I'm overrun with courgettes (just picked 18 from the allotment !!!!) and desperately need some ideas of what to do with them.

Two will be used in a courgette quiche, so just another 16 to deal with :D anyone made courgette jam / chutney ? (and what is it like ?)

I've grated courgette into spag bol before now - it adds bulk and fibre but is pretty much unidentifiable in the finished dish.

My friend who I lived with used to grow them - we sooo looked forward to having them every single night for months. Not!

we use them a lot in tomato sauces for pizzas

Slice them and put them on kebab sticks with some marinated meat and other veg. Or blend them into tomatos for a pasta / spag bol sauce.

You can also use them to replace the carrot in carrot cake add the zest of an orange and some ginger to liven things up.
courgette strips can be lightly sauteed in a mix of oil and butter and served as a side dish.
A quick way to cook them is to slice them into rings and then sprinkle with salt, put a knob of butter and some oil into a dish and microwave for 30 seconds, add the courgettes, stir and add some garlic granules, microwave for about 5 mins on full then stir and microwave again.

You can also batter and deep fry the strips use a tempura batter made with cold fizzy mineral water.
You can fill the flowers with a herby cream cheese mixture, batter and deep fry as well.

They're also nice in mixed pickles in vinegar, piccallilli or added to a chutney

and dont forget to blanch and freeze some for the autumn/winter

and dont forget to blanch and freeze some for the autumn/winter

Thank God my mate never did that - I couldn't have coped with having to eat the dreadful things all year round

Thank God my mate never did that - I couldn't have coped with having to eat the dreadful things all year round

We usually end up feeling like this after a couple of weeks ! Thanks for the suggestions ... I'm four down now :D

I love courgettes,so have read this thread with interest.

Chorizo wrapped king prawns, and courgette, lightly brushed in sweet chilli sauce and grilled.

:)

I add it to fish pie, cut into small cubes and fried in a bit in olive oil (but not for too long, its nice with a bit of 'crunch' left) before adding to rest of normal fish pie stuff.

Slice them into relatively thin strips legthways and sprinkle with sea salt. After twenty minutes squeeze all the water out of them and season them again and add chopped rosemary and fine grated lemon peeland char/ grill them. I tend to always do them this way now as it gives them a more meaty texture.

We used to have an organic veg bag delivered every week and every week it would contain courgettes. I too became fed up with them and resorted to soup to use excess up.

It is really nice if you cut some courgettes and onion up and a peel a couple of cloves of garlic and lightly roast them in the oven in a little olive oil. When cooked tranfer to a pan and simmer with enough veg stock to cover the veggies and a bay leaf or two for about 20 minutes. Then remove the bay leaf and blend the soup, it should be thick but if not you can allow to simmer for longer to reduce down or add a little thickening. Adjust flavour - I usually add pepper and a dash of hendersons but you could add some grated parmesan cheese or herbs if you like.

Nice as it is or with a splosh of cream or sour cream (do not add the cream or sour cream when it is boiling or it could curdle).

Also freezes really well.

This has also been adapted to my 'interesting' cream of green soup as my husband calls it which also includes any extra broccolii or fennel or other green veg which needs using up!

Slice them very thinly and use them to replace a layer of pasta in Lasagne.

I have also used them in place and in addition to aubergine in vegi mousakka

Slice them into relatively thin strips legthways and sprinkle with sea salt. After twenty minutes squeeze all the water out of them and season them again and add chopped rosemary and fine grated lemon peeland char/ grill them. I tend to always do them this way now as it gives them a more meaty texture.

sounds like your cooking aubergine but i suppose it works the same

If you have some big courgettes then you can hollow them out and stuff them.
I use mince/tomato/onion/mushroom mix [basically the same sort of stuff you'd put in the meat layer of a lasagne] but you could use a soya based mix. bake in the oven for 1/2 an hour then top with cheese.

We used to have an organic veg bag delivered every week and every week it would contain courgettes. I too became fed up with them and resorted to soup to use excess up.

Sorry, off topic a bit! How much and what kind of veg do you get in the box Sue? I keep thinking about getting one, but I'm afraid I'll just end up with loads of potatoes! Do you think it's worth it?

We used to get our organic veg from farmaround http://www.farmaroundnorth.co.uk/ however we have since moved to a small village and we have a veg shop, a butchers and a bakers so i try to support the local shops now so no longer use farmaround.

We have had both luxury and standard veg bags from them in the past and also tried the fruit bags - although we didnt find the fruit bags particularly good value.

In both the luxury and standard bags you always get onions and potatoes - but not loads in fact every couple of weeks I orderd and extra 1kg bag of potatoes. You then get a varying selection of different veg depending on the season. You can also register a number of exclusions that you do not want to recieve. In the luxury bags you can get celeriac, artichokes and the more unusual veggies where as the standard is a bit more like cabbage, potatoes, squash etc. We did find that in the summer we got an excess of courgettes and in the winter an excess of Kale (grown a lot by organic farmers because it is so hardy but it isnt the nicest vegie in the world!) If you go on their website and click on this week on the tabs down the left hand side it tells you what is in the bags being delivered this week to give you an idea of what you get.

There are all types of bags you can order maybe give them a ring and ask them if they have a promotion on as you would like to try them out. We got a good offer when we first started getting veg off of them. We used them for about 3 years and I would go back to them again if I ever moved back to a place where the only place I could get stuff easily was the big supermarkets.

oh and they were always pretty flexible, if we were going away and wanted to cancel a delivery or were having guests and we needed more stuff delivered they were usually good at sorting it.

Thanks SueH!

I've grated courgette into spag bol before now - it adds bulk and fibre but is pretty much unidentifiable in the finished dish.

My friend who I lived with used to grow them - we sooo looked forward to having them every single night for months. Not!

I have them chunky in my spag bol cos I love them. - Look up one of BasilRathbon's threads - he has mentioned many veg so I am sure there will be one for the uses of courgette!

I pickled some last year and they're really nice if you like pickled gerkins you'd like courgettes done like this. Just slice into chunky pieces and put into clean jam jar. Last year I covered with malt vinegar but that was a bit strong so this year I'm going to try white vinegar on (which I used with good results on cooked beetroot)