Quick(er) Zucchini and Potato Fritters

Juggling work and the daycare drop-off is tiring, and when I get home I'm less than inspired to cook. I have tried saving myself some hassle by ordering a vegetable box online, but was really disappointed with the first one I tried. Even though it's the middle of summer, I was given loads of potatoes, onions, and carrots, and only small amounts of interesting veg. (What do you do with eight mushrooms? EIGHT!)

Amongst my kilogram of potatoes was a single zucchini. What to do, what to do... fritters! But I couldn't face cooking the potatoes, mashing them, etc etc. And I vaguely recalled totally failing to make a swiss dish involving frying raw potatoes. So I figured someone else must have gone through this before. And someone had! So here's something loosely based on their ideas -- the main thing to mimic was thoroughly squeezing the liquid out of the potato (not so much the zucchini, surprisingly) before you start.

Ingredients

• 2 medium potatoes
• 1 zucchini
• 4 spring onions
• 50-75g feta cheese
• 1-2 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp paprika
• a handful of finely-chopped herbs, especially mint and parsley
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Grate the potatoes using a tower grater. Put in a colander or sieve and squeeze the liquid out: I find using my hands is the best way to do it. Shred the zucchini in the same way. Finely dice the spring onions and crumble the feta cheese. Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Fry dollops of the mixture in olive oil, pushing down with a spatula to make them no more than 1cm thick, so the potato cooks well; fry 3-4 minutes each side, until golden and cooked through.

Spiralized Pasta with Butternut Squash

A spiralizer take on our family favourite! Learning from my previous spiralizer experiences, I cooked the sauce until it was completely dry, in a frying pan that seemed way too big for it. I spiralized three courgettes on the tagliatelle setting, and added them once the sauce was dry. After a few minutes, they suddenly collapsed and let out all of their water, which rehydrated the sauce enough to coat the "pasta". I served it immediately, topped with grated parmesan, and the whole meal was fantastic!

Spiralizer Week: Day Four: Ginger Egg Drop Soup

This was the evening of another exercise class and I knew that the very simple soup we had in mind was just not going to cut it. So I beefed it up with some extra ingredients, while keeping the rest mostly the same. I was really unsure about adding vinegar to a soup, but it worked *really* well. In fact I can't quite believe how smooth and tasty this dish was. Of course it helped that I had made a really great chicken stock with the chicken carcass I had left from jointing a chicken earlier in the week. I think that is crucial for any non-puréed soup. The photo really doesn't do this soup justice!

Ingredients

• a thumb of ginger, peeled and minced
  
• 3 tbsp dried wakame
• 4-5 spring onions, shredded
• 1/3 tsp chilli flakes
• 4 tsp sherry or apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 cups really good chicken stock
• 2 large eggs, gently beaten
• two chicken thighs or a chicken breast, cooked, shredded
• two grilled corn-on-the-cobs, kernels cut
• 1 zucchini, spiralized into thin noodles

Fry the ginger gently until golden and beginning to crisp, then add the wakame, spring onions, chilli flakes, vinegar, soy sauce and chicken stock. Let it come to a simmer and cook for a few minutes, then add in the eggs, stirring as they cook. Add in the shredded chicken, corn kernels, and zucchini, and bring back up to temperature. Serve!

Spiralizer Week: Day Three: Avocado-Basil Zucchini Noodles with Chilli-Lime Prawns and Corn

Wow, what a mouthful. In both senses! I really liked the cold sauce for this dish. It was interesting how it affected the texture of the zucchini noodles. The prawns were OK, but not that great; I think I'd rather serve this with some jerk chicken or fried fish. The corn was luscious, and I liked how its heat softened the zucchini noodles just a tad. For some reason, this is the only dish in months that has provoked my lovely SO to spontaneously exclaim how much he liked it. So -- a win!

