Preserving/Using Courgette and Silverbeet

OK so we have a now got a chest freezer (180l) full of our vegies thus far from the season.courgettes, silverbeet, beans, tomatoes, brocolli, cauliflower.wow. That's 10 Supermarket bags full of smaller bags of veges.
So with more arriving everyday we need some other recipes.particularly ways that dont involve freezer or using immediately (as we will have enough for that). Will have some tomatoes too.

Courgettes, Silverbeet and Capsicum are our main excess.

Maybe make chutney!

Courgettes chopped into sticks, or something chunky, pickled are just as good as pickled gherkins.

Courgettes don't freeze well. Destroyed flesh when thawed. I know people who grate them inbo bags then freeze it. Still doesn't freeze well but used as a flavour and filler in soups in winter they're quite good.

Courgettes cut into thick (1cm) slices are really really good in a stir fry.

If you can get a heap of hot chillies (hot ones coming into season now) then with your capsicum and tomato and a few other bits you can make bottled salsa or Thai chilli sauce. This will keep in jars for about as long as any other preserves if done properly.

Silverbeet! It grows pretty much all year, why freeze it!
Courgettes go soggy, better to leave it as a summer vege.

Courgette lemon curd recipe

1kg of peeled yellow or green courgettes or zucchini's as they are the same thing.
Juice and zest of 3 lemons
1 kg of sugar
125g butter

Chop courgettes finely and steam until tender. Puree in a food processor. Place the pulp in a pot with the other ingredients and stir over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved. In crease the heat and boil for about 30 mins, until the curd is thick and creamy like lemon honey. Pour into warm clean sterilised glass jars, and seal.

Depending on how many used glass jars you can get your hands on ie: op shops, you can stew your tomatoes with onions, or make them into pasta sauce. You you dry out the tomatoes some how oven or dehydrator and preserve them in oil like sun dried tomatoes.

what o you use the courgette lemon curd on!

On toast like jam, thicken it up with flour and an egg! and use as a pie filling.
Um over icecream, I'm naughty and eat it straight out the jar.
I think you could use it like a cake filling.

I make pasta sauce with excess tomatoes and courgettes, onions and garlic, simmer for about 2hrs to reduce, I add a small pottle of tomato paste as well at the end, blend in saucepan with a stick blender, use the overflow method in steralised jars, keeps years.

Brightlights wife here. The courgettes I sliced and froze on meat trays then free flowed them in bags for stir fry in the Winter. Had far too much spinach and silverbeet so cooked and froze that (squeezed all the excess water out of it first. Tomatoes I wash, quarter and cook in a large pot with sliced onions, basil and parsley for around 5-10 minutes at a boil, pour and wizz through a moulie (this removes the skins and seeds and give a rich red sauce), cool and pour into 700ml containers. This gives us lots of lovely spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce base and base for soup in the winter. I find I can put two of those blocks and a block of stock in the crockpot with seasonings and leave for the day, pick up a nice loaf of bakery bread and thats a quick meal when we all get home.
If you have peppers, wash and deseed and dice. Again, freeze onto meat trays then slide into plastic bags. Peppers are sooo expensive in the winter, these are great for seasonings, toppings for pizza and cooking in the Winter. If you have the time, make bags of assorted frozen veges, just like in the supermarket, for quick stirfrys in the winter. If you freeze your meat or chicken diced, its a small matter of taking out a vege pack, a meat pack and cooking up your rice or noodles. We can have a meal on the table in under 20 minutes this way.
I am freezing a couple of shopping bags of apples at the moment. Our painter gave me these mutant cooking apples (not Granny Smith), huge with very little core. Have been peeling, slicing and dipping in Asorbic acid made up with water (Vit C) to stop them going brown, and laying on meat trays, freezing and putting in bags for tarts and pies in the Winter. Some I have puree'd, great over just about anything, served hot, in the Winter. My Dutch Mum would always have a big bowl of hot apple sauce on the table in the Winter, it goes with everything. I don't add sugar to mine, a lot of people ladle it in! Have made a few apple pies, part cooked them and frozen them as well. Yum in Winter.
Love having those full freezers at this time of year!

our freezer is already full of the above vegies.i expect it should last the winter.im after preserving ideas. Cheers

Just saw the comment about putting this in the recipes section. I have done so so thanks all.

I must admit, I do prefer freezing to other preserving. Have never done the jar thing, and have owned a dehydrater twice. Would like another just for doing herbs etc.I also do a lot of beans, we have one of those old cast iron Spode bean slicers you clamp onto the bench, I bribe the kids to slice the beans. They last us all winter. You have to blanch them though, as with a lot of veges. I even bought a generator this Summer, "just in case" here in Christchurch we have any power outages, couldn't hack losing the contents of the freezers!