Easy Cheesy Courgette Scones and Drying Basil

Courgettes grow so quickly once a plant starts to produce them and we all have problems using so many of them.  It feels like another one grows when you look away for just a few moments.

So how do I use them?

I use them in omelettes, pasta sauces, curries, soups, spaghetti bolognaise, chilli, pizza sauce, etc.

I also slice the courgettes and freeze them on a tray (without blanching), so they don’t stick together and then I put them in a freezer bag.  They can then be used  in the winters months, in all of the above meals.  I just add them still frozen, straight from the freezer.

Another thing I do, is grate the raw courgettes (with the skin on) and freeze in 340 gram bags (without blanching).  This way I can defrost the courgettes whenever I need to and make the following:

Easy Cheesy Courgette Scones:

450g self raising flour

2 level teaspoons of baking powder

340g grated courgettes (grated with the skin on)

112g margarine

Approx 10 tablespoons of milk

112g grated cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven Gas 7 / 220C / 425F

Put the grated courgettes in a clean tea towel or muslin and squeeze out as much juice as possible

In another bowl rub the margarine into the flour and baking powder until it looks like breadcrumbs

Add the grated cheese and courgette and mix, making sure the courgette doesn’t stick together in large lumps.

Add enough milk to make a soft dough that is not too sticky (add more flour if your dough is too sticky).

Roll out the dough 1cm thick and cut into rounds with a pastry cutter

(do not twist your cutter as this will give you funny shaped scones)

Place the scones on a greased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes.  They should be a nice golden brown and well risen.

Butter and enjoy

Cheesy Courgette Scones

I made fourteen scones and they only cost me 98p to make, as I grew my own courgettes.

  That’s an incredible 7p per scone!

My daughter loves to take a scone to school everyday as a snack for breaktime, so I make a batch of scones every other weekend.  After they have cooled down, I cut them in half and butter them and then I open freeze them on a tray.  When they are frozen I put them in a freezer bag.  This way I can just pop a frozen scone into her lunch box each morning and it will be defrosted by breaktime, ready to eat.

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Yesterday I picked some basil and it’s now drying in my kitchen.

Basil drying in my kitchen

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To dry basil, all you need to do is pick it in the morning

( this is when the most oil is in the leaves)

Wash it under the tap and dry it off between two clean tea towels

Hang it up, somewhere light and airy and leave for approximately four weeks

It should crumble easily when fully dried and then put it in a sterilised jar

(to sterilise, place the jar in an oven for 5 minutes, gas mark 4).

It’s as easy as that!

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Below are some interesting things about Basil that you may not know:

The first written history of basil appears to date back 4,000 years to when it was grown in Egypt.

The name basil is derived from the medieval Latin form of the Greek word for “King” or “Kingly”.

In Iran, Malaysia and Egypt basil is often considered a love token and is planted on graves.

In Ancient Greece and Rome, basil was associated with poverty, hate and misfortune due to the belief that basil would only prosper where there was abuse.

Also, in Ancient Greece, when planting basil seeds, there was much shouting and cursing which later led to the French coining the phrase ‘semer le basilic’, which means to slander.

In Crete, basil was considered an emblem of the devil and was placed on most window-ledges as a charm against his influence.

Basil was ironically also thought to be a useful tool in determining chastity – it would wither in the hands of the impure.

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The above information came from a website called ‘Ourherbgarden.com’.  Here’s the link:

http://www.ourherbgarden.com/herb-history/basil.html

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I hope you enjoyed reading todays post