Curried kumara & quinoa stuffed courgette GF Vegan serves 2

As kids when the garden was giving us more courgettes than we liked, mum would come up with interesting ways to get us to enjoy them. This is my take on a much loved dish.

Curried kumara & quinoa stuffed courgette

Ingredients

1 kumara-peeled and diced

1 onion-finely diced

3 cloves garlic-crushed

1C quinoa-cooked

2Tbsp your favourite curry paste

1/2C coriander-roughly chopped

Salt/Pepper

2 overgrown courgette-cut into rounds 10cm thick

Thick tomato sauce

1 onion-finely diced

2 cloves of garlic-crushed

3 tomatoes-roughly chopped

1Tbsp sugar

Salt/Pepper

Olive oil

Method

Run a spoon around the edge of the courgettes to remove the centre (don’t toss out ,you’ll need it later)make sure not to go all the way thru leaving abit of a base so the filling doesn’t spill out.
Tomato sauce – Roughly chop up the courgette centres, gently brown off the onion and garlic then add in the tomatoes and courgette centres. Cook over a low heat till thick and everything is nice and soft. Season, you may or may not need the sugar, depends on the ripeness of you tomato. Using a stick blender, process to a smooth sauce.
Stuffing– Heat olive then add onion, garlic and kumara. Gently cook without browning, add curry paste, stir for a few minutes or till fragrant. Cover with water and cook at a simmer till water has evaporated and kumara is tender. Check seasoning, adjust if needed, stir in quinoa and coriander.
To assemble- Preheat oven to180’C. Pour tomato sauce into the bottom of a high sided casserole dish, arrange courgettes over the top, using a spoon place 1Tbsp of stuffing into the bottom of the courgette and press down firmly, this creates a stable base for the rest of the mix, pile up the remaining mix. Cover with baking paper then tin foil and bake for 45mins or till tender.

As you may have noticed I haven’t use regular courgettes but instead I’ve used what I know as scollapini but some call them paddy pan, they are part of the courgette family, they can be use the same way and are more forgiving when they get too big, they don’t get flourly.
Enjoy from the Kitchen Garden.