SAVAGE COURGETTES

I'm a great lover of courgettes - courgette and dolce latte soup in particular but I am forever being teased about the number times I offer up a medley of creamy courgettes and mushrooms when left to my own devices in the kitchen. Last year Thomas bought some courgette seeds at our local garden centre and we were amazed to find that nothing grew better in our wee vegetable patch than these courgettes. We had so many we even had to give some away. We decided to become more adventurous. We bought Tuscan courgette seeds in Italy last summer for planting out this year. I mentally prepared many courgette recipes. The plants currently take up a quarter of our vegetable patch so we should be eating courgettes with every meal BUT I am more than disappointed with our little Italian impostors. These plants put all their energy into growing huge yellow flowers which despite being edible and fairly flavoursome are a poor substitute for real courgettes. Worse still they offer up very few tiny spherical courgettes which are protected by large cactus-like spikes. The first time I picked one my thumb throbbed and bled for two days. Although these are delicious, there are so few I feel like our whole vegetable patch has spent the entire summer creating a mere half dozen vegetables. And I never expected to be savaged by a member of my beloved courgette family.