe in Nigella's How To Be A Domestic Godess.

This will make two 8? layer cakes to be filled and iced but you can just make it plain in loaf tins as a kind of plain cake for tea and lunch boxes too. Line cake tins with baking parchment.

Cake:
180g golden raisins
750g courgettes
6 large eggs
375 ml vegetable oil
450g caster sugar
675g self-raising flour
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda ¾ tsp baking powder

Soak raisins. Wipe courgettes and grate without peeling. Sieve to remove excess water. Cream oil and sugar and add eggs one at a time. Add flour, bicarbonate, baking powder and beat. Stir in the courgette & raisins. Pour the mixture into two sandwich tins and bake Gas mark 4, 180 degrees C for 30 minutes.

Filling: Lime curd: Makes 350 ml jar
75g unsalted butter 3 large eggs
75g caster sugar 125ml lime juice (approx. 4)
Zest of limes

Melt the butter in heavy-based saucepan, add all other ingredients & whisk to a custard over gentle heat. Let cool before filling jar, or cake. Keep in the fridge.

Icing: for one cake:
200g cream cheese 100g icing sugar
Juice of 1 lime zest of l lime to decorate
2-3 tbsp chopped pistachio nuts, optional.

Beat the cheese until smooth; add the sugar, then the lime juice to taste.

Why do the Amish lock their cars in the summer?
so their friends won't give them any more courgettes.

IME if you are successful with your courgettes it is physically impossible to eat them all. Give away as many as you can. They make excellent compost (slice them in half first), and are fun to write dc's name on when tiny then let them grow into marrows and dc's name will be huge. You can make marrow + berry jam (wartime recipe - nobody over the age of 60 will touch it). they freeze well - in the sense that you can hide them in teh freezer then throw them to defrost on the compost heap in december when you need space for the turkey.

Jamie has some nice recipes in his current book but for your sanity and your marriage do NOT expect to eat them all!