More courgettes and preserving under oil.

Having had our fill of courgette recipes over the last few days, I picked the rest from the plants and spent an hour preparing them for freezing ready to use throughout the winter.

Each plant has at least one large marrow sized courgette still on it - ready to be made up into stuffed marrows, and more baby courgettes on the way, they just need a couple more days to warrant picking.

I freeze them in either baby courgette thin slices, thicker courgette chunks or larger thicker skinned courgettes, peeled and sliced, ready for whatever a recipe may demand, use from frozen otherwise they go all limp and mushy.

While feeling inspired to get preserving, I found a couple of sweet peppers mouldering away in my veggie basket and rather than waste them or even worse, they go off and I have to bin them, I thought I would preserve them under oil.

I do this whenever we get a glut of things in the garden and as an alternative to freezing stuff all the time.  I like the flavoured oils I get at the end too.

So - with some jars sterilised in the oven, (at a high heat for 20-30 minutes), I chopped the peppers quite thinly, so they are ready to use straight from the jar, sliced up a couple of rich ripe plum tomatoes, and peeled a whole head of garlic.

Stuff the peppers into the jar, about half way add a few slices of tomato then keep stuffing with peppers, as a finishing touch wedge a couple of cloves of garlic in, I do this with the jars piping hot direct from the oven.  Then pour over your oil of choice.  Because I want a flavoured oil at the end, and olive oil has too rich a taste of its own to take on the delicate flavours of peppers and tomato, I use grape seed oil instead.  It is also much lighter in colour so you see a lovely mix of colours from the veg themselves.

Saturday projects - Flavoured oils

I make my own flavoured oils, as these are so simple to do, yet so rewarding, they taste and look great, and don't cost a fortune.

I tend to get my bottles from my lovely clients who have little 'Monika' stash boxes next to their bins for their jars and glass bottles, newspapers and toilet roll holders, as well as from friends, although less from friends these days as everyone is at the make your own game now.

Today, even though it is still drizzling a bit, I thought I would get outside and set about the herb garden a bit.

With the oregano, the sage and the thyme doing well, I took a few cuttings from these for the oils.  To make the best oils or when drying herbs, always pick them in the morning when the levels of essential natural oils are at their highest.  This will give you the best flavour.

I am using grape seed oil as the base because it is much milder than olive oil, as well as having a beautiful greeny colour.

Whilst there I found a few strawberries nestled amongst the grasses and nettles.  To be honest we quickly scoffed the best ones, and what was left I put in some vodka for the freezer and summer cocktails when the summer finally gets here, and a few more into some gin - mother's ruin with some added kick.

With a strong steady rain settling in again, I am off to fill in all the school forms now.