Ingredients

• juice of one lime
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 ripe avocado, skinned and stone removed
• 1/4 cup yoghurt
• 12 basil leaves
• 1/2 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 corn on the cob
• 2-3 zucchinis, spiralized into noodles
• seasoned, barbecued fish or chicken, to serve

Method

Whiz the lime juice, salt, pepper, avocado, yoghurt, basil and garlic together in a blender. Barbecue or grill the corn until golden and tender. Cut the kernels from the corn and then mix with the sauce and zucchini noodles. Would serve really well with some freshly barbecued chicken or fish.

Spiralizer Week: Day Two: Zucchini Noodles with Chicken, Feta and Spinach

Day two saw me head to my usual Tuesday night Sh'Bam exercise class, so I was in need of a little more protein than a vegetarian meal would provide. Earlier in the day I bought a whole chicken and diced the breasts, so we could easily put this together after my class. (Oh, things that are going to be impossible when I am working in the office again!)

I have no idea what cuisine this was supposed to be, I just nabbed it from this blog. I replaced the spinach with sweet potato leaves from my garden, since they are totally out of control, and are much tastier and less soggy than spinach. Overall it was pretty tasty, if not super-memorable. The noodles are still fun!

Spiralizer Week: Day One: Puttanesca Sauce

My middle sister gave me a Spiralizer for Christmas, so I decided that this week would be Spiralizer Week, and every day I would do a different recipe from a beginner's Spiralizer recipe blog: a nice way to ease back from all-salads into slightly more filling food, while hopefully still shedding a few Christmas pounds. We started off well with this "spaghetti" alla puttanesca. You could, of course, make it with normal pasta, and it might fill you up for a little longer.

Ingredients

• 1 clove of garlic
• 2-3 anchovy fillets
• 400g can of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp capers, chopped if they are large
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2-3 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1/4 cup sliced olives
• 1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
• 2 zucchini, spiralized into thin noodles

Method

Crush the garlic into a frying pan with a little oil (use olive, or if you prefer, anchovy oil from the jar) and snip in the anchovy fillets, then fry over a low heat until the anchovy has dissolved and the garlic has softened. Pour in the tin of tomatoes and add the parsley, capers and olives; season with chilli flakes, if using, or black pepper. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until liquid from the sauce has completely evaporated.

Once the sauce is dry, add the zucchini noodles, and cook until they have *just* softened and enough water has come out to make the sauce a little liquid. Stop cooking immediately and serve the noodles with the sauce.

Stuffed Zucchini or Pumpkin Flowers

I made these just before I left for a trip to the US, abandoning my veggie garden just as it was bursting into flower. Fortunately there were far more pumpkin flowers than we could ever keep alive to turn into pumpkins, and making these was surprisingly simple. I have no idea where you would get them in Australia if you're not growing them yourself. If you do have a vegetable garden, it's worth growing a pumpkin vine just for the flowers. They're incredibly hardy vines with surprisingly good tolerance for heat, and will happily produce flowers from late spring all the way to early autumn. I've had less success with courgettes, although their flowers do work a tiny bit better for this, because the base of the flower (where it joins the stem) is less likely to be bitter.

Ingredients:

• 12 courgette or pumpkin flowers, picked just before they split and open
• 100-200g ricotta
• generous handfuls of basil
• zest of 1/3rd a lemon
• salt and pepper
• an egg, lightly beaten
• a couple of slices of bread, blitzed to breadcrumbs
• olive oil

Clean the flowers of any insects and dirt. Finely shred the basil and combine with the ricotta, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Combine the basil and lemon zest with the ricotta. Make a small hole in each flower, usually wherever they are about to split lengthwise first. Stuff each flower with ricotta, then press the flower petals back together. Dip in egg, then breadcrumbs to coat. Either bake for 12-15 minutes at 200C or deep fry for 2-3 minutes (in batches), depending on how decadent you're feeling.

