courgette - The Bridge Cottage

Next year, when I’m sowing courgette seeds, will someone please remind me that eight courgette plants are far too many?

The great courgette glut

Someone over on The Bridge Cottage Way Facebook page suggested this week that courgette seeds be sold strictly in packets of three to avoid overplanting. I think they have a point.

We’ve had a few takers for homegrown courgettes and cucumbers from the table outside Bridge Cottage. We are dripping in them and it’s courgettes with everything at the moment.

August Harvest Minestone

We’re making minestrone and ratatouille for the freezer and adding courgettes to risotto and ragu. This week I make a courgette and chocolate traybake cake, which has gone down a treat. Our youngest son usually shuns courgettes but has gone back to his own house today with a box of courgette and chocolate cake tucked under his arm. Another hit was the courgette and cheddar soda loaf from BBC Good Food.

Courgettes are being added to risottos and curries – I love a prawn and courgette curry, and soups are being made to go in the freezer for the winter months. I’ve just shared a photo of courgette, tomato and basil soup bubbling away in the pan over on Twitter (@suereedwrites) and had a request for the recipe, so here it is:

Courgette, Lentil, Tomato and Basil Soup.

Courgette, Tomato, Lentil & Basil Soup

I onion, finely chopped.

1.5 pints veg stock

100 g red lentils

2 courgettes

400g tin chopped tomatoes

handful fresh basil

Gently fry the chopped onion in a tablespoon of olive oil until soft. Add veg stock, tomatoes and lentils, bring to a boil and cook for ten minutes. Add courgettes and chopped basil and cook for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper then blitz to a smooth soup.

Easy peasy! My friend Ann has been making potato, courgette, cheddar and fennel seed soup, so I must give that a whirl! Don’t be afraid to experiment with your soups, and do share your successes on our social media channels. I’ve shared the minestrone recipe in a separate post.

From the goddess of the kitchen, Nigella Lawson’s easy courgette pasta sauce is a family hit, and today I’ve made sweet potato and courgette bhajis for lunch. I thought I’d share the recipe for those with you here. It’s really very simple. I’ve added sweet potato, but you could add grated carrot or any other veg, or keep it simple and just use courgette.

Courgette Bhajis

Courgette Bhajis

serves 4

2 medium courgettes (or 1 courgette and half a sweet potato or small carrot)

1 medium onion

2 tsp each cumin, coriander, turmeric

half tsp chilli powder or half finely chopped chilli (optional)

3 tbsp gram flour

sparkling water to mix

4 tbsp vegetable oil

Courgette Bhajis

Grate the veg and chop the onion. Mix well with the spices and season with salt and pepper. mix in the flour and enough sparkling water to bind it all together – about 4 tbsp.

Heat some vegetable oil in a heavy-based frying pan and fry on each side til golden brown. Drain and serve with seasonal salad.

Other links to recipes mentioned:

Courgette and chocolate cake

Nigella Lawson Pasta with Courgettes

Courgette and Chocolate Cake

Minestrone

Courgette and Cheddar Soda Loaf

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

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You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

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Glastonbury 1985

It’s June 2020 and as I write this, the wind is howling and the rain is lashing down, It’s proper Glastonbury weather. It would have been Glastonbury’s 50th anniversary, but due to Coronavirus, it’s been cancelled. I last went in 1985 – it was a sea of mud, and I can’t remember who I saw. Now I’m happy to leave the thronging crowds to the youngsters, and spend the summer months in the garden.

Mangetout and Broad Bean Tips

June is a busy month in the garden, and welcome crops have been making themselves known in the Bridge Cottage kitchen. We’ve had our first tastes of mangetout, with a fabulous purple variety this year, Mangetout Snow Pea, Purple Shiraz as well as the more usual green variety. In the trug in this photo, you can also see the tops of broad beans which have been pinched out to deter blackfly.

Both mangetout and broad bean tips only need to be steamed for a couple of minutes of added to a stir fry and cooked lightly to be enjoyed.

Garlic bulbs drying under the eaves of the roundhouse

Our garlic crop has been harvested and is now hanging under the eaves of the sauna to dry. It got rust right at the end, but doesn’t seem to have suffered too badly for it. Soon the onions will be following suit – not with rust, but by being harvested.

Organic Comfrey Feed

The black liquid of our organic comfrey feed is starting to drip into the container beneath the compost bucket and this rich feed will now be added to water and be fed to my tomatoes and other fruiting crops. The hanging baskets, dahlias and sunflowers.

Making Organic Comfrey Feed

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

It’s time now to think ahead to the winter and make sure you have winter veg sown. It’s not too late to set seed away for next Spelderflowerring’s Purple Sprouting Broccoli or kale and cabbages for over winter.

Salad crops too can be sown every month to ensure you have a regular supply of lettuces and not a glut all at once, and then a barren time. It’s too hot in the greenhouse now to grow rocket, but we’re having good success with rocket and cut and come again lettuce grown in containers on the patio.

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

The potatoes are growing well and Tim has been earthing these up to allow as many potatoes to grow as possible.

The chard and spinach are both wonderful, and over on The Bridge Cottage Kitchen page, I’ve written out a recipe for using chard. We have kale ready for eating, and I’ll be getting some tonight to go with our Sunday dinner.

It’s strawberry time now, but we have lost our crop to the blackbirds. They were new plants in this year, and we should have thrown a net over them to protect them from the birds. Oh well, the birds are welcome to them. We have plenty to eat with rhubarb still going strong, and the gooseberries ripening nicely.

Gooseberry and elderflower ice cream

I thought I’d better use up the soft fruit that is still in the freezer from last year and made a delicious gooseberry and elderflower ice-cream, which you can try for yourselves.

Talking of elderflowers, now is the time to gather them, not forgetting to thank tree and bough. I’ve made elderflower vinegar, and will be mixing this with olive oil for a delicious summery salad dressing.

Elderflower cordial

Of course, elderflower cordial is a must, and can be frozen in small plastic bottles for use throughout the year. I only take a few blooms from each tree, saving plenty to turn into elderberries, which we’ll come to again in the autumn.

Elderflower recipes

The front of Bridge Cottage is laden with pink roses, and I thank whoever it was who was here before us and planted them. I’ve been drying rose petals to use in herbal teas. Now is a fabulous time to dry herbs, petals and leaves for use in the kitchen and for making tea, and this can see you right through the winter.

Roses on Bridge Cottage

Elderflower and mint tea

See my post over on the Bridge Cottage Kitchen page on using summer herbs for cooking and for teas. In June, I’ve been able to dry mint, lemon balm, sage, elderflower, rose, and rosebay willowherb. I’ve also made a couple of jars of herb salt, which will add delicious seasoning to our cooking.

The big news this June, has been the finishing of the pizza oven, and we’re enjoying lots of alfresco dining. If you’d like to see the movie we made about the build, head over to YouTube by following this link: the Bridge Cottage Pizza Oven Build. Tim’s worked really hard on this, and we’re very proud of him.

This is just a snapshot of some of the goings-on at Bridge Cottage this June. Head over to the other pages to get more in-depth writing about:

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

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Tag Archive for: courgette

The Great Courgette Glut. Season: July and August

Garden & Kitchen News from Bridge Cottage June 2020