Courgette & summer squash overload

Courgette is Daniel's favourite veg and butternut squash is mine so it was an easy decision to dedicate 3 big patches of my allotment to courgettes and squashes. I grew scallop squash, pattypan squash, white bush Lebanese summer squash, round zucchini, pumpkin and butternut squash. The latter two are still maturing.

The trouble, of course, is that the summer varieties become ready to pick all at once! There's only so much you can eat and give away. Thankfully, the courgette and squash family provide a wide variety of cooking options including steaming, sautéing, frying, grilling, baking, roasting and stuffing. Wow!

I've tried just about every way there is of preparing them. It's a well known fact that allotment holders end up throwing away surplus veg! If you're one of them, promise me you'll never, ever waste another veg again! Here are some examples of using up your courgette and squash glut.





















You can use the flowers in salads. They're pretty and edible. You could also try deep-frying them.

                                               Pattypan squash


                                     




                             Pumpkins  
                                                               

Zucchine tonde ripiene (stuffed round zucchini,  as if you needed the translation...)

When I cook I loosely work off a recipe and adapt it to what I have available in the cupboards. My cupboards are full of weird and wonderful things. For this recipe I thought I'd use the polenta that's been staring at me for a few months! I am ashamed to admit that before this I haven't cooked with polenta. 

Anyway, you'll need:

- round zucchini (courgette), one per person
- an onion
- 3 crushed cloves of garlic
- 4-6 mushrooms
- a handful of sliced asparagus
- a few sun-dried tomatoes
- a handful of pine nuts
- cubed polenta
- salt
- pepper
- chili flakes
- veg stock powder (I use Marigold Swiss vegan bouillon powder)



Put the oven on 180C. Cut the top off the courgette and scoop out the insides (pulp and seeds). Drizzle the inside with chili infused oil and pop in the oven on a roasting tray. Meanwhile, fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil, add the chopped mushrooms, asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, and the pine nuts. Fry for a few minutes then add the polenta, stock powder, chili flakes, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Fry for a few minutes then transfer into the hollowed courgette and pop back in the oven for about 20 minutes. Serve with couscous. For non vegans, 5 minutes before you take it out of the oven crumble some blue cheese on top (try gruyere, gorgonzola or stilton). 


Summer squash, saffron and roasted pumpkin seed soup

I love making soups because they're so easy to make and are so satisfying. If you're dieting it's the perfect food. Research shows that liquid-rich foods like soups are good at filling your stomach and are slow to empty, leaving you fuller for longer. 

All good soups start with frying a chopped onion, a few crushed cloves of garlic and fresh chili in some olive oil in a large saucepan. Chop your chosen veg, in this case summer squash, and fry until part tender. Courgette and summer squashes are all quite watery so you won't need more oil. Harder squashes like the butternut and pumpkin may need a little more oil.

Add a litre of stock (I use 4 tsps of
Marigold Swiss vegan bouillon powder dissolved in a litre of hot water) or enough to just cover the squash. Add a few threads of saffron and cook until the squash is tender. 

Blitz the soup using a stick blender. Toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry pan over high heat until they start to brown and pop. Do not burn them! So easily done, trust me. Use to garnish the soup. 

Summer squash risotto

I love making risottos. Again, they're quick and easy to make and very filling. This one serves 4 (or two really greedy people). 


Again, your base for this is an onion and a few crushed cloves of garlic. Fry them in some oil in a deep frying pan.

Add cubed squash (any summer or winter squash is fine, just not courgette!). 1 large squash will do for 4 people.

Fry until part soft. Add 250g risotto rice and fry for 2 minutes. Add a litre of stock (I use 4 tsps of Marigold Swiss vegan bouillon powder dissolved in a litre of hot water) and a handful of pumpkin seeds. 

Cook on medium heat until all the water has been absorbed and the rice is tender. If you're not vegan add 250g gorgonzola (delicious!), if you're vegan add a small carton of soy cream. Cook until well incorporated and serve.







A good trick for getting rid off spare veg is give them to your friends in the hope that they'll make something for you :) One day my friend surprised me with Summer squash stew and Courgette salad. If he ever gives me the recipe for the stew I'll update it on here. It was delicious! 

