Marrow dip

I bought a marrow the other day because it was 2 for 3 with vegetables (hence a nice purchase of an aubergine, some courgettes and a marrow woo!) But then I realised I had never cooked a marrow before and had no idea what to do with it...

Scouring the internet, I found out quickly that marrows are just over grown courgettes. Well I love courgettes! Looking for recipes, all that came up really was "stuffed marrow" and "marrow bone".  The stuffed marrow didn't sound awful but it didn't really intrigue me. I read many times Don't eat the marrow skin. I looked deeper into what "marrow bone" is, and I found out (I guess I was stupid not to realise), to my horror, it was not some lovely vegetable but some horrible meat... Ew. 

So my search of what to do with my marrow just wasn't going well. I decided to take matters into my own hands and make a DIP. I just took the same principle as if you were to make an aubergine dip. 

Ingredients:

One marrow, cut length ways

Olive oil

4 cloves of garlic

Lemon juice

Cayenne Pepper

Paprika

Soy sauce

Coriander

2 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat the oven to about 210c. Put the marrow on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and cook for about 45 minutes. In the last 5- 10 minutes add the peeled garlic cloves to the baking tray.

Take it out the oven and let it cool (or if you're impatient like me, don't let it cool and burn yourself). Set aside the garlic. Next I put all the marrow in the blender beaker, and use the unattached blender to squiiissh out all the water of the marrow. I hope that makes sense. Squish and squish and squish. There'll be tons of it. Pour the water down the sink but save the marrow. If you aren't using a hand blender, you could maybe put the marrow in a bowl and use a slightly smaller bowl on top to squeeze the water out. Or if you has some muslim fabric use that. Be creative :) But it is important you get as much water out as possible or it was be a VERY runny dip.

Next, blend all the ingredients up except for the herbs. As usual, all the ingredients are to taste. If you like lemony, add lots of lemon! If you hate salt, leave it out! If you can't stand spice, don't add the cayenne.

Add the fresh coriander and give it a last quick blend. I say quick because I don't like the herbs too blended up or they disappear... Same with the dip, I like it chunky.

I was thinking next time I make this I might blend in some toasted nuts, or some fried beans maybe. Experimentation is the best!

Eat this with crackers, vegetable dips or, whatever you want to eat really.