Tag Archives: Zucchini

Garden fresh – brown rice soba noodles with courgettes and herbs

With Anna away in India for three weeks I have been pretty lazy on the cooking front and coping with quick fruit salads, smoothies and omelettes.  Today I decided to use up the last of the courgettes from the garden and garnished it with a combination of herbs (plucked fresh from our herb patch).  The end result is worthy of being replicated for Anna when she gets back as I think she will like it.

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What do I need to make it?

  • 80-90 gms Brown rice soba noodles (spaghetti if you are not on a gluten free diet)
  • 3-4 medium sized mushrooms sliced
  • 1 large stick of celery roughly chopped
  • 1 small yellow courgette cubed
  • 1 small green courgette cubed
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped
  • 1/2 tsp dried Italian seasoning
  • Handful basil, mint, oregano and curly leaf parsley chopped for garnish
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste

How much will I make?

A hearty bowl for one

How do I make it?

Boil your noodles or pasta and keep aside.   Heat pan and add olive oil and garlic and saute for a minute.   Add the celery and saute for a couple of minutes before adding the courgettes and mushrooms.  Stir for 5 minutes before sprinkling the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.  Garnish with chopped herbs and add cooked noodles to the pan.   Toss around till the noodles are well coated and serve up in a large bowl.  Enjoy.

How does my garden grow?

Watching my little vegetable garden grow and thrive is giving me immense joy and pride these days. We are finally seeing some sunshine and can feel the British summer arrive at long last.  The extended daylight hours are a great blessing as I tend to linger longer in my garden, weeding, fussing over my plants and generally pottering around.  My courgettes, squash and tomatoes have started to flower and I can see little red bulbs of radish poking their heads out from the soil.  Shiv, my mother and the kids are showing interest in the garden which gives me added pleasure.  I do have my share of sorrows as the neighbourhood cats still think that my garden is their toilet.  I have tried hard to keep them off but alas, nothing seems to work.  A friend suggested a website which sells predator pee.  I am quite sceptical to try it and think I’d rather have Shiv or Ansh mark their territory in the garden.  Then we have the problem of unwelcome guests from the pest kingdom who visit our garden in biblical proportion.  I have made a homemade pesticide, which I believe is fairly potent in keeping pests away.  My  Dad gave me this recipe years ago and I hold it very dear to my heart as with all my memories of him.

  • I use about 100 ml of Neem oil (Available in most Indian grocery stores)
  • 200 ml of hand wash soap or laundry detergent
  • 500 ml of water

Pour these into a sprayer bottle and shake till you get a murky emulsion.  Neem oil  smells vile but believe me its benefits are many.  I am convinced that my courgette plants’ leaves have been spared of  powdery mildew because of my spraying them generously with my home made Neem oil pesticide.

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