WHAT'S HAPPENEING IN THE LAND OF THE BIG GREEN ZUCCINI?

You know it is summer when people start trying to give away zuccinis! No, not me, because mine are just beginning to flower, but Sally from gardening has given me about a kilogram's worth. So while I was at the market on Friday I bought some mushrooms and a packet of lasagne sheets and decided to make one of our favourite summer dishes, Zuccini and Mushroom Lasagne.

It is so much tastier than it sounds..... somehow the flavours are just right and blend to form a dish that it greater than the sum of its parts. It is a bit fiddly, especially if you use the non-instant lasagne like I do, and you brown all the zuccini slices but it works OK with instant lasagne and with raw zuccini. In fact if you were going to use raw zuccini I would use instant lasagne because it would soak up the juices really well. But if, like me, you enjoy an excuse to put on some music and spend an hour in the kitchen, this is a recipe for you.

I usually now grow either the yellow zuccini or the yellow fluted squash....which are just all the same flavour, but with different jackets on and in different shapes. My favourite colour is yellow and if there is a yellow version of anything I can never resist it!

Today is quite hot and after many weeks of cool weather it is making me think of summer food and BBQ's etc. I think my favourite foods would have to be Middle Eastern and I have on my lap one of my favourite books, that Maggie wrote about once, called "Taking Tea in the Medina". The photo on the cover of the book almost oozes with the juice of the pomegranates..... and the recipes and the writng entice me to go outside and pick mint and coriander and parsley and start cooking chick peas and eggplant and adding my own garlic and lemons. I have a lovely, quick recipe for puris which, although Indian, would be fine to scoop up hummus and babaganoush and slow-cooked feral goat marinated in yoghurt..... I smell dinner.....I have some feral goat in the freezer.

Oh dear..... none of this will be ready for lunch today and I am starving now! We will have to finish off the lasagne and pick a salad......and thaw that goat. 

ps I did thaw the goat and marinade it in yoghurt and lemon peel and juice and tomato paste and other stuff I have forgotten..... then baked it for nearly 3 hours very slowly and covered for most of the time because feral goat is VERY lean.... and we had it for dinner with vegetables from the garden. It was divine.... one of those recipes that is so simple but so good and only requires cooking time, not preparation time. And that to me is the perfect meal.