It’s deeply unfair on the vegetable race for me to say this, having brought two innocent courgette plants into the world this year under my own steam and watched DJ nurture his own, but today I don’t care if I never see another courgette again. I have courgette overload. Let’s just say I’ve overdone it with the little fellahs lately.

I’ve begun my new make do and mend challenge and during my first week my task is to stay away from the grocery shops and make use of items already in our kitchen cupboards, freezer and our back garden. Given that we are overloaded with courgettes at the moment, having foolishly grown three plants (two ‘all green bush’ and one ‘defender’) I thought I’d better make use of them. So lunch yesterday consisted of courgette fritters made with flour, egg and breadcrumbs from a leftover loaf alongside leftover courgette, potato, red onion and tomato bake made over the weekend. To be honest, the fritters were really good and, on its own, the potato bake thing is delicious and really easy to make too. You just throw sliced onion into the bottom of a lasagne dish, add layers of thinly sliced potato, tomato and courgette and top with grated cheddar/parmesan and throw in some herbs and tabasco. Bake for an hour at 190 degrees. But together it was all a bit too much. I felt a bit green– maybe I’m turning into a courgette now too, I’ve consumed so many.

Anyhow, in preparation for my task I’ve been going through our kitchen cupboards and making an inventory of some of the weird and wonderful ingredients there. Funny really – I had this notion that I kept a fairly frugal kitchen but I’ve been horrified to find out that there are plenty of things lurking around that DJ and I haven’t got around to using

Here are some of them:

Water chestnuts       

Couscous

Lasagne sheets

Semolina

Cocoa powder

Frozen blackcurrants

Pearl barley

Frozen prawns

Walnut halves

Ice cream

Sardine fillets

Frozen peas

Suet

Sausages

Cornflour

Dried blueberries

Marmite

Juniper berries

Sesame oil

Cannelini beans

Sundried tomatoes

Chicken legs

Mustard seeds

Saffron strands

Risotto rice

Puy lentils

Red kidney beans

From the garden: red onions, tomatoes, courgettes (eek), cucumbers

I am busy having a good think about what to do with my list of ingredients. A paella could be a possibility with the saffron, chicken and frozen prawns. Or I was also thinking of trying to make a cassoulet – a French dish with the beans, chicken and sausages. But then again, maybe this would be using up too many of the ingredients at once. I’m also tempted by some blueberry muffins or a jam roly-poly using the suet, but they might not be too good for the waistline. Also fancy doing something with the sardine fillets too or maybe a salad with the puy lentils. I usually eat them in a casserole and haven’t tried them cold. Green Gal my new pal on Twitter suggested I could make jam with the blackcurrants, which could be the way forward. Need to see if I have enough sugar.

Got any weird and wonderful recipe ideas using my ingredients? Let me know and I’ll try them out!

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