The courgette salad he made is similar to these two:

 http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/6339/marinated-courgette-salad-with-pine-nuts-and-parme#

http://www.canbebribedwithfood.com/2010/08/courgette-overload-then-make-grilled.html#












And how about baking with courgette? A few years ago I got a lovely book that uses raw, grated veg in cakes instead of fat. All the recipes I tried in this book are absolutely sublime apart from Parsnip vanilla fudge.

Many of the recipes use eggs but I've managed to veganise them. The one that works particularly well as a vegan veg cake is the Cherry and Almond cake. I just use Ener-G egg replacer and it works a treat :)




Here's the veganised recipe:

You'll need two 18cm-diameter x 5cm deep sandwich tins, greased and lined

250g glace cherries

3 Ener-G egg replacers (if you're not vegan just use 3 eggs)

180g caster sugar
200g finely grated potato
100g plain flour, plus 2 extra tbsp to coat cherries
1 tsp almond extract
100g ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
finely grated zest of 1/2 unwaxed lemon
250g cherry jam
20g of toasted almond flakes
1 tsp icing sugar
small sprinkle of ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Cut the cherries in half and coat in 2 tbsp flour.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg replacer with the sugar for 5 mins until pale and light.

Next, beat in the grated potato until well combined. Finally, add the flour, ground almonds, almond extract, baking powder, salt and lemon zest until well incorporated.

Divide the mixture between the two sandwich tins and gently place the cherries on top of each cake so that they are slightly sunken into the mixture. Place them in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.

Once cooked, remove the cakes from the oven and transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool for 10 mins. Gently peel away the baking parchment.

Toast the flaked almonds until just golden in a dry pan. Spread a generous layer of cherry jam onto one half of the cake. Put the other half of cake on top, sprinkle with the flaked almonds a dusting of the icing sugar and cinnamon mixed together. 

The same book has many, many recipes using courgettes. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to expand their baking repertoire.

You could also try these two:

 

  http://www.lonehomeranger.com/2012/08/sneaky-pete-summer-squash-muffins.html#    

 http://dearloveblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/augusts-fresh-from-the-oven-challenge-courgette-cluster-bread/#  

And how about some Grilled zucchini hummus to go with that lovely bread?

 

 

http://www.timescolonist.com/life/food/Recipe+grilled+zucchini+hummus/7244149/story.html 

 

Vegan food swap

This month was the first time I signed up for vegan food swap. The idea is that once a month you send a parcel full of vegan goodies to a randomly assigned partner who's also vegan. The budget for the goodies is £10. Here's the link:

http://www.tohappyvegans.com/wordpress/uk-vegan-food-swap/

I love the idea of food penpalling. It seems a good way of exposing oneself to new foods, learning new cookery skills, and maybe even making like-minded foodie friends.

As a typical newbie I went for far too much which meant I spent 6 hours in the kitchen struggling to make the food I had planned to. It was rather epic, and not in a good way. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. My trusty chocolate cupcake batter escaped from flimsy paper cases, the falafel wouldn't cook, the chocolate truffles recipe (pictured below) was actually a chocolate mousse recipe so I needed to save them by adding dates and nuts, and the hummus came out too garlicky (perfect for a garlic fiend like me just maybe not so for anyone else).

The falafel went so disastrously wrong that I am considering never, ever making them again. The recipe was a bit weird and, whatever I did, they just wouldn't cook. I tried baking them, as per the recipe. Did they bake? No. Then Daniel suggested deep fat frying them. What happened, I hear you say... They disintegrated. Finally, after re-mashing the mixture (yes, it did look minging) I gently fried both sides. They tasted OK, but only just. A few days after this unsuccessful attempt, my friend made some lovely falafel using a shop bough dry falafel mix and I would highly recommend it to anyone attempting to make falafel for the first time.

                                                          Amaretto chocolate truffles

                                 Truffles, falafel, hummus and cupcakes ready to be packaged         


Anyway, I did my best to package it up, wrote a quick note and did my usual morning dash to the post office (why can't I ever leave on time?). Hopefully it got there in one piece, I haven't heard anything from my partner yet. Obviously I did not include the recipes in my note and I am not including any in this post because it all went a bit wrong.

