More veg?

I mentioned an interesting set of ideas from Becky Duffett, an American food writer, cookery book editor, and article writer… I think she has some excellent, practical and interesting ideas. She wrote a piece on increasing the amount of vegetables in our diets, and one thing she suggested was muffins with grated courgettes (zucchinis, she says!)  – much as you might have grated carrot. I’m not really into the idea of muffins… which i was brought up to call buns, but I did think maybe a courgette cake would be nice – I do love courgettes too!

There were various recipes I found, but this one is so easy!

Courgette cake

• 14 oz courgettes, top and tail but don’t bother peeling them, grate finely then place on a couple of sheets of kitchen paper and roll up and squeeze to get rid of excess liquid
• 8 oz soft brown sugar
• 125ml sunflower oil
• 3 large eggs lightly beaten
• zest 1 orange or lime
• 1 tsp vanilla or orange extract
• 4 oz sultanas
• 12 oz self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Zesty frosting

• 8 oz full-fat cream cheese beaten with 4 oz icing sugar, chilled
• 1 orange or lime zest

1. Mix the first seven ingredients together, stirring well
2. fold in the flour and baking powder but don’t stir it round too much
3. pour mixture into greased and line loaf tine
4. pre- heat oven to 180°C, 360°F, gas mark 4 and bake cake for just over three-quarters of an hour or until cooked
5. turn out onto rack and when cool spread with frosting and scatter over zest (or mix the zest into the cream cheese and icing sugar – I prefer this)

Sounds easy… I think maybe next writing group in September my writers might be sampling this!