summer dishes

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Not wanting too much tonight, is a mantra for our meal decisions when it's hot.

So yesterday it was parma, melon, fresh mint salad.
And jolly filling it was too.




I've also cleaned the bbq.
Bit of a disaster, as I dribbled dirty dark ashy water whilst tripping through the house with a bowl. Right onto our newly upholstered chaise longue ....... nooooooo.
Frantically got the handwash out (I'd been doing holiday handwash at the weekend), and dabbed it, dabbed it, dabbed it some more with water and fresh soft cloths.

Miraculously it's come up without a single mark, you wouldn't even know. Googling, I've seen you should use hand wash soap on upholstery stains - I'll go with that.

So, the bbq is ready.
What you all thinking about making for the summer time? Waitrose seems to have some jolly good recipes.

[Joanbunting Profile]

Gill I do something very similar but instead of leaves I add torn up mozarella.

Other favourite salads include thinly sliced smoked duck breat and figs on mixed leaves.

Avocado, blue cheese and pancetta also on leaves,

Grilled goats' cheese on beetroot with a splash of balsamic on country bread toast.

On the bbq spatchcocked quail rubbed with Moroccan spiced, nice served with a mint and tomato cous cous salad
Stuffed sardine or rouget fillets rolled and skewered and bourbon spiced ribs - which I always poach first.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

We have a lot of Mediterranean veg based meals at this time of the year, such as bakes, shakshuka, pasta or rice based dishes. If I do a Med veg bake I skip the cheese, and serve it with salad and decent bread. Tuna Nicoise salad is also made a few times as well.

We have a few monster courgettes from our veg plot to use - they are almost at the small marrow stage . I want to use them in a celebratory way rather than hide them in something. I've got a few ideas kicking about in my brain at the moment but may need some help if any of you lovely folks have any suggestions. The only problem is I am a bit light on eggs, chicken and fish at the moment, and we don't go shopping until Friday night.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Oh excellent.
I can bore you rigid with my courgetti spaghetti suggestion ..... as per always.

And grilled long slices of the courgette and cheese (whatever you have) pecorino if you have it, with a puttanesca sauce to go over.

I had to look up shakshuka ..... that is so me! Slurp!

Hi Joan.
What delicious suggestions. Very lovely indeed. You know, I haven't bought balsamic for yonks.
I seemed to have quite a number of jars, then all of a sudden, nothing in.

[Renée Profile]

Lovely ideas and that's a lovely plate of food, Gill!

I love to make Shakshuka if I have any peppers in the fridge.

I bought some interesting Canadian balsamic vinegar with a little maple syrup in it from TKMaxx.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

Sorry Gill but courgetti spaghetti doesn't float us Strictlys' boat, as we like pasta. Thanks for your other suggestions though. I had already thought of courgette and sardine puttanesca with either pasta or as a pizza sauce. however, it sounds yummy as a courgette stuffing.

[Joanbunting Profile]

Courgette and mint soup, served chilled, freezes well. I also tried a courgette and feta clafoutis recipe from Saveurs recently which was very tasty indeed.

I much prefer corgetti spaghetti to the pasta variety.

[Sakkarin Profile]

The iced cold noodle dishes that featured on the first Torode Korean programme probably fit the bill! One of the recipes literally included ice cubes. I'm afraid I've got pork and chicken in the frifge already so can't try them out...

https://goodfood.uktv.co.uk/john-torode ... f-noodles/

Some nice moo in there too.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

My favourite recipe for a courgette glut is

Greek courgette & feta croquettes

There are loads of recipes in the internet, but I decided to go with this one, as most make a sort of fluid batter and drop the mixture to form fritters; I knew that wasn’t what I’d had on Paxos, this seemed more plausible

http://greekfood.about.com/od/hotorcookeddishes/r/Zucchini-Fritters-With-Feta-Kolokithokeftethes-Me-Feta.htm

You can in fact use any herbs you like, we had three lots in different tavernas, all were different; here I use mint and parsley, but I think I prefet dill. You could use spring onion instead if not herbally minded.

So my ingredients are

500g courgettes, grated on the 4 mm disc of the Magimix, salted and squeezed dry (if you do this, cut the courgettes into short lengths, my shreds were so long they were really hard to shape into little cakes and I ended up with 10 largish ones, should have made about 16 smaller ones; won be problem hand grating)
120 g feta chopped fine (Lidl’s feta is cheap and good for cooking)
40 g plain flour
20 g SR flour (I suppose 60 g plain flour plus a pinch of baking powder would work, but this blend is just right)
Black pepper
1 med egg beaten
A good handful flat leaf parsley and quite a bit of mint (use a lot, both cheese and courgettes soak up the flavour)

This made a soft dough when mixed, I scooped portions out with my ice cream scoop, rolled in plain flour, flattened into what looked like little fish cakes, and fried in olive oil until well coloured, remember, you need to cook the flour)

Serve warm, so the feta is a little gooey

Spot on! Can serve with tzatziki, if you like or (non-Greek) aioli would work

[DEB Profile]

I can not comment on these recipes in general but here goes for courgette recipes

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/spi ... te-lasagne

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide ... courgettes

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/col ... /courgette

This one got praise from friends and work mates

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/681 ... tte-pickle

DEB

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Well would you believe it!
That's the first recipe I've seen requiring apple vinegar, Sakkarin. Which I bought for a change a couple of months ago.


Sue.
Right up my street. Especially your mentioning tzatziki.
On my radar to try, thank you.


Talking of the love of pasta (or not, Joan ) our first night of holiday I had my fav = garlic and chilli, with lotsa oil.
It came with huge slivers.
Tony was turning my face away for 2 days.

Sounds lovely, Renee.
Do you recommend the balsamic? - it would save the need for adding honey to a dressing.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

The pickle looks particularly good, DEB.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I presumed the "apple vinegar" meant cider vinegar. Thanks for the heads-up on that! Torode enthused about his apple vinegar.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

That`s a lovely recipe, Sue! I shall certainly have a go at that!

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

I've always like Torode.
So if he enthuses, I'd agree with that. Never understood why he isn't involved in the professional chef bit of Masterchef.

Although he's good at what he does do.

[Petronius Profile]

OH makes a sort of carbonara plus grated courgettes and bacon. Does a similar pasta dish with fennel and prawns.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

The AVERAGE temperature here is about 25ºC, so there`s never really an alternative to "summer dishes".
However, pasta dishes, salads and BBQs are probably most common.
A while ago I had a delicious salad in a restaurant. They called it a "Mediterranean Salad" - but it had avocado, cos lettuce, cooked prawns, tomato, red peppers, grilled courgettes and a creamy (probably mayo-based) dressing, sparked up with lime juice. Good!!

[Renée Profile]

Thanks for all the courgette recipes! I saw vegetable pasta in Sainsbury's yesterday.

Gill, the Canadian balsamic with maple syrup is good in a dressing, with a slight sweetness. It is available online, although rather expensive. I paid a lot less in TKMaxx/Home Sense, but they only had one bottle of it.

https://lunya.co.uk/product/wildly-deli ... ack-maple/

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

thanks Renee.
I now know what to look for.

KK, nice sounding salad.
I'm sure there's loads of interesting ones in your part of the world.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

I made a lovely roasted Med Veg dip to go with some sesame seed breadsticks over the weekend. The combination was about as addictive as a tub of Pringles or bag of salted nuts ! I made it for an afternoon snack which we had yesterday. I can provide the recipe if anyone would like it