Fruits of the freezer

If, like me, you are facing a new growing season with a freezer full of vegetables you never got round to eating in the last one, you may well appreciate recipes that help you use up the last of them. Especially if they are a little past their prime.

I love runner beans for their scarlet flowers, the traditional feel they give to an allotment and for their prolific cropping. However they are not the most versatile of vegetables. Basically it pretty much seems to be a case of with or without bacon. I did dabble in chutney but there is a limit. Therefore I had a lot of blanched beans in the freezer along with some mushy courgettes (which, I have discovered, don't freeze well).

This is where the secret veg mush comes in. Admittedly I may have to refine the name a little. But basically you chuck unloved veg in with tomato, onion and garlic and reduce. Blend and serve with pasta. Maybe not the most complex or thought through meal but bloody useful. And pretty healthy.

With a simple name change and the subtraction of pasta and addition of butter nut squash you can call it 'BNS ratatouille'. Or not. The choice is yours.

With over 4 kilos of mangetout, it's been hard to eat it all

Top tips: Keep picking mature pods to encourage flowering and therefore more pods later. At the end of the season leave a few pods on strong plants to grow big so you can sow them next year. Make sure the roots of your plants are well watered and there is space for the air to circulate. Aim the water at the soil not the leaves to avoid scorching and mildew.  When the plants are finished, cut the stalks off and leave the roots in the ground as they will fix nitrogen in the soil.

The mangetouts have finally given up the ghost. They have been a fantastic success. Initially, I thought they weren't going to perform well as all I got were a couple of pods sporadically but in the end they were miles better than the peas.

I guess I'd better come clean about my shameful secret. In a pretty anal way, I have been weighing the crops that I bring home.  A spreadsheet and graph even exist. 

Looking back I am glad I did as I can see that the mangetout started cropping on the 26th June. They produced a prolific crop of 2.7 kilos in  two weeks.  At that point the plants were looking sorry for themselves so I cut down half of them and left the others to see what would happen.  It was a good thing that I did as 10 days later they started cropping again and we got another 2 kilos. Not bad from half a packet of seeds.

On top of that you can use the new shoots in a salad - just like they do in smart restaurants. I've been freezing them like mad and have even had to buy a new freezer to accommodate them as unfortunately I don't have many recipes to use them up with.

Any ideas?