On a positive note, when I received the parcel from my partner I was more than happy with it. I got winter-spiced parsnip crisps with chili, organic black rice noodles, rice paper, cranberry and sanguinello orange tea, a box of booja-booja chocolates and 3 home baked 'cheese' scones (pictured below).

Two things that are of note here. First, if you didn't already know what a sanguinello orange is, it is more commonly known as a blood orange. The word sanguinello comes from Italian.

Blood oranges may have originated in either China or the Southern Mediterranean, where they have been grown since the 18th century. They are now the primary orange grown in Italy. The anthocyanins which give the orange its distinct maroon color will only develop when temperatures are low at night, as during the Mediterranean fall and winter. Blood oranges cultivated in the United States are in season from December to March (Texas), and from November to May (California) (source: Wikipedia).

If you're into your cocktails why not give this a try? I wonder if instead of the blood orange juice I could use the tea I received from my vegan buddy, cooled of course.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Campari 
• 3/4 oz limoncello 
• 2 oz blood orange juice
• blood orange wedge for garnish

Preparation:

1. Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake and strain onto fresh ice in a highball glass. 
3. Garnish with a blood orange wedge. 

Second thing of note are the booja-booja chocolates. Oh my, these are just amazing!  They are vegan, organic and hand made with love in Norfolk (my home county).

 http://www.boojabooja.com/

I have never cooked with rice paper or black rice noodles. I am planning on making some spicy green papaya rice paper rolls and/or veggie spring rolls. I love the sound of the carrot-ginger dipping sauce in the Martha Stewart recipe. Here are the recipe links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/spicy_green_papaya_rice_38576

http://www.organicgardening.com/cook/vegetarian-spring-rolls

http://www.marthastewart.com/315105/spring-rolls-with-carrot-ginger-dipping

The noodles will probably end up in one of our usual stir fries, though I do like the look of these two recipes:

http://feedright4people.com/2012/01/08/black-rice-noodles-with-garlic-mushrooms-gluten-free-vegetarian-dairy-free/

http://thelemursarehungry.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/sichuan-spiced-black-rice-noodles/

So, what have I learnt from this experience? Two things actually. One, standing on your feet for 6 hours is not good for your lower back particularly when you're 6 foot tall and sport a bizarre posture. Two, when you're trying to impress someone with your food do not try something new, stick with what you know best!

Anyway, I think the idea of vegan food penpalling is a brilliant one and I am looking forward to choosing/making food for my next buddy.

A trio of vegan cakes

I love baking cakes. The problem is that I also love eating them and with just the two of us it means we eat an awful lot of cake which is catching up with us, most visibly on our bellies!





One of my favourite pastimes is drinking herbal tea and eating vegan cake, preferably in a quaint tea room like this one http://www.richmondtearooms.com/About-us.aspx







People often think that it is either impossible to make good vegan cake or that it's somehow extra challenging or difficult. In fact, this perception couldn't be more wrong. Vegan cake is just as simple as non-vegan cake to make with the added advantage that you can lick the bowl clean afterwards without the worry of raw egg!! What I've found about vegan versus non-vegan cake is that the egg in non-vegan cakes makes them dry out quickly. All my vegan cakes always come out moist and stay moist for about a week (this is a lie since cakes in our house never last a week. Usually they are eaten within three days of making them!).

 I have never been able to make good sernik (that's cheesecake in Polish in case you didn't know). Even before I went vegan my cheesecakes never came out good. The following recipe worked brilliantly the second time. The first time the main problem was that I over baked the cake and the fat in the cream cheese separated. It wasn't pretty! I also tweaked the recipe the second time. Here it is:

White chocolate and raspberry cheesecake

15 vegan digestive biscuits (I made my own), blitz in a food processor until like fine crumbs
4 tbsp melted vegan margarine
450g firm tofu, drained
450g vegan cream cheese (I used Tofutti)
225g caster sugar
55ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
0.5 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
200g melted vegan white chocolate (I made my own)
85g raspberry jam (I used my own)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease and line a 9 inch springform pan. Mix the cookie crumbs with the melted margarine and lightly press into the prepared pan. Put tofu, cream cheese, sugar, oil, lemon juice, salt, and vanilla in a food processor and blend until smooth. Melt the chocolate in the microwave and add to the cheese mixture and blend again. Take out half a cup of the cheese mixture and pour the rest over the cookie crust. Add the raspberry jam to the cheese mixture in the cup and mix until smooth then pour over the top of the cake and swirl lightly to marble the top of the cheesecake. Bake for 45 minutes then turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven for another 40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Refrigerate overnight before taking out of the pan.

