Ok – if you want to try a bit of cooking, here goes. There are a lot of lovely vegetables on our terrace garden at this time of year. For the first time we have grown Zucca or Marrows. It is difficult to always know what to do with these lovely sweet tasting fruit (or are they vegetables?). They always make a tasty soup when mixed with garlic and cream. However we tried stuffing and baking them.
You can actually make up your own stuffing out of virtually anything you choose, but here is what we did.
Ingredients for 2 – 4 people:
1 large or 2 smaller marrows, 1 small onion, 4 cloves of Garlic, 3/4 of a tin of peeled tomatoes or the equivalent of fresh tomato passata. 6 fresh tomatoes, 1 aubergine, 2 small peperoncini, fnally 2 cupfuls of dried green lentils boiled and softened for 30 minutes. Grated cheese, chopped parsley and basil for topping.
Cut up the marrow/s into lengthway halves and remove the seeds, then spread some butter on the flesh. Place in a baking dish and put in a preheated oven for 10 mins. Make the filling by frying the onions, garlic and peperoncini in a little olive oil, then adding the aubergines and finally the tomatoes. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes then adding and stirring in the cooked lentils. Simmer some more for about 5 minutes than take out the marrow boat from the oven and spread the filling into the hollow. Bake for a further 2o mintues, in a moderate oven, until the marrow flesh is soft, Finally spread on the cheese and herbs and bake for a further 5 to 10 minutes.
Boun appetito.
I don’t know if I have said this before but I love Italian ice cream – gelato. At La Barachina in Pescia on a hot Sunday afternoon there must be a hundred people at one time walking up and down the riverbank eating their ice creams. The riverside kiosk is a local institution and a brilliant one as many of our guests will testify. I love the wonderful flavours that you can mix in your cone or your cup. The briars are now filled with blackberries so I chose the most delicious mixture of portions of lemon and blackberry icecream. Just the ticket after a lovely day at the beach.