I love my veg bag

Beetroot and foodie week

2011-05-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've had a busy food related week. Sunday I was a judge for one of the Reading, Steady, Cook competition rounds. This was great fun but very hard to choose between duck and sweet potato curry and steamed halibut with caramelised goat cheese. (The curry won.) Look out for the semi-finals and final of the competition at the Eat Reading Live festival 4th and 5th June.

Watching the contestants do their stuff.

On Monday I went on a trip with the Reading Food Growing Group to Lower Shaw farm in Swindon. They have a productive organic garden and keep chickens, pigs and sheep. They run residential and day courses and it is a real oasis on the edge of Swindon. I'm thinking of booking into their cookery weekend in November - a whole weekend cooking and talking about food, bliss!

On Tuesday Ben Zagorski, a finalist in last year's Reading, Steady, Cook competition and a judge in this year's was the guest on my Local Lunch show. I treated him to the first beetroot of the season from the veg bag. I boiled the beetroot for about 20 minutes, sliced them and made a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and honey. I only used about 1/2 teaspoon of honey and added it a bit at a time and kept tasting to make sure it wasn't too sweet. I then added some Pecorino di Fossa, an Italian sheep milk that is matured in sealed caves. I bought it from The Delistation, one of the stalls at Ms Marmitelove'rs underground market. They suggested you eat the cheese dipped in honey so I thought it should work with the honey dressing.

Spinach and bacon salad

2011-05-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

We had a surfeit of bacon this weekend. I'd brought my usual pack of Laverstoke Park smoked back home from work but then Friday night went to MsMarmitelover's Underground Market. I came home with all sorts of goodies including smoked goat's cheese, strawberry and rose petal jam and Treflach Farm bacon. The guy on the stall was wafting a plate of bacon under people's noses as they squeezed past (it was very busy), a low down but very successful sales technique.

The Treflach Farm bacon went in bacon sandwiches on Saturday morning but the Laverstoke bacon had been frozen and defrosted so really needed using. This week's veg bag had some lovely fresh spinach that we thought would be good raw so decided to combine it with the bacon for Sunday lunch.

All it needed in addition to the grilled bacon was croûtons. These are very easy to make - cube the bread toss in some olive oil, dried herbs and grated Parmesan put in a baking tray and grill for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Don't get distracted though! We dressed the spinach with some truffle flavoured oil that we were given for Christmas but any oil or dressing would be fine. Finally we mixed the bacon and croûtons into the spinach (stalks and all) and enjoyed.

Beautiful chard and the perfect guest

2011-05-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

Isn't this chard beautiful? It makes me smile when I open the bag and find some - those colours. This bunch was destined to be part of our Sunday roast along with shoulder of lamb from Waltham Place and roast potatoes.

My perfect guest is my brother-in-law Jon who usually comes round for Sunday dinner and often takes over some of the cooking. This week he offered to prepare the chard. He started by making a roux sauce with flour, butter and a cupful of vegetable stock instead of milk.

He then chopped the chard - including the stalks - and cooked them gently in the sauce.

Summer Lunch in the garden

2011-04-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

We've just got back from a week in the South of France to find it is hotter in Reading. My in-laws have a house in the Cevennes so we go there most summers but went a bit earlier this year to help celebrate my father-in-law's 70th birthday. We did the catering for 40 people ourselves so spent quite a lot of the holiday chopping and mixing but it was worth it.

Although you can still find good local fruit and veg in France particularly in the markets they do seem to have succumbed to the same supermarket culture as us. The nearest town has a Carrefour - France's rival to Tesco - with different brands but essentially the same array of cheap meat products and out of season produce we've grown used to in the UK.

Anyway to get to my lunch in an English garden - we had spaghetti frittata using spinach from the veg bag. I've written about this before but didn't have a photo so this is a good opportunity to show you what it looks like. Simon made it and said I should warn people that it shouldn't have as much spaghetti as this - he guessed how much he needed and then decided he might as well finish off the packet! We had most of it hot on Friday night this is what was left over for Saturday lunch time.

Award winning Berkshire Pasties

2011-04-11T05:53:00.000-07:00

Since hearing about Cornish Pasties being awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status I've wanted to have a go at making my own. I got the recipe for the pastry from the Cornish Pasty Association website although I used butter instead of 'cake margarine'. After leaving the pastry to rest for three hours as recommended it was pliable and easy to work with, and robust - the pasties survived being wrapped in tin foil and transported to the radio studio in my rucksack.

Instead of the Cornish version of beef, potato, swede and onion I used pork, leek and potato. I was aiming for a Berkshire Pasty but when I thought about it I realised that apart from being made in Berkshire they only Royal County ingredient was the flour (Dove's Farm). I don't think I'll be getting PGI status but they were good so here is the recipe for the filling.

450 gms diced pork From Dews Meadow Farm (Reading Farmers Market) Oxfordshire

450 gms potato Tolhurst Organic Produce veg bag - Oxfordshire

200 gms leek (2 med leeks) Tolhurst Organic Produce veg bag - Oxfordshire

Salt & pepper to taste

Teaspoon Dijon mustard mixed into the meat

butter

Chop the pork, leek and potato finely, I used the food processor for the meat so was almost mince, then add to rolled out circles of pastry. Layer the vegetables and meat adding plenty of seasoning. Put a knob of butter on top. Then bring the pastry around and crimp together. Cook at 210/Gas mark 6 approx 50 min-1 hour (Fan oven 165 for 45 minutes)

This amount made five BIG pasties and they were good hot and cold.

I should just explain about the award. See the Difference were running a competition last week to highlight their project to feed school children in Malawi. You had a chance to win some boxes of cereal if you sent them a photo of your lunch. I sent a photo of my pasty and won a prize!

