Vegetarian & Vegan
Vegetarian & Vegan
Courgette and tomato bake
A lovely way to use homegrown summer veg - perfect as a main dish or as a side
I sowed seeds I bought online for ‘Mountain Magic’ tomatoes this year - but when they grew, it turned out they were actually either huge Marmande-type beefsteak tomatoes on some plants and a plum tomato on others. I was annoyed at first - until I tasted them, and they were both delicious. I’ve now saved seeds from both, so goodness know what will come up next year! I’ve made lots of tomato sauce for the freezer with them, and this recipe is great for using some of that alongside homegrown courgettes. Adding smoked paprika to the sauce gives it a really lovely, intense flavour
Ingredients
Serves 4 as a main dish
- 2 red onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 5 large tomatoes, chopped
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- heaped tsp caster sugar
- 300ml tub crème fraîche
- large handful cheddar or parmesan, grated
- 1 large or two small courgettes, thinly sliced
Method
To make the tomato sauce, fry the onion in a little olive oil until soft, then add the garlic and paprika and fry for another couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, soy sauce and sugar, cover the pan and simmer for about 20 mins until the tomatoes are soft and breaking up. Taste and season with salt and black pepper.
Spoon into an ovenproof dish. Mix the crème fraîche with the cheese, season well and spoon over the tomatoes.
Drizzle the courgette slices with a little olive oil, massage it in with your hands then arrange on top of the crème fraîche. Bake at 220C (fan oven) for about half an hour until the courgettes are just browned and the sauce is bubbling. Leave to stand for 15 mins before serving (the sauce will be very liquid when it first comes out of the oven but will thicken up nicely once it's stood for a while).
A Cook's Plot Tip
Once you've made the sauce you can blitz it using a stick blender if you'd like it smooth, but I prefer it to be chunky so I leave it as it is.