I am still struggling with the latest update on this site, so will share something I wrote a while ago, and hope the editing thingy will allow me to do it as I want!!
I love courgettes… I like them raw grated or sliced in salads or in sandwiches, a lightly pickled in a light vinegar – just for a couple of hours, along with whatever spices I fancy, I like them cooked in any of a dozen different way – but maybe my favourite is as fritters which i first had in Greece many many years ago. I keep meaning to try making cakes with them – I’ve even plenty but never tried baking one. A couple of days ago I wrote about the new trend of having courgette guacamole – due, apparently because of the world wide shortage and high prices of avocados.
So having said that, it always surprises me that other people feel overwhelmed by them when it’s their season. I did try growing them myself a couple of times… very unsuccessfully, so to be honest I’ve never had a courgette glut to have to deal with. I’m never short of ideas of how to use/cook them. but always appreciate a new recipe.
I have a very kind friend who recently sent me some recipes she’d cut out from a newspaper for unusual jams – since I’ve been writing about jams/jellies/conserves/preserves. The recipes she sent really do sound lovely, and very different – gooseberry and camomile jam, peach and lemon thyme jam, raspberry and cacao nib jam and strawberry lemon marmalade. They all sound so delicious I can’t decide which to try making first!! On the back of the page was another recipe – not for jam but for courgette and chickpea dal… two of my favourite food items!!
The recipe from Meera Sodha sounds so easy and so delicious, I’m going to try it tomorrow. Someone else sent me a recipe for a salmon dish and i think the dal would match perfectly. It seems so simple, chickpeas, courgettes, tomatoes, spices (black mustard seeds, fenugreek, turmeric, chilli, cumin, coriander seeds) … what could be easier?! I think this is going to become a favourite!
My title comes from Meera who explains that her recipe is a version of a traditional Gujerati dish, lauki chana dal which didn’t use courgettes but bottle gourds and and chana dal. Meera has a new book, East: 120 Vegetarian and Vegan recipes from Bangalore to Beijing.
Lois Elsden 
Dear Lois, you are not alone in the struggle with the – yet again – new way WordPress is working. Comparing with a few years back it now takes twice as long to organise a post and the new editing mode is a nightmare, so many clicks before a change or an addition can be saved… and they removed half of the left-hand column features without warning, it took me ages to recover all the links to museums and publish them in a page! Still, a challenge is a way of growing I suppose… January is ending and I wish you a happy February. Nadine
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Thank you, Nadine, I have no idea why they have to make something so simple into such a complicated exercise! If I was beginning a blog now I think I would give up!!! I hope all is well with you, all well here, and yes, a very happy February to you too!
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As a matter of fact I nearly gave up on mine as it is now so time-consuming, especially because the captions below the pictures have to be cut and pasted on the next line below otherwise the text appears on each side of the photo and with weird symbols instead of letters! All is well here thank you.
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By the way, did you ever try the courgette savoury cake and the courgette sweet cake recipes I sent you via the e-mail? I often make the savoury one, sometimes with different flours, sometimes with cheese on top or in the mixture, it is quite versatile.
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Oh yes – gosh, how rude not to let you know that I did. The sweet one in particular was gorgeous, the savoury was good too, but we preferred the sweet 🙂
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Dear Lois, I would never think of you as rude, just wanted to know what you thought; it is surprising to see all the tasty things you can make with something as bland as a courgette. I add cubes of mature ewe’s milk cheese to the savoury one, a favourite for winter evening meals. Glad you liked the sweet recipe, wonderful in summer. Nadine
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Thank you, Nadine. I wonder if I can find ewe’s milk cheese because it sounds a splendid idea! I will have a look next time we go to the delicatessen and see if they have any. Years ago we had a wonderful cheese shop in our town, which sold all sorts of lovely English and continental cheeses. Our favourite blue cheese from them was called Blue Vinny and it was only made in a few farmhouses in Dorset, a county further south from us. I think it is still made,, but I don’t know where I could find any!
It has been so wet and rainy here for weeks now, not cold but just nasty – I hope you have better weather than us! x
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You can use dices of mature cheddar instead. As a matter of fact we had courgette cake today, with goat’s cheese this time! Sometimes I bake it in a flat round dish and put grated cheese on top, it only needs to be about 40 minutes in the oven all in all and it is much easier to dish out onto plates if you have guests. Yes, plenty of rain here too, tricky to dry the clothes as we don’t have central heating and radiators… and we are running out of wood for the stove … it has been the coldest and wettest winter since 2009. Will send some sunshine your way as soon as it appears 🙂
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Thank you xxx
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