Huge vegetable glut!

Spudsey

charlies-aunt wrote: »

I feel your pain - we have harvested about 120 courgettes this year and despite giving lots away and eating them every flippin' night in some way shape or form . . . there is still a heap of them waiting to be dealt with on the kitchen counter!

Our large chest freezer is filling rapidly with other home grown fruit and veg - which is lovely and very money saving as I haven't bought potatoes, veg or salad stuff for weeks but the nightly picking and prepping is a huge time vacuum as we both work full time.


Honesty box is a great idea - but if you are on benefits - beware of someone dobbing you in for running a small business :mad: our next door neighbour is an nice OAP and the other year, he had a glut of big and beautiful cabbages. He gave away as many as he could and he put the rest in a box outside his garden gate with a little sign "10p each" (not to be greedy, just to cover the cost of next years seed)

He was reported to Benefits and had all his money stopped whilst he was investigated. I appreciate that there are rules and regulations but it was a bit of OTT officialdom over a few cabbages IMO.

Charities such as Rabbit Rescue will often be pleased to take your surplus veggies to feed the bunnies

Snap! I have been writing everything down this year and grand total was 152 I think courgettes and 40 something cucumbers! I briefly went to the plot last night to pick up o/h and we have god knows how many cabbages but they are sadly all splitting...there is no way they will all get used and some people can be really funny about veg that has holes in!

Its lovely walking round the supermarket and not having to do much shopping around the fruit and veg aisles

Thats terrible about your neighbour! I used to sell bits of extra veg at work and like your neighbour used the extra money for seeds but I stopped doing it when another work colleague starting growing veg in her field where she had chickens, and would literally sell most stuff she grew and had regular orders from people so I didn't bother in the end. It seemed quite greedy to me.

Any excess veg is being used by my two rabbits, they have been enjoying spinach, greens, pea pods, carrot tops.....but good idea thanks!

Spudsey

Last nights dinner started off as a chicken bolognese which I threw in a courgette and a half and some french beans and made into a lasagne. Very yummy and have some for lunch today.

Think I need to 'think outside the box' and chuck veg in with everything instead of looking for cabbage recipes, courgette recipes etc all the time.

THIRZAH

We like greek style deep fried courgettes-just slice thinly roll in flour then dip in milk then back in flour and fry.

It does seem to be a good year for veg-DH and his business partner take veg and fruit into the office to give away, people at church are handing out courgettes after the service and somebody was giving away veg when we went walking last week.

I managed to get rid of quite a few blackcurrants at WI but still have at least 6 pounds frozen . That's on top of several pounds of rhubarb and I need to make room for blackberries.DD has given up picking red currants on her allotment . She has frozen loads and made jelly.

I wish our local food bank took fresh produce.

caitybabes

Hello all
Here are some meals we've made to use up the veg

-thai green curry (carrot sliced in thin chunks, onion, green tomatoes, a bit of cabbage, spring onions with chicken, thai green curry paste and coconut milk)
- egg fried rice (same veg as above with the leftover rice from curry)

Tonight I'm going to be making cabbage tagglietelle (from an idea in Rose Elliot's vegetarian cookery book). She slices it so that it resembles tagglietelle and boils it for 4-6 mins, then melts in cream cheese. I'm going to fry some bacon and onion to mix in and top it with breadcrumbs and cheese and bake in the oven. Going to use egg (as in for normal tagglietelle) instead of cream cheese as I don't have any in.

Looking forward to hearing how the courgette cake goes - 150 courgettes!!! I couldn't imagine it! I can see why it's a bit disheartening, it's a battle to get through all the veg and yet you don't want to waste any.

Hope you are re-heartened
Cait

-taff

Maske a picallili with them....this recipe is really really good, loads more tumeric than other ones and it's much nicer, less vinegary...
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/christmas-piccalilli-recipe-5658/

jackyann

caitybabes wrote: »

Hello all
Here are some meals we've made to use up the veg

-thai green curry (carrot sliced in thin chunks, onion, green tomatoes, a bit of cabbage, spring onions with chicken, thai green curry paste and coconut milk)
- egg fried rice (same veg as above with the leftover rice from curry)

Tonight I'm going to be making cabbage tagglietelle (from an idea in Rose Elliot's vegetarian cookery book). She slices it so that it resembles tagglietelle and boils it for 4-6 mins, then melts in cream cheese. I'm going to fry some bacon and onion to mix in and top it with breadcrumbs and cheese and bake in the oven. Going to use egg (as in for normal tagglietelle) instead of cream cheese as I don't have any in.

Looking forward to hearing how the courgette cake goes - 150 courgettes!!! I couldn't imagine it! I can see why it's a bit disheartening, it's a battle to get through all the veg and yet you don't want to waste any.

Hope you are re-heartened
Cait

I had forgotten cabbage tagliatelle. It's brilliant!

I have done something similar with courgettes, putting them through the large grater on a food processor - so that they come out in "strings" rather than small bits.

365days

http://www.kidspot.com.au/best-recipes/after-school-snacks+86/zucchini-and-chorizo-slice-recipe+3396.htm

Had this last night and it was delish!