Moroccan Braised Chicken

Back in Cambridge, we bought a second-hand copy of a One-Pot Cookbook which was really useful in the series of tiny kitchens where we prepared our meals. One of the standout recipes, which I always go back to, is probably incredibly inauthentic and doesn't even rate a photo in the cookbook (and you can probably see why, from mine). But it perfectly embodies the spirit of one-pot cooking. You literally only need a knife, a board, and a single large casserole dish to make this, and it will serve four or more (depending on the size of your chicken). Easy, no-fuss, and totally tasty.

Ingredients

• a ~1.6kg chicken (giblets removed, etc)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large onion
• a thumb of root ginger
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 725ml of chicken or vegetable stock (from powder is fine)
• 3 medium courgettes
• 1 medium red pepper
• 4 medium carrots
• a 340g tin of chickpeas
• 225g cous-cous
• 50g seedless raisins
• 30g pine nuts

Peel and finely chop the onion and ginger, then add to the large casserole and fry with the spices for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and turn so it gets covered with the spices. Pour in the stock, salt, and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Dice all of the vegetables, then stir them in and simmer for a further 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Mix in the chick peas and then pour in the cous-cous and raisins. (You can remove the chicken first, if you prefer -- it certainly makes serving easier.)  While the cous-cous absorbs the liquid, toast the pine nuts gently either in the hot oven or on a small frying pan. Serve the chicken and vegetables topped with the toasted pine nuts.

Shaved Courgette Salad

I've tried using courgettes in salads for years, always with disappointing results. What I realised recently is that depending on how you slice courgettes, they can either be very watery and limp or crisp and refreshing - cucumber behaves similarly. I believe it's dependent on what the slicing method does to the cell structure, which I surmise must be fairly fragile. Grating courgette bruises the cells and causes lots of water to be released, which is fine if you want to squeeze the shreds out and use them in, say, a cute little fried vegetable cake. For a salad, the perfect way to prepare them is to use a sharp vegetable peeler: hold the courgette upright, and use the peeler to make long thin strips, until you hit the seedy core. Rotate the courgette by ~30 degrees and peel again, until all you're left with is the seedy core, which you can eat raw or discard.

The rest of this salad follows naturally: a heady mix of balanced flavours which would work well as a side dish to anything, or even as a centrepiece with some quality serrano ham (or a strong, rinded goat's or brie-like cheese) and good crusty bread. The smaller the courgette you use, the more flavourful it will be, and the less core there will be to discard.

Ingredients:

• a few large sprigs of mint
• half a lemon
• 2 tbsp capers
• 3 baby or 1 medium courgette
• olive oil

Rinse and finely chop the mint. Zest and juice the lemon. Peel the courgettes into long thin strips. Combine the courgettes, mint, lemon and a few glugs of olive oil. Season with salt and peper and scatter over the capers. Serve immediately.

Courgette Souffle

Another entry from Delia's Frugal Food that at first I skipped straight over, then went back to, thinking 'Aaactually, courgettes ARE really cheap, and it has been years since I made a souffle...' With my lack of recent experience in mind, I followed the instructions almost to the letter, including barely half a courgette between four people. So I'm slightly upping the quantity in the recipe below. I also messed around with the herbs since I didn't have any parsley or chives - I think almost anything works, even a very mild herb like marjoram, as the flavours are well-preserved and aromatic in the beautiful fluffy matrix. I served this with just a salad of pears, toasted walnuts (used the oven as it was already on, energy-saving score!) and avocado, dressed with honey and balsamic vinegar. If you were very hungry you could also have a bit of crusty bread or mashed potatoes. Oh and we ate all of this between two of us. I disagree with Delia that anyone would be excited to receive a single egg and some air for lunch.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium courgette
• 90g butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 200ml milk
• 40g cheddar
• 25g Parmesan
• a handful of herbs; I used thyme and marjoram
• 4 eggs

