It’s been a busy fortnight. Book pitches. Meetings. Business plans. Scouting out potential restaurant locations. Press events. Oh, and making 6000 canapés with Dhruv for a hungry City crowd. Read More…
Glut is such a wonderful word. Glut.
Its harsh consonants give it the feel of one of the more abrasive swear words but it also has an inherent softness that makes it warm and cosy – a small cuddle of a word that presents ample opportunity for elaboration.
Glut. Glutton. Gluttony. Gluttonous. Gluttonously.
Words that speak of the decadently indecent.
The garden is, finally, offering up its bounty. Potatoes were dug up a fortnight ago, the maize stems are starting to bulge at the halfway point suggesting that sweetcorn is not far off. The tomatoes are barely threatening to turn from acidic green to sweet red and the courgettes?
The courgettes are taking over.
For each that we pick, two more seem to grow in their place overnight. They are like the mythical Hydra and I am failing in my Herculean task.
As a result we have them lined up in the kitchen, a rag tag bunch of all shapes and sizes. The Usual Suspects as re-imagined by a vegan pacifist.
They’ve made their way into most things. Last night’s lasagne had a layer of them, thinly sliced, in between the ragu, pasta and béchamel. Diced and fried with a little garlic added at the last minute, they make an excellent addition to pasta.
Those that hid deftly under the expansive leaves and transformed into marrows have their insides scooped out and replaced with a tasty filling before being roasted.
I’m well aware that I am not alone. Courgettes seem to be as ubiquitous as Simon Cowell this summer so here is a ten point plan for what to do with them. You might guess that by the end, I was struggling. But that might be because I used up all the good ideas above…
One – Courgette Fries
I first had these crispy little bites of wonder at Italian restaurant l’Anima. Finely sliced and dipped in a light batter, deep fried courgettes are a joy and the perfect vehicle for some rich aioli.
Two – Courgette Bread
Grated and added to a sweetened bread mix in place of – or in addition to – banana, courgette adds a welcome moisture to this cake.
Three – Baked Courgette and Tomato
Layer thinly sliced courgette into a roasting dish, season and cover with a rich tomato sauce. Add another layer of courgette, more sauce and then cover liberally with cheese. Bake for 25 minutes and eat straight from the dish. Plates not necessary.
Four – Chutney
Ah, the forgotten art of preserving. Courgettes are perfect chutney fodder and take on a remarkable range of flavours beautifully, especially warming spices. We have a solitary jar of last year’s ‘Glutney’ left and it’s disappearing fast. most delicious with cheese and cold cuts. There are plenty of recipes out there but this one from HFW is a real winner.
Five – Roasted courgette with pine nuts
Simple, quick and very good with pasta. Slice or dice, dribble with oil, season, throw in a handful of pine nuts and bake. Top with Parmesan and commence nom.
Six – Barbecued Courgettes
Chargrilling courgettes really brings out a depth of flavour that is often lost when they are boiled or steamed (eurgh). Make sure your griddle or barbie is searingly hot so you get those tasty black tiger stripes on thin slices of courgette and serve with a sweet/sour yoghurty dressing.
Seven – Courgette Wine
I have no idea if this is possible but it must be worth a go? Anyone? Hello?
Eight – Doorstep Courgettes
Wait until nightfall. Take one, two or three of your largest courgettes and leave them on the doorsteps of your neighbours. Run. Go to bed happy in the knowledge that you’ve successfully ridded yourself of that particular problem. Until tomorrow and you discover that your neighbours had exactly the same idea.
Nine – Stuffed Courgette Flowers
OK, so this doesn’t really help you with eating your way through the courgette mountain taking over the
kitchen but they are tasty. Stuff the flowers with well seasoned ricotta, dip in batter and deep fry. I cannot recommend these highly enough.
Ten – Courgette Portraits
Take pictures of your courgettes in various different poses and use them to illustrate a piece on what to do with a courgette glut. Realise that you still have nineteen to eat and a further seven peeping through the vegetable patch. Give up and promise not to plant so many next year.
I’m delighted to say that my latest article ‘Doing the Groundwork’ has just been published in the August issue of Home Farmer Magazine. You can buy the magazine at Borders and WH Smith stores nationwide. Alternatively, click here to buy online.
