Insides of marrows

[Monika]

I am going to ask a real daft question now: when do I start discarding the insides (seeds etc) of courgettes turning into marrows? My OH doesn't like courgettes or marrows so I only grow two plants and use them for soups, casseroles etc. When they have become quite big, I only use a slice of two of a marrow, but I never know whether I should remove all the insides or use the whole for cooking, like one would a courgette.

[Beryl]

I'm like you Monika not a lover of courgettes or marrow although I grow yellow courgettes to add colour to stir fries. If I can't give 'em away they tend to get like marrows and I would take the seeds out. I don't know but I would have thought they would be a bit indigestable.

I do add them to chutneys they are useful to bulk out the indecredients.

Beryl.

[alan refail]

Hi Monika

Take out a seed and bite it. If you can't bite through it, scoop out the middle.

[Monika]

Do you mean that, Alan? A raw marrow?

[alan refail]

Do you mean that, Alan? A raw marrow?

Yes and yes - 'tis the only way

[Monika]

I will try it!

[Primrose]

Monika - I pick our courgettes between 4 & 5 inches. Any fruit which grows longer than this, until it gets to marrow size is sliced lengthwise, excluding the seedy parts but including the skin, and griddled without oil on a cast iron griddle. This seems to caramelise all the fruit sugars in them and they also seem to be a lot more digestible cooked in this way for people who don't normally like courgettes.
Any courgette which reaches marrow size is sliced in two lengthways, the seeds scooped out, and stuffed with a bologese sauce or cheesey pasta mixture. I hate big courgettes which are neither fish nor fowl. No wonder hate people hate this vegetable when they're sold like this. It's very difficult to do anything imaginative with them. If I get too many in this state due to holidays, I now chop them up and dig them back into the soil. (And here I am on another thread on here pontificating about food waste. Hippocrit !! )

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
Not at all, you are making greenish manure.
JB.

[Monika]

I tried the seed test, Alan, that is, I bit it and it was hard - so out came the innerts.

On your quandary of digging in old courgettes, Primrose: sometimes when I have to throw things in the compost bins because I have left vegetables growing too long, like runner beans that have gone too stringy or French beans too hard or lettuces that have bolted, I always think to myself, "well, it'll make good compost". And that's worth something, isn't it?

[Granny]

I freeze overgrown courgettes: scoop out seeds, cut into chunks, 1lb in a bag. I freeze tomatoes as well. You can make a perfectly good simple ratatouille by frying onion and garlic then tipping in courgette and tomato straight from frozen. It takes longer to cook, of course, and you spend a bit of time breaking it up, but tastes just as good as from fresh. Or just microwave the frozen veg until the bits separate.
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Granny