I grew up in a nature-loving (yes, hippy!) family on a large property overlooking my hometown of Raglan. My parents grew much of what we ate, without the use of chemicals or pesticides. Back in the 80s, CSA (wasn’t really a thing in NZ, but my Dad did his own version of it, selling veggie boxes to locals filled with produce from our garden. My mum cooked our meals with love and from scratch in a time when most people were developing a love for ready-cooked meals and microwave everything. My upbringing is something I’m super grateful for and it’s shaped much of my adult life and career. My husband, teenage kids and I now live on a lifestyle block on the outskirts of Raglan, where we’re following in my parent’s footsteps by growing much of what we eat ourselves. Naturally, I like to make everything from scratch. I’m a  chef who has written and photographed three best-selling cookbooks, and I have been developing recipes for more than a decade after starting my food blog My Darling Lemon Thyme back in 2010. To say food is my life would be an understatement. I’m passionate about encouraging others to take their power back, by growing their own food and cooking simple, nourishing food for themselves and their whanau.

Everyone who has ever grown their own courgettes (aka zucchini) knows what it’s like to plant too many! It feels like they can go from small courgettes to large overgrown marrow in the blink of an eye, so you’ll often find gardeners frantically searching for recipes to use up loads of them, or gifting them to friends and family on a daily basis. 

The sweet spot for our family of four is two plants. These provide almost daily eating and enough to make a dozen or so jars of pickles. They’re one of the easiest vegetables to grow and the only constraint is space, as they take up a lot of it.

Growing

You can stagger sow, to ensure you have a good supply from late spring-early autumn. In the earlier months I like to sow my seeds in pots inside. But once the threat of frosts has passed, it’s easiest to direct sow seeds into the garden. Pick a sunny sheltered spot with fertile soil that’s had lots of compost added. Like with most vegetables, any of the heirloom varieties will give you the best flavour. While they might not be as productive as the new modern varieties, they make up for it in dense, flavoursome flesh. My favourites include: ‘Genovese’, ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Costates de Romanesco’.

Harvest often and when young. The bigger you allow them to get, the less flavourful they’ll be. Use a sharp knife to cut courgettes from the plant to avoid damaging the plant, leaving about 2.5cm (1in) of stem on the fruit.

Cooking

When it comes to making use of your courgette bounty, there are so many ways you can store them for future use. I slice and freeze excess courgettes to add to smoothies for extra creaminess without sweetness, or grate and freeze in ½ cup silicone trays before transferring to zip-lock bags. This is great for use in cakes, loaves, muffins or fritters when out of season. Just defrost overnight
in the fridge and drain off any excess liquid before using. My yearly go-to preservation method, however, is making courgette pickles.

Courgette pickles 

This is based on the more common bread and butter pickle – which is made with cucumbers – this courgette version retains all the same characteristics of a good cucumber pickle and is the perfect way to deal with a glut of courgettes!
I prefer using small-medium courgettes than large ones as they are firmer. The smaller ones can also be easily cut with a mandolin, which speeds up the process! 

The trick to getting a good seal on this simple pickle without having to muck around with water baths, is to have everything hot: hot jars, hot lids, hot pickling liquid. For this reason, I only pull one jar out of the oven at a time, to pack and seal. I recommend using lids with the little bumps on the top, so you can clearly see if they’ve sealed or not.

Makes 5 x 300ml jars

  • 1kg medium courgettes
  • 1 medium onion, sliced finely
  • 3 tablespoons fine sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
  • 480ml apple cider vinegar
  • 120ml water (preferably filtered)
  • 150g (¾ cup) golden caster sugar
  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric

Finely slice courgettes to approximately 3mm thickness, if you have a mandolin it makes the job quick and easy.

Transfer to a glass or ceramic bowl,
add onion and salt and mix thoroughly with your hands to distribute the salt evenly. Cover and leave on your
benchtop overnight.

The following day, preheat the oven to 120 °C. Place 5 x 300ml freshly cleaned jars into the oven and heat for 20 minutes to sterilise. When nearly ready to fill jars, place the lids into a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer for
5 minutes.

Transfer the courgette-onion mixture to a colander and rinse well with cold water. Allow to drain, then transfer to a clean tea towel. Spread mixture out in a thin layer over half of the tea towel, then fold over the towel and gently pat to remove excess water. Transfer courgette-onion mixture to a large bowl. Add mustard seeds and mix through. 

To make the pickling liquid, combine vinegar, water, sugar, mustard seeds and turmeric in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once boiling, turn down to the lowest setting to keep it hot until needed.

One at a time, remove the jars from the oven, packing each one with the courgette-onion mixture, and ladle in enough pickling liquid to cover. Quickly run a knife or skewer around the inside
of the jar to remove air bubbles, then
top up with more pickling liquid if
needed. Screw on a lid (tight but not overly so), then set aside and repeat with remaining jars.

The lids will suck down and seal as the jars cool. If any don’t suck down, store them in the fridge and use within two weeks. If sealed correctly, jars will store happily in a cool dark place for up to
12 months, although they do tend to lose their crunch after about six months.

Courgette fritters

I was tempted to call these courgette rosti as the mixture is more chunky than your usual flour-based fritter. Once cooked, however, they’re definitely worthy of the fritter name. This recipe can easily be doubled or more, to feed a crowd.

Makes: 8 fritters

  • 2-3 medium courgettes
  • 1 large free-range egg
  • ½ medium onion, finely diced
  • 1/3 cup grated cheese. Parmesan or tasty are ideal, but Edam or cheddar will work too
  • 1/3 cup breadcrumbs (gluten-free if needed)
  • 2 tablespoons cornflour (gluten-free
    if needed)
  • Handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped, plus extra to serve
  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Olive oil or ghee, to shallow-fry
  • Your favourite relish or chutney,
    to serve, optional

Grate two of the courgettes and transfer to a clean tea towel and wring out as much liquid as you can. You need one cup of firmly packed and squeezed courgettes, so grate and wring out more if needed. Transfer courgettes to a medium bowl, along with the egg, onion, cheese, breadcrumbs, cornflour, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well. Heat a large heavy-based frying pan over medium heat, add olive oil or ghee to lightly coat the pan, then add ¼ cupfuls of fritter mixture, flattening fritters out slightly as you go. Cook for three to four minutes or until golden underneath, flip gently then cook for a further two to three minutes or until cooked through and golden on both sides. They are a bit fragile to work with initially, but once you flip onto the second side they firm up nicely. Transfer to a plate and repeat with remaining batter.

Serve warm with relish/chutney and extra parsley, if you like.  ■