Lunch always used to be a hurried affair. Most days I would wander out of the office and head down to the butcher or fishmonger (unless it was a Monday when both were closed) and see what looked tempting but I would never be more than ten minutes out of the office before I was once again sat in my swivel chair. And I don’t think this is unusual in any way. I know of no-one who takes a full hour, or even half an hour unless they have an ‘excuse’, like having a tooth extraction or undergoing hip replacement surgery. In the UK, at least, the lunch break is something of a misnomer.
Pity the poor French who still have the sacred lunch hour entrenched into their statute books. I expect it is hewn into solid rock, or at least written in indelible ink alongside the one that ensures a thirty-five hour week and instant capitulation in the event of invasion.
Those in Mediterranean Europe don’t fare much worse. Granted, it is rather hot during the midday hours, but there is no doubt in my mind that having a siesta after a lazy lunch is a better way to pass an hour or two than nibbling a sandwich al desko. They may work longer into the night but sacrifices have to be made to enjoy a more sedate pace of life.
So, now that I am no longer shackled to a desk and the sun has returned, lunch time has become a glorious window in the middle of the day. It shifts, tide-like, between the hours of about midday and half past two and often encompasses something from the vegetable patch.
This morning saw me tackling some of the more laborious tasks in the garden. We had neglected it somewhat recently and as a result there was a significant amount of work to do. The pea plants, having been decimated by three nefarious and hungry pigeons, had to be removed. They’d furnished us with no more than a token number of pods which, although sweet and tasty, it won’t be enough to grant them a place in our garden in the future.
In their place I planted some coriander and more beetroot, kale, spring onions and purple broccoli which has also been annihilated by the same pigeons that put paid to the peas. The grass was getting a little out of hand as well so I took the mower to it before heading into the kitchen with an armful of produce from the more productive of the two vegetable patches.
Sitting proudly at the centre of the nest of leaves on the kitchen counter were two shiny courgettes, dark green and still warm from the sun. Food as gloriously fresh as this should be eaten as unadulterated as possible and allowed to sing its own song, not lost amidst a choir of other ingredients and flavours.
Whilst I boiled some pasta, I sweated off half a red onion and some garlic in a generous glug of olive oil. After five minutes, in went the courgette, now roughly diced, and some quarters of cherry tomato. By the time the pasta was cooked al dente, the veg was ready. It was finished off with a few leaves of Greek basil, whose small leaves are packed with the unmistakable taste of basil, a little more chopped garlic and a handful of grated cheese.
I ate it lying on the freshly cut lawn, a fork in one hand and a book in the other, with the sun gently warming the backs of my legs; a world away from a pre-packaged sandwich hastily chewed down in front of a computer screen.
I am new to this gardening lark so the progress of the veggie patch has rendered me awestruck over the past few weeks. The tiny seeds that we planted back in April seemed to take forever to become seedlings and force their way through the earth. I checked them three or four times a day hoping to see a mini shoot parting the softly compacted compost filling the little trays in which we had planted everything. I’ve never been particularly patient so this whole ‘slow-lane’ life was something I would have to get used to, and quickly. If that makes any sense.
Eventually, they began to peep through, each little green shoot seemingly identical – only a series of hastily written labels informing us what was what. By the time they were ready to be planted into the ground, the soil had been warmed by the early May sun and a healthy amount of compost dug into the beds. They suddenly looked small and vulnerable, like they were toddlers about to have their first day at playschool and I wondered whether they would survive the harsh realities of life outside of a plastic greenhouse.
But survive they did and soon it was possible to tell them apart. The peas grew thin pasta like feelers with which to grab onto the bamboo canes we had planted them next to. The kale began to take on a dark purple tinge. The salads started to grow leafy and full, their soft plumes of green filling the bed and offering a seemingly endless supply of tasty lettuce. And the courgettes attempted to undertake some sort of bid for freedom, like some aggressive floral lebensraum.
By my reckoning they are expanding by a couple of square metres every day. They seem to double in size whenever my back is turned, expansive leaves encroaching onto the lawn, hiding the dark green fruits underneath. At this rate they will reach the coast in about a month. Nestled in between the courgettes and the leaves are the familiar pale yellow flowers which are delicious raw in salads as well as stuffed with spinach and ricotta before being deep fried.