Preheat the oven to 200 C and butter five 0.28L ramekins (or equivalent volume souffle dish). Wash, top, tail and slice the courgette lengthwise. Scoop out all the fluffy seeds and chuck, eat or feed to the worms. Very finely slice or mandolin the remaining flesh, and fry it in half the butter until soft and just beginning to colour, then turn off the heat, season and set aside to cool a little. Meanwhile, melt the rest of the butter in a pyrex jug or bowl in the microwave, combine well with the flour and then stir in the milk. Microwave for another minute and stir thoroughly, then grate in the two cheeses and stir in the herbs. Separate the eggs; when the white sauce is cool enough (<57C), stir in the yolks. Beat the whites until they stand up in stiff peaks, then pour over the cheesy white sauce and fold together; don't overmix it, some inhomogeneity is fine.

Dollop half of the mixture into the bottoms of the ramekins or souffle dish, top with fried courgettes, and cover with the remaining mixture. Stand in a roasting tin and pour in boiling water until it comes a third the way up the side of the ramekins or dish. Pop in the oven and reduce the heat to 170C; bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and risen.

Hot and Sour Chicken Broth

We spent most of the day playing board games with the Western Australian Boardgames Association, who have an ENORMOUS collection of games and loads of friendly people to play with. Learned three new games: a sailing/trading/collecting game a bit like Bohnanza, a game about trading and selling tea (my favourite! But maybe because I won :) and a game about defeating Cthulu using schoolgirl powers, like a British Buffy.

The upshot for dinner was that we didn't go shopping, and I had to use all my powers of improvisation on the remaining sad vegetables in the fridge to create a decent meal. Fortunately I had also used my power of foresight and left a chicken breast defrosting in the fridge, knowing I'd need some protein after morning Zumba.

Overall this worked pretty well, even the courgette (carefully not overcooked). Not a patch on fresh Chinese greens of course. The heart of cauliflower just needed using up; you could easily sub this for something more tasty, like some broccoli or sugar-snap peas.

Ingredients:

• a thumb of ginger
• a stick of lemongrass
• a handful of coriander stalks
• a couple of bay leaves
• 1 tsp vegetable stock powder
• a chilli (optional)
• juice of half a lemon
• a large carrot
• a heart of cauliflower
• a large courgette
• a chicken breast
• 2 x 75g bundles of dried egg noodles

Cut the ginger in half and slice perpendicular grooves into the flesh, to increase the surface area without breaking the ginger up into small pieces. Simmer with the lemongrass, coriander stalks, bay leaves, stock powder and chilli if using, in around 300ml water, for 20 minutes or until the stock is fragrant.

Meanwhile, peel and dice the carrot and cauliflower. Halve the courgette lengthwise and scoop out the soft seedy interior. Chuck, eat, or feed to the worms. Dice the remaining firm shell of courgette into the same size cubes.

Drain and reserve the stock, discarding the ginger etc. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Fry the carrot in a little vegetable oil, leaving it to sear just a tad. Add the stock and simmer for a couple of minutes. Finely shred or slice the chicken and add with the courgette, cauliflower and noodles. Bring back up to the boil and simmer for a minute or so, until the noodles are soft, the chicken is cooked through and the courgette is barely done. Top up with hot water if  the noodles have absorbed too much. Serve and drizzle over with very dark soy sauce.

Roast Courgettes with Tomatoes

Really hesitating to include this, as it was rather... boring. But the recipe book was wrong, and I want to correct that. For posterity. Served this with some haggis, and tripled the flavouring ingredients all the way through the recipe, so actually it was all fine. I just wish I had some better vegetarian recipes. I couldn't imagine serving this as a main portion, even with all my additions. The original didn't even have any herbs or balsamic in it, and 1/6th the amount of garlic. /facepalm

Left: 1300s Scottish food. Right: 1970s vegetarian food.
What? It's fusion...

