Recipe ideas from Michelle Darmody: What to do with excess vegetables

THERE are many reasons that you may have more vegetables than you need, left-over bits and bobs after a big family occasion, a glut from the garden or a good offer at a local shop or farm.

Freezing or pickling vegetables is a way to extend their life but it is also nice to have a few more immediate recipes or ideas for using up odd bits and pieces of these vegetables.

Frittatas are handy; fry up some veg and onions in a pan and pour lightly whisked egg over the lot, allowing it to sink through the vegetables to cook.

Also fritters; grated vegetable with some flavouring from spices or herbs mixed again with egg and a little flour and fried in oil.

Either of these can be mixed and matched with almost any vegetables. Another productive use is to roast a collection of your vegetables with some oil, onion and garlic then to blitz the whole lot with a tin of tomatoes.

This will last a few days in the fridge and can be the base for pasta sauces or curry recipes as needed. For a curry the addition of a few chillies, some curry powder and coconut milk will do the trick.

Another use of excess vegetables is to make your own stock paste, the recipe for stock paste included here can be made in advance and used to flavour soups, stews and bakes.

It is much healthier than many of the branded, shop-bought ones, many of which have a very high salt content.

This soup works well with a very small amount of ingredients and is good for using up potatoes.

You can add rocket pesto or a flavoured oil instead of the seeds, to dress it, but it is wonderfully simple as it is, the buttermilk adds a tangy creaminess.

If I do not have buttermilk I squeeze half a lemon into some milk and allow it to sit out of the fridge for an hour, stirring once in a while.

The milk will start to curdle slightly and form a buttermilk. I use this technique when baking with bread soda that almost always needs a kickstart to action from the sourness of buttermilk or an equivalent.

The courgette and orange bread recipe is delicious and it uses wholegrain flour to give it more of a bite as well as some roughage.

The orange blossom water is optional, but it does add a nice floral, perfumed touch, if you do not have some, or are not a fan, a little more orange zest in its place would do.

Aubergine and pepper roast with mozzarella and green leaves

3 tbs of olive oil

1 large red pepper, deseeded and halved

1 large yellow pepper, deseeded and halved

1 large aubergine

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

a handful of black olives, stoned, about 10 of them

a squeeze of lemon juice and the zest

a bunch of parsley, chopped

2 balls of buffalo mozzarella, sliced

4 handfuls of green leaves

crunchy bread for four

Brush the peppers and the aubergine with olive oil. Make slits in the aubergine and insert the garlic. Place them all under a high grill, turning them frequently until the skin blackens and the vegetables are tender inside.

Place the vegetables on a plate and cover tightly with tinfoil, leave for around 20 minutes, allowing them to steam inside the foil.

Peel the skin from the peppers and discard the stems and seeds. Cut each into strips lengthways. Slice the aubergine into similar lengths and slice the garlic as well.

Blitz the remaining oil with the black olives, lemon juice and half of the parsley. Taste and season.

Serve the aubergine, pepper and garlic in a bowl, lay the sliced mozzarella on top and with half of the dressing drizzled on top, sprinkle with the parsley and lemon zest.

Toss the leaves in the remaining dressing and serve with the crunchy bread.

Potato and garlic buttermilk soup

a dash of rapeseed oil

1 onion, finely chopped

a knob of butter

8 cloves of garlic

3 waxy potatoes, peeled and cubed

250 mls of buttermilk

a handful of chives, chopped

a handful of pumpkin seeds, chopped

Heat the oil in a saucepan and sauté the onion over a low heat, keeping a lid on. Sauté until it is completely transparent. Stir in the knob of butter until it is melted.

Add the garlic and continue frying with the lid off until it has started to change colour. Add the potatoes and stir fry for about four minutes until they are softening at the edges.

Add the buttermilk and allow to simmer over a low heat until the potatoes are soft. Blitz with a soup gun until it is smooth. Season to taste and serve with some chopped chives and chopped pumpkin seeds.

Courgette and orange loaf

330g of courgettes

3 medium eggs

165g of oil

180g of caster sugar

50g of self-raising flour

250g of wholemeal flour

3/4 tsp of baking powder

3/4 tsp of baking soda

the zest of two oranges

1 tsp of orange blossom water

a handful of slivered almonds

a handful of porridge oats

Line a two pound loaf tin and heat your oven to 180º.

Grate the courgettes with a medium- sized grater.

Mix the eggs, oil and sugar in a bowl until creamy.

Sieve both flours and raising agents into the bowl.

Stir in the courgette, orange zest and blossom water.

Fill your lined tin and sprinkle with the slivered almonds and oats. Place into the oven and bake for 45 minutes until baked through, it may need another 10 minutes but it is best to test with a skewer after 45 minutes .

Making your own vegetable stock paste

100g celery, chopped

1 large carrots, chopped

1 small tomato, diced

1/2 an onion, finely chopped

1 small courgette, chopped

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

50g mushrooms, chopped

1 bay leaf

a spring of parsley

a spring of rosemary, removed from the stalk

a spring of thyme, removed from the stalk

15ml white wine

1/2 tbls olive oil

20g of dillisk seaweed

80g sea salt

Blitz all of the vegetables and herbs in a processor until very fine.

Place in saucepan and add wine, oil, dillisk and salt.

Simmer over high heat for 25 minutes then return to processor and blitz again.

The paste will last a few weeks in the fridge.