Courgette Slice

My youngest daughter is a huge fan of food in general and will eat most things, which is a wonderful way to be. And for years she has enjoyed hot meals at school. However, when lockdown happened in March she was suddenly faced with being at home every day for the next six months. Although I work from home and have a whole kitchen at my disposal at lunchtime, I confess that often I will make a simple sandwich and eat it at my desk, whilst catching up on emails or social media. However, my daughter was adament that dull sandwiches would not be acceptable for the next six months.

As such, I started to think creatively about lunch and it proved to be a fantastic opportunity. It turned out my lack of enthusiasm for lunch was mainly due to making it only for myself. And lunch presented itself as an opportunity to try out something I wouldn't want to inflict on my husband or picky eldest daughter at dinner time. 

So we started making savoury muffins, pies, tarts, different types of bread, pasta, noodle and rice dishes and elaborate salads.

This proved to be particularly useful during the summer months when we had an abundance of food coming off the allotment and we could try out new and inventive ways of eating them. Yes, I think we may have eaten courgette in one form or another for lunch and possibly also for dinner every day for a fortnight!

Anyway, here's a recipe for Courgette Slice. Not sure how to explain what this is but it is kind of like a cross between an omelette, a souffle and a crustless quiche. It seems to open itself up to lots of creative ideas and different ingredients should be fancy tweeking it for your own tastes.

Courgette Slice

1/2 cup of grated mature Cheddar
180g grated courgette 
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
3 eggs, beaten
120g self-raising flour
Salt and pepper
Optional - bacon, red pepper, mushroom

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a flan dish. Gently fry the onion (and other ingredients if using). In a bowl, mix together the fried ingredients, courgette, cheese and oil. Fold in the eggs then the flour and seasoning. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until golden and set. Serve hot. Leftovers can be eaten cold if preferred or reheated.