Ingredients:

• four courgettes
• three tomatoes
• a generous handful of fresh herbs - e.g. oregano, marjoram, basil
• balsamic vinegar
• two cloves of garlic
• a big slice of bread
• lots of salt and pepper, and olive oil
• cheddar or fontina cheese (optional)

Preheat the oven to 160 C. Slice the courgettes lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon, then lay them skin-side-down in a roasting tin. Crush the garlic cloves into a bowl and glug in some olive oil, and season well. Spread the garlicy goo all over the inside of the courgettes, then lay down the herbs. Slice the tomatoes and put them on top. Drizzle over a little balsamic vinegar. Roast at 160C for 30 minutes.

Blitz the breadcrumbs in a blender. Remove the tray from the oven, cover in breadcrumbs and drizzle with olive oil; cook for a further 25 minutes. Remove again, top with grated cheese, turn up the heat to 200 C and roast for a final five minutes.

Lamb 'Abritzi' with Courgettes

There's a huge glut of courgettes in the market at the moment, so we're incorporating them into everything we eat! This is the same classic family recipe as ever, but with one of the peppers replaced with a deseeded sliced courgette. The flavours work really well together! But I'm not sure I'd replace the green pepper completely.

Courgette and Potato Cakes with Carrot and Bean Salad

It's "winter" here - absolutely nothing has changed in terms of weather, which is still a glorious sunny 25-30C, but our electricity supplier has flipped 'peak' time from 11am-5pm to 5pm-9pm. So generally I avoid using the oven in the evenings, or at least I will until the house gets cold enough that I'd like a little extra heat. (It happens. For like... two or three days in the year!) So I've avoided making these little cakes because they're definitely best done in the oven, and ours is a bit of a power-hungry monster.

At the weekend the electricity is cheap all the time, so today I figured, why not? They're originally a Delia recipe, but over the years I've made a few modifications until they worked well for me.  We served them with a simple salad made from a carrot and a tin of beans, with a mustardy-garlic dressing and a few coriander leaves. Can you tell that I'm not doing the shopping until tomorrow? :)

Ingredients:

• two large courgettes
• two medium potatoes
• a 200g block of feta
• a medium bunch of mint
• one egg
• 3-4 tbsp flour
• salt and black pepper

Using a large tower grater, grate the courgette into long strands. Sprinkle over a tsp of salt and pop them into a sieve over a bowl or saucepan, then put a plate on top and something heavy on top of that. Leave for at least ten minutes, preferably for an hour - green water will start dripping out of the sieve. Squeeze the remaining water out with your hands - I got about 300ml just from two courgettes! Ignore Delia's advice to put them in a teatowel... you will NEVER get all the bits of courgette off the towel!

Meanwhile, grate the potatoes, then blanch in boiling water in a saucepan for five minutes. Drain thoroughly, washing once with cold water to cool them down. Strip the leaves from the mint and wash if necessary. Crumble the feta. Add the courgette, potato, feta, mint and egg to a large bowl, season well with black pepper, and sprinkle with the flour. Combine together with a couple of forks. If there is still excess water or the mixture is not coming together, add some more flour.

Between your palms, make little cakes out of the mixture - I made 12 with the above ingredients. Put on a baking tray and roast for 45 minutes in a 200C oven, until golden brown and crispy on the outside.

Courgette Lasagne

I know, I know. As soon as you read that title, you thought - 'Oh no, that sounds totally tasteless.' Well, fear not! I have actually found (and fixed) a good recipe, for this most classic of vegetarian staples, and it actually seems to work!  It's quite filling as-is, but you might find that with the low protein content, you're hungrier a bit sooner in the morning than you might be normally. I suspect that the calorie count on this is quite a bit lower than in the meat equivalent. At this time of year, when courgettes are stacked up high on the grocers' shelves, it's also quite stunningly cheap.

