Well I’m going to be honest, for me the last courgette of the season deserves as much of a fanfare as the first. 

Having been away to warmer climes for the last few weeks, I was honestly aghast to come home and find some small but perfectly formed courgettes still on the last couple of plants that I hadn’t yet uprooted before I went away. Bless them for making sure we had dinner for when we got back. 

  

I’ve come home with a few few ideas for recipes including the amazing Calabash salad, made for me by the kindest French chef I’ve ever met, the lovely Thierry. In the past, I’ve never been a favourite guest of similar culinary genii, you see on the whole I’ve found the vegetarian thing doesn’t go down terribly well. I was once served an empty plate at a swanky restaurant in Lille as the chef was so affronted that I’d dared to ask for a vegetarian option. Oops, I must not digress but please do check out my salad ideas on the recipe pages. Some folk baulk at the ‘S’ word but I promise these are all fabulous for veggies and meaties any time of year. 

Back to my little courgette friends. I still have a few onions here from the farm shop so I will pair them together tonight and roast in the oven with a mixture of herbs. Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed that the onions you buy from supermarket don’t seem to make you cry like they used to? Yet the ones from my farm shop or out of my little allotment patch make me sob like I’m watching Bambii. 

One more digression, just a quick one… RASPBERRIES! I found some growing in the lawn months back so we cordoned the area off and my gosh they are unbelievable! Great big fat flavourful raspberries like I’ve never known. Trouble is they’re so good they never make it back to the house as I’ve always snaffled them before I’m back through the kitchen door. Sooooo good. 

  
So courgettes, onions, some of my own dried mint (halo) with some pearl barley and grilled halloumi. I know your mouth is watering already and you’re contemplating adding pearl barley to your Ocado list before you’ve finished reading… I’ll write it up properly when I’ve taken photos tonight and I think I’ll call it my courgette final fanfare warm salad… Too much of a mouthful? Oh dear. Pun-Dom.  

I have some homemade farmhouse bread proving from a new recipe and it should all be ready just in time for hubby when he arrives back. 

Oh how I love a cold dark evening curled up in front of the fire with the dogs and a blanket but I do miss the long summer nights where I could juggle barbecuing and digging in my veggie patch. I’m concentrating on teaching myself some rather fiddling knitting things now the evenings have drawn in… I’ll post my current journey once I’m complete but let’s just say the air has been rather blue and it’s all been almost thrown onto the aforementioned roaring log fire more than once. I never see Kirsty flap but she must do, she’s human too, even if she is the goddess of all things craft. 

  
Right, I’m off to juggle cooking my final fanfare courgettes, baking my bread, knitting, the fire, feeding the doglets (how do they know exactly what time it is to the minute?) and what feels like a gazillion other things. What is it they say? If you want something doing, ask a busy person? 

And breathe… TTFN X