If you have ever grown courgettes, then you know that you end up with a lot of courgettes in a very small amount of time. And recently we have ended up with a lot of courgettes! And a few surprise marrows!
And there is only so much grilled courgette you can eat until you start to get a little sick of it. So we were looking for some ways to preserve (or freeze) courgette, so that we don't have to eat it all now, and so that we can have some at a later date. And most importantly, we don't waste any of the delicious veggies from our garden!!
So I set out to do a bit of research on the best way to preserve (or freeze courgette). I don't have a lot of spare time at the moment, so I was looking for something that meant I didn't have to put a lot of effort in, and wouldn't mean I had to slave for hours. What I found from my research is that you can blanch and then freeze courgette, but many people didn't recommend doing that, as when the courgette is reheated, its rubbery and not that nice. I didn't want to cut up nicely, then blanch, then freeze my courgette babies, only for in a few months to reheat it and then avoid it in my meal. Someone suggested that it is better to create a meal with courgette in it first, and then freeze it, such as chocolate courgette cake (not technically a meal, but I could eat a lot of it in one sitting!), or a courgette soup! I had never tried courgette soup before, so I thought I would give it a go, because soup in winter is divine and so easy to reheat! And the best part of this courgette soup (in terms of preparation) was that the hardest part was cutting the courgette and that was it. Easy! Just what I needed!
COURGETTE SOUP
The great thing about soup is that you can basically make it up, so just judge how much you need, based on how much courgette you have!
Ingredients:
-Oil
-Garlic
-Onion
-Courgette
-Beef, chicken or veggie stock
-Chili flakes
-Pepper
1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion cut into quarters (as much as you like), and then add as much garlic as you like. I used one onion, and 1 tsp of crushed garlic. Sauté for a couple of minutes until the onion starts to brown a little.
2. Add the sliced courgette to the pot. I had about 7 to 8 cups of sliced courgette, but just use as much as you have!
3. Add chili flakes to the courgette. I used about 1 1/2 tsps. Saute the courgette with the chili flakes until the courgette starts to brown.
4. Add enough stock to cover the courgette. I needed 2L of stock, and I used a combination of chicken and beef stock.
5. Crack as much pepper into the pot as you like, and then increase the heat until the stock comes to a boil.
6. Once the soup is boiling, reduce the heat and then simmer. I just left the pot for an hour (to be honest I forgot I had the pot on the stove! Oops!), but you can just leave it to simmer until the courgette starts to break apart easily.
7. Take off the heat, and allow to cool.
8. Once cool, liquidize the stock. You can do this with a stick blender, or transfer in batches to a normal blender.
9. Either eat the soup straight away, or transfer to plastic containers in serving sizes, so that reheating it is very easy!
10. Place in the freezer!
11. To reheat at a later date, put the soup in a saucepan, or in a microwave proof bowl and stir at regular intervals to reheat it well.
Courgette soup is one of our new favourites!! Didn't even know it existed a week ago, and now we have 6 servings of it frozen to eat in winter!! YAY!
