Each year my love of growing vegetables, well grows. I had a dad who had very green fingers and grew a lot of the vegetables for the small hotel my parents ran. In the summer months our bath water was often emptied by buckets into the vegetable patch! My Sri-lankan grandmother has the greenest fingers in the family. Her windowsills were often covered in seedlings and she would disappear into the garden at mealtime to pick “greens” to make into a family favourite dish. A meal of rice and curry is not right without “greens”.
One of my first successes was courgettes. Most years I get a good crop, apart from last hear but I blame the baby for that 😉
This year however I have 2 plants that are exploding with monster courgettes and a bountiful supply is on its way. Follow my instagram stories for pics of the garden and how I cook them.
Personally I love courgettes. Roasted, in a stir fry, ratatouille, on pizza…. only issue is that Miss K and the J boy are not so keen. So it’s been a season of finding ways to encourage them to eat them. I don’t like to hide vegetables so I do tell them it’s in there, once they have tried some. Here are my top ways that they like and eat:
Courgette cake. This has gone down so well. I’ve been making it and freezing it. Recipe below.
Courgetti. Not because we want to be on trend but because it works. Spiralising courgette, cooking with garlic and lemon juice is a winner.
Grated courgette in bolognaise, risotto or pretty much any dish!
Roasted and blended with tinned tomatoes for a pasta sauce.
Hubby and I love a courgette curry so that’s also on the menu but I have to make the children something different on those nights!
So here is a lovely courgette cake recipe. You really won’t taste the courgette and I’ve lowered the sugar content for you too, it works out at 3g sugar per slice but some of this is the yoghurt and courgette. Per 100g it is 3.6g sugar so a much healthier alternative to many other cakes.
I made this for a family party recently and it went down really well!
Courgette and Sultana Cake (Wheat and Lactose Free)
2017-08-02 07:36:51
Serves 12
Easy to make, reduced sugar recipe and includes plenty of yummy courgette.
300g plain wheat free flour (I used Aldi's own brand)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
140g sultanas
Instructions
Grate the courgette.
Preheat the oven to gas mark 4. Grease and line a loaf tin.
Mix together all the wet ingredients.
Add the flour and carefully mix in.
Now add the remaining dry ingredients and mix.
Pour into the loaf tin and put in the oven.
Bake for 20 minutes uncovered and then cover the top with foil to prevent it burning.
This cake takes 30-40 minutes in my oven, I recommend checking it by inserting a skewer and seeing if the bottom is cooked. You don't want to have the bottom too soft (I've made that mistake for you!).
I’m on a mission to find new ways to get veggies into the boy. He likes veggies and on a good day will eat pretty much anything. However when he is under the weather or teething he pulls a right face and hands it all right back to me. Which is frustrating. I find as a general rule he isn’t as keen when he is given large chunks of vegetables on the side of a meal. What he really gets on well with is having small pieces of vegetables mixed in something. All well and good, but it can leave me scratching my head a lunchtimes.
Lunch in our house is often a quick, thrown together, snack type meal – typically with vegetables on the side. So today I tried out adding grated courgette to my pancake recipe. OH MY DAYS. This was good. Amazingness in a pancake. Miss K doesn’t like courgette but will tolerate it if I grate it. She ate these up, asked for more and gave me a pass mark.
The boy looked at them and snarfed them up. Then asked for his train book “Choo Choo” Top marks I think.
“Mummy you can make these again” Miss K.
Courgette Pancakes
2015-04-19 14:34:21
Serves 4
A quick lunchtime recipe that boosts the veggies up. Can be bulk cooked and frozen.
Rattatouille. There is something about it that just tickles my taste buds and makes me feel all warm inside. We usually grow a glut of courgettes in our garden so this becomes one of our courgette loving dishes and because it freezes well I always make a large batch. I know there are hundreds of variations on a theme out there, so here is just my usual variation.
It’s a low fat recipe but packed full of veggies, so counts for 2-3 of your 5 a day 🙂
We serve our with either rice or pasta as a main meal, it also works well as a side dish to go alongside meat and fish.
Super Healthy Rattatouille Recipe. Gluten Free.
2013-08-17 21:25:38
Serves 5
A super healthy rattatouille recipe that is cheap to prepare, goes with almost anything and freeze well. Win Win.
