Stuffed Gem Squash

Do you remember the gem squash I grew in the garden last summer?  Gem Squash - the intrepid explorer  Yesterday, I thought it was time to do my home grown gem squash justice and what a delicious dish it made.  I just have to share it with you!

As my boyfriend is lactose intolerant I stuffed his gem squash with my home grown Slow Roasted Tomatoes, a finely chopped shallot, a mix of herbs ground with a pestle and mortar (oregano, chilli flakes, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, bay leaf, salt and pepper), poured some of the oil the slow roasted tomatoes were in and mixed the herbs with the stuffing by stirring around with a tea spoon and put the lid on.

I, on the other hand am not lactose intolerant and have a serious addiction to cheese - particularly nice, soft goats cheese!  So I started off stuffing my gem squash with a good scoop of goats cheese, slow roasted tomatoes, a drizzle of the oil the slow roasted tomatoes were stored in and the mix of herbs I used in Matt's gem squash.

I accompanied these with some lamb cutlets with a good spread of my home made (and home grown) Nasturtium Pesto

Then I roasted them all in the oven for an hour at 180 degrees centigrade.

Here's how they looked straight out of the oven after an hour.  When they came out the oven they smelt absolutely devine and tasted absolutely scrumptious. 

Recipes used in the making of this meal:
Nasturtium Pesto
Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Courgette Hummus

My boyfriend's due home in a few days.  I've been willing my whole garden to grow lots of food for him with plant food in the form of worm tea, wishful thinking and lots of watering. The tomatoes are refusing to ripen but I do have a lot of squash growing out there.

On the courgette plant (as I was only successful at getting one seed to germinate) I pollinated one courgette and was letting it grow big as I wanted to save some seeds.  This plant is such a good cropper I do want to save some seed from it.  Unfortunately, it looks like the whole plant is putting all its energies into this one courgette and stalling on ripening more.  I decided it was time to remove this courgette to give the other fruit a chance.  It was approximately 25cm long.  I should have plenty of time to let courgettes grow later in the season when I grow tired of the glut.  Right now I need good crops available to cook for Matt in about 3 days time!

So what to do with a 300g courgette?  I hit my favourite seasonal cookbook "Grown in Britain Cook Book" which lists its recipes by crop group.  I stumbled on a recipe for pumpkin hummus and this gave me the inspiration for courgette hummus.

I'd never made hummus before.  I love eating hummus but as chickpeas are imported to the UK I have avoided making it in the past.  But I thought, just this once I would make some at home and bought a bag of dried chickpeas on my last trip to the shops.  So I had already rehydrated the chickpeas when I was trying to think what to do with the big courgette - now I could give it a local twist.

I started by chopping 3 garlic cloves in the food mixer.

Then chopped courgette went into the mixer.

I had no idea how much water courgettes contain!  Still it made wonderful courgette puree!

Courgette puree and chopped garlic

 Next, I put 200g chickpeas in the food mixer

Pureed chickpeas

 Next step, I combined the garlic, courgette and chickpeas together.

Mixing the courgette, chickpeas and garlic

And finally the best bit.. it was time for the seasoning: Tahini, lemon juice and paprika to taste.  Followed by a few good blobs of olive oil.

And here's what the finished result looked like...

Courgette Hummus

Not bad for my first go!

Great with some soldiers of home baked bread or even slice up spare raw squash - perfect for a bit of  crunch.

Ingredients:
200g chickpeas
300g courgette (or a medium sized squash - I wouldn't worry about the weight being too exact)
3 cloves of garlic
Table spoon Tahini (adjust quantity to personal taste)
2 Table spoons Lemon juice (adjust quantity to personal taste)
3 Table spoons Olive Oil/Rapeseed Oil
A few pinches of Paprika (adjust quantity to personal taste)

A good summer roast

With all the squash 

Crookneck Summer Squash - Seeds from Real Seeds

and courgettes ripening in our gardens, its time to get the squash recipes out...

Striata di Napoli - Seeds from Real Seeds

One of the first things I did when I had my very first courgettes grew in my garden was to lightly fry them with tomatoes and garlic.  I thought this tasted absolutely amazing.  It was the first time I was eating food I'd grown myself.  It was like nectar from the gods!!

Since then, I've discovered roasting vegetables is a wonderful thing to do with vegetables as it brings out the sugars in them.

Zapallito de Toscana - Seeds from Heritage Seed Library

One of my favourite veggie roasts is to roast squash with a good slice of mild goats cheese and a sprinkle of chilli powder on top if you like it a bit spicy.  Also, I like to roast them in the midst of lots of chopped onion and garlic.  Onion has a wonderfully sweet flavour when roasted which compliments squash perfectly.  If you are a carnivore, pork and apple sausages from your local butchers or farmers market will compliment the roasted squash and onions perfectly.  You could even experiment with a little roasted apple in there too...depends how sweet you like your savoury.  Crank the oven up to 40 degrees and in 30-45 minutes (when it all looks nicely browned to your liking) enjoy the fruits of your labours of growing your own!