I’ve had a whole week off work and spent the time truly taking a break from everything and making sure every morning to take a walk around somewhere that would feed my soul and light that spark again.

A couple of days ago we visited our local community gardens called TWIGS (see video here) which was a wonderful little sanctuary of peacefulness and happiness. Before I left I picked up some herbs to grow in the garden as well as some tomatoes, cucumbers and a beautiful marrow!

What is a marrow I hear you ask!

“A marrow is the mature, large, overgrown fruit of a courgette (zucchini) plant, belonging to the same botanical species (Cucurbita pepo). Marrows are specifically bred for their larger size, harder skin, and longer storage life compared to courgettes, which are harvested when immature. They are often stuffed, baked, or used in savoury dishes and are a popular vegetable in Great Britain.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrow_(vegetable)

Marrows are such great economy vegetables!

I love marrows, so when I see them I buy them! In fact I need to grow some next year as they are so great not only for savoury dishes but for sweet preserves and chutneys too! However, I have NEVER heard of marrows being used as a pudding so when I saw the recipe for “Marrow Charlotte” on page 57 of one of my favourite WW2 recipe books “Health for All – Wartime Recipes” by Margaret Y. Brady, M.Sc, I had to give it a bash! I’d already made two portions of “marrow risotto” with half of the marrow yesterday so creating a dessert with the rest of it seemed like a good idea!

Marrow Charlotte

• 1.5 lb. young vegetable marrow
• 6 oz breadcrumbs
• 2 oz of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of black treacle (or golden syrup)
• 1 oz margarine
• 1 dessertspoon of lemon juice (can be omitted)

Method

Grease a pie dish and sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a little sugar. Slice marrow thinly like an apple, leaving on the skin, and sprinkle with lemon juice (or substitute). Put a layer in the pie dish, then more breadcrumbs and sugar, dot with a few pieces of margarine, and run a little of the treacle over (I’m using golden syrup). Then put another layer of sliced marrow, and more breadcrumbs and sugar and treacle, repeating until the dish is full, ending with a layer of crumbs with dots of margarine on top. Add two tablespoons of water and bake slowly in a moderate oven for one hour, or until the marrow is soft and the crumbs crisp on top.

Serve with milk or soya custard sauce.

Total cost for 2 portions = 50p

C xxx

Hi all,

I’ve got half a marrow and fancy a pudding so later I’m going to bake a “Marrow Charlotte” and will film the recipe for my blog/YouTube. It will just be a very quick recipe but at least it’s a recipe and might be enough to light that spark again and get back to posting/creating again. It’s from the book “Health for All – Wartime Recipes” by Margaret Y. Brady M.Sc and it’s one of my favourite books.

I will do a proper catch up video in due course but for now it will be taste testing “Marrow Charlotte” – it sounds so unusual I just have to bake it tonight and share it with you.

Also, am currently looking for ways to cut my spending down. I don’t know about you but I’m simply horrified at the amount I spend on food. I’m going to start using up all the hoarded dry/tinned supplies in my pantry to offset the cost of my grocery bills!

Love to all,

C xxx