Sweet & Sour Power

Those neat little packets of sauce are so tempting: sweet and sour, black bean, Thai green curry... But a look at the ingredients list often reveals one reason not to buy, and the price for what you get is another - 99p, £1.25, for something you can whip up in seconds.

Last night we had a Chinese banquet, big on veg from the allotment - braised beef with our turnips, steamed kale with chilli and soy sauce, braised courgettes in a simple thickened sauce made with stock, and sweet and sour chicken. The last item was made because I overdid the quantity of sauce for the courgettes (cheaty vegetable stock powder with soy sauce, plus some cornflour to thicken it). A dollop of Heinz, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a big dash of red wine vinegar and it had changed character, coating the stir-fried chicken and red pepper strips deliciously.

The Chinese food we eat here (except in a few restaurants) is for obvious reasons very anglicized, which tends to mean meat-based dishes predominate. When I travelled for work in China and Taiwan banquets and business meals had plenty of vegetable dishes: simple steamed greens, braises, some stir-fried mixes. For a meal at home it is very easy to prepare such things, and healthy, and it means you end up with more dishes on the table so it feels like a feast. The extra colours don't hurt either. Taste and colour highlight for me yesterday was (a tin of) bamboo shoots cut into matchsticks, stir fried till they began to turn light gold, then braised with soy, sugar, a slug of sherry and boiling water until the liquid all but disappeared. Left until cool they were so tasty. A special touch for well under £1, when a packet sauce would have cost more.

And Yet More Courgettes

Well into September and the courgettes keep coming, and I have to find different ways to serve them.

Our favourite way of using them is as what is impolitely termed by my wife and son 'courgette muck'. This simply involves slowly cooking sliced or chunked courgettes in plenty of olive oil, then when they are soft enough bashing them with a wooden spoon or potato masher, depending on what texture you're after, and adding salt and crushed garlic (lots of crushed garlic) to boost the flavour.

It is something that can be used in a variety of ways (btw HF-W does something very similar), including last night's effort of a pasta course (little tubes) with nine skinned tomatoes (Spanish, from Lidl) and a dollop of Heinz tom sauce to sweeten it a bit, plus a half teaspoon of cayenne to give it some zing. Moist, loads of flavour, and a teeny bit virtuous into the bargain.

Having an allotment (and maybe nine courgette plants) means we can afford to pick baby courgettes: they are good just cleaned and thinly sliced in salads or dressed as a salad in their own right; or boiled whole for three minutes then served as a vegetable accompaniment or sliced warm and dressed with olive oil, salt and garlic. Raw or boiled these little ones are also nice grated and enlivened with oil and lemon.

The ones we miss and then discover as proto-marrows tend to go into soups to bulk them out, or if they are too huge onto the compost pile, the rule being that the bigger the courgette the poorer it tastes.

Large ones in need of something to sharpen them up are good sweet and sour (Italian cookbooks and various Middle Eastern ones have something along these lines). Thick slices of courgette are cooked slowly in olive oil for a couple of minutes, then sweet and sour elements added to cook for a few minutes longer. Wine vinegar works better than lemon juice for the sour, and just a couple of teaspoons of sugar (the books always say Demerara but white granulated works better for me), plus some spices and herbs according to your palate and needs round it off. A few chopped anchovies changes it again, garlic is always a good partner, and additions like sultanas, finely chopped red chilli peppers, and pine kernels make the dish prettier and more substantial.

To peel or not to peel? Given much of the goodness is in the peel or near to it, if they scrub up nicely then intact is best. But if they have become too muddy to wipe clean then I peel them as thinly as possible and use the peelings cut up with scissors for a nutritious treat for the chickens.

The plan this year is to transfer one courgette plant deliberately started late into a big pot and as the weather cools transfer it to the greenhouse. Potting it on is this afternoon's task: though the days currently are warmer than most of the summer, the chilly early mornings herald the first frosts soon.