Saturday 12th Extra - Stuffed Courgette!
Right, the stuffed courgette. Let's start off with the ingredients!
Clockwise r - l we've got - Goats Cheese, Mushrooms, Peppers, Leek, the Courgette and some cold ham. I also added a clove of garlic - but needless to say, I'd not got an onion in the house!!!
First thing is to wash everything. If you wash it all first thing you do, you don't forget to do it later, and the water gets a chance to drain. Next slice your courgette in two -
Make sure it sits nice and flat. Next thing you'll need to do is use a sharp knife to run around the seeds in the middle of the courgette, but use a teaspoon to lift them out. They're quite firm, you'll need to use a bit of force, but be careful not to put the teaspoon through the base of the courgette. 
(Sorry this photo's not too good - flash effect!)
Put your courgette halves into a flat baking tray. This one's a non-stick, but it's not essential. You might want to drizzle a bit of oil over them at this point as well, and it's no harm in giving the outside a bit of a rub over with oil as well.
Put the tray with the courgettes to one side.
Next thing to do is to slice your leeks - cut them in four, and then cut them to small tiles of leek - I'd give them another quick wash at this point because leeks harbour dirt as they grow. There's nothing worse than gritty leek!
Put the leeks into a pan of boiling water for a good five minutes - this is 'blanching' or pre-cooking the leek. Drain them well.
Chop the remaining vegetables. In my case today, that means the mushrooms, pepper and the garlic, but I'd have chopped the onion as well and frankly when I taste the result, onion is not something I'll be leaving out on a regular basis! If I was going to add any herbs I'd be putting them in at this point as well - you can add anything you fancy, but I'd not necessarily put in anything too strong. Italian or Mediteranean herbs are what this needs.
In a frying pan, I've heated a bit of oil, and fried up the vegetables. Add the ham last, and crumble the cheese into the veg when the pan is off the heat.
You can see on the above right that I've added the well-drained leeks to the pan after the peppers and mushrooms are softened. I cooked them well for about five minutes - on a low heat so they don't take any colour.Next I added the ham, and then after the pan was off the heat, I crumbled in the cheese.
You then take the mixture and fill the courgette halves - I find it's best to use the teaspoon for this. The mixture is prone to falling out of the halves particularly when you're piling it up on top, but I find this doesn't really matter if it's just a few pieces. Just pop them back on top.
Drizzle some more oil over the top, or put on a pat of butter. Season them, and pop them into the oven for about 25 minutes.
Here's the baked courgette as it came out of the oven -