Ingredients:

• two large onions (white, red or both)
• a 340g tin of tomatoes
• a generous handful of fresh oregano, or 2 tsp dried
• 3-4 large courgettes (about 700g)
• half a head of garlic
• 9-10 dried lasagne sheets
• a small bunch of basil
• one 250g tub ricotta (or two if you like it more creamy - I do!)
• 50g cheddar

Finely chop and fry one of the onions for a couple of minutes, then add the herbs and tin of tomatoes; simmer for 20-30 minutes until reduced and thickened, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking. Meanwhile...

Heat oven to 200C. Put a pan of water on to boil, then cook the lasagne sheets for about 5 mins until softened, but not cooked through (or not, if you're using instant lasagne sheets).

Finely chop the other onion; grate the courgettes; finely slice or crush the garlic. In a large frying pan, fry the onion, then add the courgettes and garlic; fry until the courgettes have released their water and turned bright green. Turn off the heat, tear in the basil, and stir in all of the ricotta, then season to taste. You may well need to add quite a lot of salt or even stock powder at this point - get it right because it's no good if it's bland.

In a large baking dish, layer up the lasagne, starting with half the courgette mix, then pasta, then tomato sauce. Repeat, putting a fine layer of tomato sauce on the top, then scatter with the cheddar. Bake on the top shelf for 10-15 mins until the pasta is tender and the cheese is golden.

Courgette and Feta Quinoa Salad with Carrot Fritters

I'm not usually a fan of courgettes in salad, as they can be watery and tasteless. However I came across and immediately wanted to make this recipe. I thought that with a little tweaking, I could prevent the curse of tasteless courgette. I made a couple of carrot fritters, adapting my usual recipe to include only carrots, root ginger, ground coriander, flour and egg; otherwise it would be courgette overkill!

Ingredients:

• 100g quinoa
• one medium or two small courgettes
• 1 tsp salt
• one tomato
• 150g sharp feta
• a large handful of mint leaves
• half a red chilli
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice or red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp of good olive oil

Cook the quinoa according to its packet instructions; I usually cook it at a low boil in a 4:1 water:quinoa ratio. Wash the courgettes and cut off any discoloured parts. If your courgette is on the large side, cut it in half lengthwise, and scoop out the inner seeds with a spoon, and eat or discard. Using a sharp or serrated peeler (we got a great one for Xmas!) or a very sharp knife, shave the courgette into fat ribbons. Layer into a sieve, sprinkling with the tsp of salt, then leave to drain.

Cut the tomato into small cubes, placing into a salad bowl. Crumble over the feta. Wash and shred the mint leaves, and finely chop the chilli; add to the bowl. When the quinoa is done, cool and add to the salad bowl. When the courgettes have started to drip, scoop them up and squeeze the excess water out (discard). Add the ribbons to the salad bowl. Shake up the dressing ingredients and pour over, then very gently toss all of the ingredients together. Don't over-stir; you don't want the feta to break up too much.

Roasted Baby Courgettes with Cous-Cous and Apricot Topping

Another recipe inspired by Nigel Slater's Tender, but one that I think needs some modification to be perfect. He bakes the courgettes for only 25 minutes, but I found that was not nearly long enough, and more like 55 minutes was needed if baking from raw. I also found that the topping was nice but a certain piquancy was missing. These problems can be easily remedied by adapting a method I usually use for Provençal tomatoes: frying them in a very hot pan for 5 minutes and then drenching in balsamic vinegar before baking in the oven with the topping. I have yet to try it on this recipe but I'll suggest it here as I think it would be an improvement.

Ingredients:

• 8-10 baby courgettes, washed and halved lengthwise
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 100g cous-cous
• half a white onion
• one slice of bread
• a small bunch of parsley
• a handful of dried apricots
• a handful of pistachio kernels, unsalted
• 200g natural yoghurt
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Fry the baby courgettes in olive oil, first round-side down, then cut-side down, for 1-2 minutes (depending on thickness) each side, using a griddle (nice char marks) or frying-pan (more even cooking). When golden and seared, place in them in a baking dish, cut side up.

