Using more courgettes

We are starting to have plenty of courgettes now so it was time to try out some more of the recipes that I have found.

First up Zucchini Cake from here. This turned out to be a recipe that needed plenty of muscle power. The quantity of ingredients was for two loaf sized cakes but from the amount of mixture in my bowl I expected to end up with enough to supply a supermarket. Incredibly the mixture DID produce two loaf cakes.

The chopped walnuts were lost in the large amount of mixture but I suppose it somehow added to the flavour.  I used half green and half yellow courgettes and after grating them I put them in a muslin bag and squeezed out as much moisture as possible. It doesn't tell you to do this in the recipe but without the mixture would have been really wet.

Baking time was supposed to take an hour but I baked for about an hour and twenty minutes.

The cake is quite a close texture - similar to a banana or apple cake. The recipe suggests spreading a slice with butter but we spread it with some home-made plum compote which went down well and it made use of another glut.

One comment accompanying the recipe on the web site suggests freezing one loaf so we'll do this.

The picture accompanying the recipe looks quite different to mine - maybe I grated - or rather the food processor did - the courgette more finely as there was no sign of courgette in the finished cake.

Our verdict was that we enjoyed the cake and would make it again!

Next was a vegetable side dish: Cumin courgette ‘ratatouille’ recipe which came from here

At the moment we don't have enough fresh tomatoes to spare any for cooking so I used some frozen from last year. I used chilli flakes (what about that Mark?) and a yellow and a green courgette.

The courgettes were cooked just long enough to soft them but keep them 'al dente'.

Despite the mild look this dish definitely had a kick another success which lends itself to lots of variations. 

Don't forget there are more recipes here - thanks to Matron and Annie for sending me links from their blogs. And also for the ideas given in the comments linked to my last courgette post here. Further contributions will be most welcome!