Stuffed marrows

[Mike Vogel]

This may be entirely old hat for some, or even boring, but as I don't do much of the cooking around here I felt quite pleased with myself when I produced this:

1. Either take a biggish courgette or marrow and cut it in halves lengthways or take a small marrow and cut off a thin bit from one side. The marrow/courgette in question needs to be the "pear"-shaped type.

2. Scoop out the seeds and iner pulp.

3. Rub seasoning into the flesh that is left behind.

4. Take some minced beef or minced quorn if you prefer a vegetarian option. Mix it with Lloyd Grossman's Tomato and Basil source [or, indeed, your own tom and bas] and some mushrooms.

5. Stuff the mixture into the marrow halves and sprinkle with pepper. If you've used a small marrow with only a slivver of the side removed, you can now replace this on top of the filling; this seems to be quite effective at keeping the filling from overflowing into the baking dish.

6. Take as many beef tomatoes as required and cut them in half. Season to taste [we use olive oil and basil].

7. Bake the lot for about half an hour. We use a Ramoska cooker, which uses about 20% of electricity you would normally use.

8. With about 10 minutes to go, bake some spuds in the microwave. Alternatively, bake the spuds in the oven with the rest for the same length of time.

9. It's ready to eat when the marrow does not resist being pierced by a fork. Beware, though, because the filling may start to burn before the marrow is ready.

It may, therefore, be clever to start the marrow off for a few minutes before filling it.

Wife and guests have given this the seal of apoproval, so who am I to argue?

[Primrose]

I've a feeling we're going to be eating rather a lot of different versions of this dish this autumn judging by the number of missed jumbo courgettes which I find lurking under some of my biggest courgette leaves.
I also often make up a double quantity of Bolognese sauce and use it the next day by mixing it with boiled rice as a marrow stuffing.