Meanwhile, prepare the cous-cous according to its packet instructions: I cover in boiling water in a 2:1 ratio, add a bit of butter and some vegetable stock powder, stir once then cover with a plate for 10 minutes. Finely chop the onion and gently fry in olive oil for 3-4 minutes. Whiz the bread and parsley in a blender to make breadcrumbs. Roughly chop the apricots and pistachios, then combine with the cooked cous-cous and breadcrumbs, and onions. Season well and scatter over the singed courgettes, cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes.

Combine the yoghurt, white wine vinegar and olive oil, and serve the courgettes with this dressing to spoon over. (We had a little prosciutto on the side for protein.)

Stuffed Courgettes

This was inspired by a dinner we prepared at Stickybeaks supper club a few months ago. Instead of bomb courgettes, I used normal long courgettes, and instead of exciting fennel-flavoured Italian sausage diluted with breadcrumbs, I used a pack of Taste the Difference Lemon and Herb sausages from Sainsbury's. It was a little faster and not quite as wonderful, but still lovely. We served it with some leftover BBQ rice from Wednesday's dinner of grilled butcher's beefsticks and corn on the cob, and some simply boiled broad beans, which are just coming into season.

Ingredients:

• 2 large courgettes
• pack of 4 or 6 plump, high-quality sausages
• a small slice of bread
• a thick slice of Parmesan or smoked cheese
• a small sprig of rosemary

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Wash the courgettes and slice them lengthwise, then scoop out the inside seedy wet flesh with a small spoon. (You can eat it raw for a kind of cook's bonus snack, but it's not very interesting so I tend to send it straight to compost.) Lie the courgettes skin-side up in a shallow baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 20 minutes, until slightly softened, then remove from the oven and turn skin-side down, preferably wedged against each other in the tray so they can't fall over.

Whiz the bread, cheese and rosemary together in a hand blender. Squeeze out the contents of the sausages into the courgette shells, discarding the sausage skins. Season with black pepper and top with the flavoured breadcrumbs, then drizzle with a little olive oil. Roast for a further 20-25 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are crisp and golden, the courgettes are soft and the sausage-meat is cooked through.

Carrot & Courgette Fritters

These make the ultimate TV snack dinner, and are surprisingly quick and fun to make. You can vary the contents depending on what you have to hand, but I find a base of carrots and courgettes is a good flavour and texture combination to start with, and hold together well while cooking. Sweet chilli sauce and some good TV or a movie are a must! We're currently watching the third season of Breaking Bad, and it's utterly brilliant.

I've served these with a variety of accompaniments: ideally you want something fairly plain that you can eat with your hands. I've usually ended up serving with plain short-grain brown rice, which wins on the former but not the latter. If you wanted something a little more healthy then a sharply-dressed salad would contrast nicely against the crispy fried fritters. The recipe here is enough for two and can be prepared in half an hour; since the cooking is a little human-intensive, you'll need to scale the cooking time if you're preparing these for more people.

Ingredients:

• 2 fat courgettes
• 3 large carrots
• 2-3 spring onions
• a small handful of fresh mint or fresh coriander
• a big piece of ginger
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Finely chop the spring onions and herbs, and scrub or peel the carrots. Peel back about an inch of the skin from the large piece of ginger. Grate it coarsely up to the limit of the skin (you can then cut off and discard the stringy bits). Grate the carrots and courgettes in the same grater: they'll push through the nice gingery juice you might lose if you left the ginger til last. Put all the gratings in a very large bowl and sprinkle over the coriander, flour and egg. Using a spoon or your hands, combine all the ingredients into a squishy mess.

Set 1-2 frying pans over a moderate heat with a few tbsp of vegetable oil in each: more pans = a faster turnover, but more chaos! Taking a few tbsp of battered vegetables at a time, place them into the hot oil and pat flat with a spatula. Fry for two minutes on each side, or until golden brown on each side. They don't keep long, so serve immediately with sweet chilli sauce!