But not all of the veggies have been a success. The radishes were, quite frankly, pathetic. Visually, they were amusing – a rag tag collection of Laurel and Hardy comedy roots, some swollen and distinctly radish like, others pathetically thin and whispy as if they had been stretched out of all recognition. The taste was disappointing too. I like a radish to have a bit of bite. I want to know about it when I pop one in my mouth. It should clear your sinuses, send a rush of pain up your nose and leave your eyes watering as if someone has just scraped your retina with a scalpel. The full frontal facial assault I was expecting did not materialise. it was more of a tickle than a barrage. Although the leaves, when tossed in a sharp vinaigrette, do make a pleasant enough salad.
But this is just part of the learning process, merely the beginning and there are plenty more where they came from. Luridly coloured rainbow chard, beetroot, potatoes, broad beans, butternut squash and purple broccoli are still yet to offer up their wares. Little red fruits are appearing on the cherry tree in the front garden and the herbs, sitting happily in small pots, send the occasional wave of fragrance towards the open kitchen door. This is summer.
There are two minor problems facing those who grow their own. The first is the issue that presents itself when faced with a glut. A failure to plan correctly can often leave the hapless gardener with a plethora of peas or a surfeit of strawberries which must then be eaten with every meal resulting in palate fatigue or preserved in some way.
This is where pickling, freezing, jamming, smoking, salting and the like come in to their own and allow us to enjoy the fruits (or vegetables, for that matter) of our labour during the months when they are out of season. The second problem that we are discovering is how to look after ones plants whilst you are away for any length of time. After the many hours of care lavished upon them during their short existence, the prospect of returning from holiday to find a parched vegetable garden with the dried and rotting remains of what once were lush, green plants is somewhat depressing. I know that there are intricate irrigation systems involving timers and piping but sadly our budget barely stretches to buying seeds so that was out. I also know that it is possible to ask neighbours, but having only recently moved to the area we felt it would be a little presumptive to begin a conversation with the words: ‘lovely to meet you, would you mind awfully watering our vegetable patch twice a day whilst we swan off around a distant European capital city. Thanks.’
As a result we were left with the unproven ‘soak and hope’ strategy for the vegetables that are yet to grace us with produce and the slightly less risky ‘use as much as possible’ strategy for the plants that were currently edible and would fail to survive four days of enforced neglect. Fortunately, this amounted to little more than the rocket, which, after a slow start had grown with a fervent vigour normally only seen with unwelcome and tenacious weeds. There was too much to make a simple salad and so we drew inspiration from a great Italian deli called Limoncello in Cambridge where they stock a tasty selection of pesto.
The plants yielded enough tasty green leaves for four or five generous handfuls which would hopefully make a happy bowlful of fresh green pesto to be dipped into and poured generously over pasta and pizzas for the next couple of days. In addition I grabbed a small handful of Greek basil from a plant that sits on our windowsill (the harsh East Anglian climate appears to be too fickle for the plant to survive outside) to add a hint of that classic taste. Since my first pesto making experience (which can be found here), I’ve insisted that the best way to do it is by hand – so I set to work turning the pile of leaves into a finely chopped mass of deliciousness.
Once the rocket and basil were sufficiently decimated and the pile rendered down to about a tenth of its original size I added two cloves of garlic and a scant handful of pine nuts before getting to work with the knife again. By the time they had been incorporated, my wrist was beginning to feel the strain and a deep burn was manifesting itself at the base of my thumb, I guessed that this was a good sign and that it was now time for the parmesan which was grated over in fine, gentle curls – melting into the mass with a soft enthusiasm.
With a pesto, the olive oil acts like a glue, bringing the disparate components together as well as adding a tone of its own. It is like a mutual friend at an awkward party that manages to bring out the best in each of the guests, whose presence contributes more than it should. It allows the pesto to transcend its ingredients and take on a completely new characteristic. In short, it is essential and once added, the resultant sauce was a total success: subtle enough to be eaten solely with fresh bread but punchy enough to be stirred into fresh pasta or fried mushrooms at the last minute and served on toasted sourdough which is how I had it for lunch the following day. Definitely one to try again.
I'm Alex Rushmer: writer, chef and Masterchef 2010 finalist. Welcome to my little corner of the Web. Why not get a cup of tea, snuggle down and make yourself at home?
