King Size Veg

Regrettably, looking after an allotment is a real commitment and when it comes to vacations, despite the best efforts of all your colleagues, somethings get missed. Project 63 was no exception in September, and despite continuing deliveries of vegetables to our chosen charities, several of our courgettes were found hiding under the foliage on our return. Now the suggestion is, when your chosen veggie passes an optimum size it loses its flavour and seem to be jettisoned. I was determined to prove our king size vegetables still had plenty to offer and cooked up one of our medicine sized courgettes to prove the point. If you are interested, for ordinary sized veg too, you will need:

Olive Oil
smokey bacon
onions, carrots, peppers, celery and garlic, all grown on the allotment of course,
salt and pepper.
two chicken stock cubes
6 ounces rice ( for three people)



First and foremost decapitate the courgette (Image above) and then carefully relieve it of all the seeds and 'mushy type' middle area. Then scoop out all of the flesh so you are left with a hollowed out courgette.



Roughly chop all the vegetables and bacon. in a hot saucepan (quite large in this case) heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil and saute the onion until it is soft. Then add the roughly cut small pieces of bacon) and once cooked add carrots (very finely chopped), celery and peppers together with all the excavated courgette and cook until the carrots are soft. You will have quite a moist pot of food due to the water in the courgette at this point which is fine. Once this is all dealt with and suitably cooked add the bashed and finely chopped garlic and leave lightly on the ring for approx 3-4 minutes and stir in the two chicken stock cubes until they are completely dissolved, adding seasoning to taste.

whilst this is all taking place, boil up 6 ounces rice (or appropriate quantity for the mouths being tempted. Wash through hot water to remove any starch, and then add to your above mix and stir in, and again cook through for a short period.

Place the hollowed out courgette and lid in boiling water for about 3-4 minutes or slightly longer, then drain and place on top of baking foil, criss crossed in the bottom of a baking tray and then add all of the mix, wrap up tightly with the foil, and put in the oven approx 160 degrees for half an hour or slightly longer.

When ready, remove from the oven, and dish up. The longer the initial simmering process of the empty courgette, or the stay in the oven the softer the outer shell becomes, and it is truly just like a soft marrow or courgette at this point and very tasty. Serve with your chosen meat, in our case we coated and seared medallions of pork with a salt and pepper mix, cooked until just loosing its pink tint, leaving a moist piece of meat to accompany our king sized stuffed courgette. (in the end there was sufficient courgette for two lunches the day after!!!)



The above received the thumbs up from our household, and hopefully may allow you to look at those outsized vegetables a little differently in future rather than just feeding them to the chickens etc.....