An important note: do not bake for more than 45 minutes even if you think the cake wobbles too much. It will set once out of the oven and in the fridge, trust me.

Versunkener Apfelkuchen (German apple cake in case you needed a translation)

1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup applesauce (I used cider applesauce)
2 tbsp soy milk
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder

Topping:
3 apples, peeled and cut into slices
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease and line a 9 inch springform pan. Mix the butter and sugar in a large bowl, add applesauce and milk. Add flour and baking powder and stir well into a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the pan and arrange apple slices in a circle on top of the cake. Mix together the 3 topping ingredients and sprinkle over the cake. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Wait for 15 minutes before unmolding from the cake pan.




Chocolate cupcakes

This is my favourite recipe because it works well every time and it's so quick and easy. Also, people love these delicious little cakes :)

1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1 cup plain flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt

Frosting:
1/2 cup vegan margarine
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp soy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp orange extract


Preheat the oven to 180C. Whisk together the milk and vinegar and leave to curdle for a few minutes. Add the sugar, oil and the two extracts. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cocoa powder. Add to the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour into 12 silicone cupcake molds and bake for 20 minutes. Whilst the cupcakes are cooling mix all the frosting ingredients together until smooth and pipe over the top of the cakes.

 Chocolate cupcake with lapsang souchong tea. I have recently become a bit obsessed with lapsang souchong tea. The smokiness of that tea is tantalising and, as my friend would put it, it makes me ebullient.

Autumn's goodies

I love all the seasons equally. For me it's a perfect cycle, as soon as one season ends I am ready for the next one. Each season brings with it new feelings of excitement, expectation and plenty of joy. My allotment has finally succumbed to autumn and the only veg left to pick are winter squashes and Brussels sprouts for Christmas (Christmas - eeeeppppp!).

I love autumn for its explosion of bright colours. It's a good time of the year for picking leaves, pine cones and conkers for crafting with. For me walking amongst rustling leaves is only second best to walking on crisp, crunchy snow on a bright winter's day. So, on Sunday we decided to go for a 10 mile walk to Trentham which left me with two rather painful blisters! My motivation was gathering nature's goodies and Daniel's was ice cream!

We walked along the Trent and Mersey Canal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_and_Mersey_Canal) which runs alongside lovely meadows. In one of the meadows we saw some wild horses.

A lovely tree with half its leaves missing at the Trentham Estate (http://www.trentham.co.uk/). I collected a whole bunch of them for crafting.






                                                                    




  The Trentham estate has something for everyone. There are pretty wooden huts selling lovely stuff, restaurants, a garden centre, a monkey forest (yes, with real monkeys!) and a two mile walk around the lake in the estate's lavish grounds. If you're lucky enough you might even spot a giant, red squirrel. They're so endangered that there's only one remaining. I managed to capture one on my camera. He is particularly happy because he's just had an ice cream.

              Lovely Michaelmas daisies below and
              Anemone Honorine to the left.

Mushrooms

                                                                                                              Lovely echinacea

 

Ruins of the old hall at Trentham estate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trentham_Gardens)

The leaves I collected were dipped in wax to preserve their colour. I used paraffin wax flakes but a small candle/tea light chopped into smallish pieces would do just as well. Start with 4-5 tea lights and see how you get on. You can always add more if needed. 

 I put the flakes in a metal container (that I don't use for food!) inside a pan of boiling water (thus creating a double boiler). It took about 5 minutes for the wax to melt.  I turned the hob off but kept re-heating the wax when it started to get too hard. The leaves were dipped into the hot wax one by one and held above the pot of wax until they stopped dripping (about 1 minute), then set aside. I made a mobile with my leaves but you can do a string of them. Here's a link www.apartmenttherapy.com