I am not exaggerating when I say that I eat these most days in the courgette season. They are light, easy, quick and taste like I am living my best life. Once you try them, I defy you not to love them.

These are a bit of an adaptation of a Nigel Slater recipe, but really, it is just used as a vehicle for getting courgette into everything. A side note, I have never understood the idea of using cake to use up a glut. Making an entire cake is an absolute faff and requires all sorts of other things and uses only one or two courgettes. And if you have a glut, that is not going to even touch the sides.

Tip for keeping on top of a glut? Harvest them small. It’s the only way. I have managed to get three or four courgettes into this recipe, so feel free to be a bit more generous if you really are groaning under the courgette pressure. Just give them a bit longer to cook all the way through.

This makes enough for two people for breakfast, especially if you add a rasher of bacon in summer, and maybe a field mushroom or two in early autumn. I cook half for breakfast and then put the bowl in the fridge and then do the others for lunch. Sometimes elevenses.

Doubles happily if you have a bigger family to feed, or guests.

Ingredients

Two eggs

Heaped tablespoon of ricotta

Tablespoon of flour*

30g butter, melted

Two courgettes, grated

Salt and pepper, a generous pinch of each

* Nigel Slater uses normal plain flour but I use Doves Farm buckwheat and it works fine. If you are gluten free, coconut flour will work but they do end up a bit crumbly.

Optional:

Quarter of a teaspoon of baking powder, this gives fluffier, lighter pancakes

Soft green herbs

Nutmeg, a grating

Put everything except the ricotta in the bowl and mix. I melt the butter in my copper frying pan and then tip it into the mixing bowl. I then add a drop of oil to the pan and it’s ready for cooking and none of the butter is wasted.

Once the flour is mixed through, put the ricotta into the bowl and fold. If you do this gently, the pancakes will have seams of ricotta in them which I really like. If you would like them all the same, just keep mixing.

Fry single spoonfuls of the batter in a frying pan. They don’t spread much but keep an eye that they don’t colour too fast. They need to have a chance to cook all the way through to the centre and this will take a few minutes. Flip over and cook the other side.

Stack and serve with whatever things make you feel good at breakfast time. This morning I had a tomato from the greenhouse and a cheeky teaspoon of the spiced plum ketchup I made a few weeks ago. It really should have been left to cure for longer in the pantry, but it was absolutely lovely and I am not sorry at all for my impatience.