Homegrown Summer Courgette Recipes

The Burpee Europe team are just loving the fact that they are starting to harvest some delicious treats from the garden now. But just what can you do when you have a glut of veggies and you have exhausted handing them out to all your friends and neighbours already?

A GLUT OF COURGETTES?

This month we are starting to harvest all of our summer courgettes. Burpee Europe have a whole host of recipes that are splendid for their courgette varieties. But these tasty treats can also be used in pasta dishes, cooked and chopped up into warm salads and there is nothing as delicious as courgette soup!

SUMMER VARIETIES TO HARVEST NOW

The two summer varieties bred by Burpee Europe below, both have outstanding performance, flavour and wide adaptability. Courgette 'Butterstick' offers prolific plants with single-stem habit and a long harvest period. 'Butterstick' produces bright yellow straight-neck fruit on a courgette type plant.

Courgette 'Pic N Pic' (seen above) has pale golden fruits with smooth, tender skin. It’s extremely productive and best picked when 10–15 cm long. It ripens early and is highly productive, also the bush type plants take up little space!

SEASONAL RECIPES FOR SUMMER COURGETTES

The Burpee Europe website has three wonderful courgette recipes. One of the most delicious and just perfect for picnics and al fresco dining is the one for Courgette Scones!

Courgette Scones

4 people – makes around 12 small scones or 8 medium size ones

Ingredients:

225g Self raising flour
1 tsp Baking powder
50g Butter
2 courgettes grated & drained (to remove excess water)
2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese – grated (place some to the side for the top of scones before baking)
Fresh chives - chopped
150ml Milk
1 egg yolk to egg wash the scones
Salt & cracked pepper
1 Jar of tomato chutney or Smoked Salmon or you may want to just use butter
Pea shoots for garnish.

Method:

Heat the oven at 200 degrees, in a bowl place the flour, baking powder and the salt & pepper.

Add the butter and rub with your fingertips until it forms large breadcrumbs.

Add the parmesan cheese, the drained courgettes and the chopped chives.

Mix in and pour the milk using a fork to bring the mix together.

On a clean work surface, pour the mix and roll it to 2 cm thick using a (fluted) cutter.

Place the scones on a baking tray, brush with the egg yolk, place some grated parmesan cheese and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until risen and golden brown

More...

More recipes can be found on the Burpee website: burpeeeurope.com/recipes

Burpee Europe do not sell direct to the consumer, but their seeds are sold via top UK seed companies. Details of these on request from rabbitattackpr@gmail.com