It’s that time of year – the garden plot is producing in abundance. Courgettes (zucchini) are always reliable, productive and seemingly disease resistant, at least in my garden. Here’s a link to 50 Ways to Use Your Squashes for ways to deal with the glut that that often results. One of the easiest is to oven roast them. Roasting has the benefit of helping you use up what ever excess you have in the garden or the refrigerator, it’s low calorie and vegan.

The roast vegetables in the photo include two yellow courgettes, some cavolo nero, two slightly aged shallots and the last handful of cherry tomatoes. I always use courgettes in this dish and usually an onion or two. But I’ve also included broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, peppers, aubergines (eggplant) and kale as well. This dish is very flexible. I wouldn’t use crunchy root vegetables like carrots, celery and radishes but otherwise most vegetables will blend nicely. I hate beets (beetroot) so never put them in any thing.

I’ve included a recipe below but it’s for illustrative purposes. Improvisation is your friend with this recipe. Change up any or all of the ingredients and the spices.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 medium sized courgettes (zucchini) 300 to 500 grams

1 bunch of cavolo nero or kale

2 large shallots or 1 onion

10 cherry tomatoes

Toasted sesame oil or olive oil

1 teaspoon of chilli flakes

2 teaspoons of dried chives

Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 160C. Prep a shallow flat roasting pan – I use glass because it cleans well. Put a tablespoon of oil in the bottom of the pan.
2. Strip the cavolo nero off the stems and chop the leaves into 2 to 3 inch pieces. Place in the roasting pan.
3. Top and tail the courgettes. Cut in half, then split the halves. Cut courgettes into chunks and place in the roasting pan.
4. Peel the shallots or onions and slice into rounds. Throw into the pan on top of the courgettes.
5. Take the tomatoes off the stems and put in the roasting pan.
6. Drizzle another tablespoon of oil over the top of the vegetables. Sprinkle the chilli flakes and chives over the vegetables and top off with a twist of salt and pepper.
7. Place in the oven for 30 minutes. Give it a stir about half way through the roasting time.
8. Remove from the oven and serve. If you make extra, they are lovely cold or reheated.

Thanks for reading the blog, making the recipes and your comments and feedback.

Stuffed mushrooms are usually too fiddly and labour intensive for me; but big flat Portobello mushrooms are game changers for me. These are described as ‘stuffed’ but really these are layered with a savoury tomato mix, a layer of lightly sautéed spinach and topped with cheesy breadcrumbs. It satisfies my (perennial) craving for pizza.

The quantities in the recipe are flexible, if you’re keen on tomatoes and spice, go for it. Likewise spinach and the toppings. I used cherry tomatoes, you can substitute any fresh tomatoes, but I would core and seed larger tomatoes. Don’t use tinned tomatoes – too much liquid.

It’s easy to make this as a vegan dish – use olive oil and a vegan cheese substitute. Or omit the cheese altogether.

Key to success of this recipe is to sauté the ingredients for the stuffing and topping separately and combine or layer as per the instructions.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 large flat mushrooms, often called Portobello
• 250 grams cherry tomatoes
• 250 grams chestnut or white mushrooms
• Teaspoon of dried chilli flakes
• teaspoon of herbes de Provence
• butter or oil to sautè
• 500 grams fresh spinach (optional)
• 50 grams of high quality breadcrumbs
• 50 grams of Parmesan cheese, finely grated
• tablespoon of chopped chives

Instructions

1. Prepare a shallow flat baking dish, coat lightly with oil. Remove the stems from the mushrooms (often sold without them or with very short stems). Place the mushrooms, gill side up, in the baking dish.
2. Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan).
3. Remove the stems from chestnut mushrooms, chop fine. Sauté the chopped mushroom in butter or olive oil. Put to one side, wipe out the frying pan.
4. Halve or quarter the cherry tomatoes. Sauté in oil or butter until soft, crush with a potato masher, stir in the chili flakes and herbes de Provence. Combine with the chopped sautéed mushrooms, spoon the mixture over the Portobello mushrooms. Wipe out the frying pan (again).
5. Quickly and very briefly sauté the spinach. Spoon over the tomatoes and mushrooms.
6. Combine breadcrumbs, cheese and chives and top the mushrooms.
7. Cook for 20 minutes, check for doneness. Might need another 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

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