Recipes

The trusty courgette

Summer is here, the skies are blue and the temperature is currently soaring to the mid 30s. We have had plenty of rain so the gardens and fields remain green and my courgettes are unstoppable – for now. The downside of the perfect garden weather is that it is also perfect mosquito weather. So this year we have all embraced mosquito repellent! A nuisance but from a positive point of view, the fruit trees are currently laden, so much so that our wild plums and quince are bent to the ground with the weight of all their produce. I really should lighten their load, but am rather looking forward to lots of fruit for jams, chutneys and the freezer, to enjoy in winter months. In a recent storm, one of the wild plums conceded defeat and a large branch has sadly split. The plums appear to be ripening anyway so more preserving to come.

I realise that I have hardly written about food and the seasons this year. Where has time gone? Here we are mid-July already. The markets are brimming over with more summery produce – peaches, apricots, nectarines, and the last of the cherries. Tomatoes are arriving in their crate loads, green, red, yellow and black, large and small, oval and round and some huge. All juicy and full of flavour. Bunches of basil sit in jugs on market stalls, their aroma filling the air, conjuring images of tomato, mozzarella and basil salads. Fat salad onions sit in their shimmering purple bundles, waiting to be chopped into anything from salads and couscous to omelettes and tarts. Aubergines, white and shades of purple, large and small, are now from down the road rather than from Spain, so we can buy more local produce with less food miles.  Peppers in assorted colours jostle for space with vast quantities of courgettes – yellow, pale and dark green, round or long.

Our potager is also offering up lots of courgettes so this is a big feature on the current menu here. I have been making vegetarian and vegan moussaka recently, filled with courgettes and aubergines, using lentils to make the ragu rather than mince, not exactly authentic to the Greek recipe but pretty good. Our supermarket now stocks vegan feta – a surprisingly authentic taste, not quite the same but a very good alternative. It is made from coconut oil so melts very quickly in cooking but still gives a lovely flavour. I have been adding that to the vegan moussaka – a further departure from true Greek moussaka but delicious nonetheless. Courgette brownies have also made a reappearance – so light and yummy (see post Seasonal Food and Recipes: August 2021 for the recipe).

Always one to try and find new recipes to deal with a glut of particular vegetable or fruit, I have adapted my trusty tomato tart to make it a bit more exciting. Everyone was getting a bit bored with the same thing, easy and tasty as it was. This version has now become my new quick fix for a light meal this summer. A round of puff pastry is filled with pesto, cream cheese, courgettes, roasted red peppers, a few tomatoes and goat’s cheese or feta to form a ring of delicious-ness! I have made both vegetarian and vegan versions changing the ingredients depending on what we have. You could, of course, include ham, lardons, or smoked salmon to un-vegetarian it!

Summer puff pastry ring

Ingredients

1 pack ready rolled puff pastry (round or rectangular – the instructions are for round)

1 jar basil pesto or sundried tomato pesto (or vegan option)

1 courgette, sliced – green or yellow or a mixture.

1 goat’s cheese log, sliced (or some feta cubed) (or vegan equivalent)

Herby or peppery cream cheese, such as Boursin, or a vegan equivalent

Roasted peppers, chopped

Tomatoes, sliced

Olives, stones removed and halved

Olive oil

Salt, pepper and herbs – I often use rosemary

Sesame seeds or pine nuts to sprinkle on pastry round (optional)

Method

1: Place the pastry round on baking parchment on a baking tray

2: Place a small bowl in the middle and press down lightly to create an indent, remove bowl.

3: Spread the circle outside the indent with a good layer of pesto, leaving about a 2cm gap at the outer edge

4: Top this with a layer of cream cheese if you wish

5: On top of this arrange slices of courgette, goat’s cheese, pepper, tomato and olive or whatever filling you choose.

6: Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with fresh or dried herbs. Rosemary works very well.

7: Section the indent in the centre to create triangle flaps for folding over the filling

8: Loosely fold in the outer edge of the pastry over the filling, then fold the triangles over from the centre on top of this, to form a ring.

9: Brush the pastry and filling with olive oil

I sometimes add a sprinkling of sesame seeds at this stage, or some grated parmesan or other cheese, but this is optional.

10: Cook in a preheated oven at 200°C/Gas 6 (180°C for fan ovens) for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve hot or cold with salad.

Ideas: You could add lightly griddled aubergine slices, pine nuts instead of sesame seeds, some finely chopped salad onion, chopped sun-dried tomato and experiment with different herbs and seasonings.

Let me know how you get on.

For me it is back to labelling – a batch of white figs from my neighbour has now been made into chutney and a rather nice Fig tart, as well as some being frozen whole for future use.

Happy cooking.

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