Courgette invasion

Courgette fritters

I am pretty new to the gardening world and somehow managed to grow some courgette plants from seed. Yeah! 

However I don’t think I really needed 10 plants ,seeing as one plant should feed a family of four for the whole summer.  In anticipation of my courgette glut I am trying out some of my courgette recipes. There will be plenty more to follow I would imagine :-) 

This is also a good way of getting kids to try some veggies.  Funnily enough if you call them Zucchini pancakes they prefer them even more and technically you are correct.

Ingredients

2 courgettes (mine were quite big)

75g plain flour

2 eggs, beaten

A handful of mint leaves,  shredded

Thyme leaves from a few sprigs of thyme

The zest of 1 lemon

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 red chilli -  deseeded and  finely chopped

2 spring onions sliced finely

Feta or other goats cheese - crumbled

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

Method

1. Grate the courgettes coarsely.  Then take a clean tea towel and place the grated courgette pulp in the middle and scrunch up into a ball. Wring the tea towel out over the sink. A lot of water will come out!

2 Place the flour in a bowl and add the beaten eggs, herbs, lemon zest, garlic, spring onions, chilli, courgettes, salt and pepper and mix well.  Gently stir in the cheese.

3. Heat a large frying-pan with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. When the oil is hot, take a heaped tablespoon of the courgette mixture and drop it into the pan, flattening it out slightly with the back of the spoon. Leave for a few minutes until the bottom is brown,  if you try and flip over to early the fritter will fall apart.

Turn over and cook for another couple of minutes.  ( If you want to be cheffy and get a perfectly round circle,  place the mix inside a stainless steel chef ring - to be honest I think free form look much better -  see pics below)

4. I served with some rocket leaves and tomatoes and some sweet pepper relish I had lurking in the back of the fridge.  These can be served for lunch, brunch or as an accompaniment to some pan fried fish.