The Cottage Smallholder


stumbling self sufficiency in a small space

Courgette glut

courgettes, sweet peas and eggs“Is this from the same plant as that one.”
Danny held up the small courgette and its older brother that I had overlooked and was travelling rapidly towards becoming a marrow. He weighed the two in his hands and glanced at me.
“I think that we are on the brink of a glut.”
The trug had never been weighed down with courgettes before. So initially tiny hands clapped with glee.

The chicken poo enriched compost had worked like a dream.

Yesterday I was wondering what we could do with them all. They lay in a long tranche in the coolest part the kitchen. Green, crisp and delicious and willing us to eat them.

Home grown courgettes, like cucumbers, taste delicious. They’re completely different to the commercially grown ones. In fact they taste so different that you might think that they were a new super veg. We don’t like woolly, commercially grown courgettes normally but we love eating ours and growing them can be fun too.

There’s a tempting recipe on Joanna’s food for a raw courgette lemony salad with pine nuts that I spotted last year. We couldn’t try it as the stems of our courgette plants rotted in last summer’s rain. Now I’m tempted to make Joanna’s recipe with the smaller ultra fresh courgettes from one of our giant specimens.

“We can stuff the bigger courgettes. Like the ones that we loved in Italy. Nothing will go to waste. You never know, we might be able to make courgette wine.”

I ventured onto the popular allotment forum looking for a wine recipe. Suddenly we don’t have a glut anymore. And there were also loads of good ideas for non wine drinking courgette glut victims.


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19 Comments

  1. plumsource

    Hi Fiona

    Thanks v much for the link to Joannas lemony courgette salad. What a revelation – yummy!

  2. Hello Fiona

    Just came across this as I was randomly clicking on links from one thing to another and thought of your cry for something to do with courgettes. But thinking about it, maybe you don’t do cakes, do you?

    http://simmertilldone.com/2008/08/21/zucchini-ginger-bread-the-living-end/

  3. Hello Fiona

    Your mum is much more technologically advanced than mine, she can just about read a text but not send one! Perhaps that is why my mum is such a wizz with an Aga, no buttons anywhere. I just made the beetroot salad again today for lunch along with a salami and grated courgette fritatta. It’s very simple.

    Coarsely grate very fresh raw peeled beetroot and add it to a dressing made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper and garlic – I just slosh the dressing ingredients into the bowl and mix them up with a spoon before adding the grated beets. Toast sesame seeds in a hot dry pan, chuck them on the dressed beets (I love the way they sizzle when they hit the dressing) and mix to spread them through the salad. You can make this with grated carrot instead of beetroot too. The garlic is best if it is very smooth. I have one of those little dishes you often find at continental markets with the ridges in the base that you just rub the clove of garlic over and it makes a paste. Alternatively you can chop it fine and then add the salt to the garlic on the board and use the side of the knife to squash it into a paste.

    I had both these salads at my French friend’s house. Enjoy!

  4. Fiona Nevile

    Hi Pamela

    What a shame. Sometime websites just are not available. My mum reads the Cottage Smallholder site from her mobile phone and quite often she gets the ‘website not available’ message. Connections just misfire every now and then, I guess.

    Your comment might have got lost in the spam filter. Apologies again.

    Meanwhile the beetroot and sesame seed salad sound tantalising. Any chance of the recipe?

  5. Hi Fiona

    By the time I got home from the bbq the link was working but I had tried all sorts of searches earlier in the day to find the recipe and couldn’t open up any of them so I’m not sure what was going on there. I also thought I had posted a reply to Danny a few days ago but maybe not as it definitely isn’t listed here! I made my raw beetroot salad with toasted sesame seeds instead which all disappeared very quickly.

  6. Fiona Nevile

    Hi FactoBrunt

    I whistled onto your site and found a recipe for courgette cake. Thanks for the nudge!

    Hi Pamela

    I try not to post other peoples recipes, unless I™ve got a new twist. The link seems to be up and running now.

    Hi Stephanie in AR

    Yes these are zucchini. Great idea, thank you.

    Hello Natasha

    I™d love the recipe. We are eating courgettes every day in some form or another. Home grown are a world apart.

    Hello Joanna

    Have a great holiday!

    I™m loving our glut! Courgettes can be chopped and grated into so many dishes and they are really fresh. Now the runner beans are ready I™m in heaven.

    Hello Deccie

    I tried it and am now planning to grow even more plants next year!

    Hi Casalba

    Thank you so much for these recipe ideas “ love the idea of celery in the first one and using the same sauce in the next one. Perfect.

    Hi Rachel

    Tomorrow I™m planning to try a cake as I have an unexpected free couple of hours!

    Hi David

    Great idea looking for zucchini recipes. Thanks for the suggestion!

    Hi Plumsource

    Cakes, muffins and jam. Heaven. We have just got back into buying biscuits so cakes and jam are the next step into a life that needs a lot more exercise than we are taking at the moment!
    Hi Alisha

    This is a good link to great widgets for bloggers. Thank you.

    Hello Mark

    Must try this one. I love carbonara. Thanks.

  7. mark vincent se london

    All good my one is courgette carbonara 6 green and yellow courgettes add to any carbonara recipe its wicked.

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    I’m Alisha from Wowzio, and I’m excited to tell you about our new widget platform that helps bloggers increase readership and create more engaged users.
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  9. plumsource

    I have just made an enormous nigella style courgette cake and 42 courgette muffins! Think I overdid it on the quantities somewhat but with the lime curd and lime icing – yummmmm! Also seen this jam recipe which I’m thinking of trying
    http://www.sharedgarden.co.uk/recipes/marrowjam.html

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