Parrot Pie

2011-04-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Parrot as in parsnip and carrot - my carnivorous son was disappointed to discover it didn't contain any exotic birds. I got the recipe from the veg box recipes website. It is basically mashed carrots and parsnips in a cheese sauce in a pie. I'd normally make my own pastry but my in-laws have gone to France for a couple of months and we inherited the contents of their freezer including some frozen shortcrust pastry so I used that.

The pie was good, quite sweet as you'd expect. It went well with onion gravy made with the water the carrots and parsnip were boiled in and mashed potatoes. I have to confess though it is not the most photogenic dish I've made!

Colcannon for St. Patricks day

2011-03-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a bit late with posting this one! Celebrations for St. Patrick's day tend to revolve around drinking and many on-line recipes I found were just ways of colouring food green. I wanted to cook something Irish so turned to Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking. Allen runs the Ballymaloe cookery school in Ireland so covers all the classic Irish dishes in her book. I settled on Colcannon which is basically mashed potato and cabbage (bit like unfried bubble and squeak). There are a couple of interesting suggestions in Allen's recipe though. One is to cook the potatoes in their skins and then peel them before mashing. I do find cooking in their skins retains more of the potatoes' flavour but combined with the suggestion to mash the potatoes while they are still hot led to some interesting manoeuvres involving forks and tea towels and still burning my fingers!

See here for Allen's Colcannon recipe. I used spring greens from my veg bag, stripped from the stalks and finely chopped they worked well. I served it with a vegetable stew so made good use of the veg bag.

Leek and potatoes

2011-03-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

Part of my day job is to collect True Food's weekly order of veg from Tolhurst Organic Produce. When I was there last Thursday I commented that that leeks looked good "We've got too many leeks and potatoes" was the reply. So when thinking about what to have as a light Sunday lunch (you know something to keep you going between cooked breakfast and roast dinner) I thought I'd do my bit to use up the leek and potato mountain.

While the potato was in the microwave I finely chopped the leek and gently fried in butter and olive oil. Added black pepper and dried rosemary and once the leek was softened stirred in a tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese and a desert spoon of cream (just because I happened to have some in the fridge!).

Well used Squash

2011-03-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

I had a red Kuri squash in last week's veg bag and it made me 2 solo dinners and 2 lunches. Tuesday was stuffed squash. I started off by roasting it, cut in half and placed cut side down on a baking tray. I have made the mistake before of trying to cook the squash from scratch with the stuffing in and it doesn't work - the filling is burnt before the squash is cooked - I had to scrape out the stuffing and carry on cooking the squash.

This time I was very organised I made the filling - puy lentils, finely chopped carrots and leek and some Za'atar (a Palestinian herb mix) - and roasted the squash the day before. Then when I got in from a meeting on Tuesday evening all I had to do was put them together and turn on the microwave, the perfect ready meal.
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I had some spare filling and left over mashed potato for lunch on Wednesday and then made a risotto with the other half of the roasted squash. Squash is fantastic in risotto, I put it in quite early on as you can see from the photo so that it melted right down into the rice. It had a rich creamy texture and although I had some Parmesan ready it really didn't need it. With spare risotto for lunch on Thursday pretty good value from one squash.

Dinner for one

2011-02-21T04:09:00.000-08:00

I've never understood it when people say they can't be bothered to cook for themselves. It does give you a warm glow to cook for other people who enjoy your food but if it is just you then you can have exactly what you want. My family are away for half-term so I have the house and veg bag all to myself.

I went to a conference on food blogging at Msmarmitelovers underground restaurant on Saturday. It was fun and inspirational, tips on writing in general as well as increasing the readership of your blog. I'm not sure if I can be bothered with all the search engine optimisation stuff but interacting with other food bloggers was something they suggested that sounded like more fun. With that in mind I checked out the updates of my favourite blogs and found that Dinner Diary's latest post was breaded veal. I'd just got a rose veal escallop out of the freezer so I left a comment on their blog and started planning my dinner for one.

To go with the Veal Milanese I had beetroot boiled and then sliced up and fried in butter with a sliced apple until the apple was soft. The apple was one I found in the bottom of my fridge and I think it would have been better with one that wasn't past its best but they worked well together. I also had potato mashed with some chopped cooked leeks which would definitely not have gone down well with certain members of my family but was devoured appreciatively by my discerning audience of one.

Is organic food elitist?

2011-02-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

Just got back from the Soil Association and one of the issues that came up repeatedly was that organic food is perceived to be expensive and only for the middle-classes. There are companies whose business model relies on getting a premium price for their organic produce - above and beyond any extra expenses in growing organically like extra labour. On the other hand there are lots of people working hard running community projects aiming to make organic food available to more people.

It doesn't feel elitist when I get a bag full of muddy carrots and potatoes but picking up my veg bag on Friday morning it seemed like a good opportunity to compare the prices of what was in my bag. The first column is Sainsbury's on-line price for standard loose veg, where available, or where packaged adjusted to get the same weight. The second column is the price for organic from the supermarkets, I had to shop around different on-line supermarkets to get the whole bag. I pay £9.25 for my bag.

500g carrots 37p 72p

575g parsnips 89p 1.69

1.5kg potatoes £1.19 £1.94

125g mushrooms 54p 50p

400g leeks £1.00 £1.65

small cabbage 76p 79.5

punnet of raddish & alfalfa sprouts - not available at any of the major on-line supermarkets £1.59 from Abel & Cole (organic)

500g Jerusalem artichokes - not available from any of the major on-line supermarkets £1.81 from Abel & Cole (organic) BUT £4.10 from www.finefoodspecialist.co.uk and it doesn't say they are organic, that is £8.20/kg - you can buy them at True Food Co-op for £2.95/kg a bargain!

The contents of my bag worked out at £4.75 for the things I could compare for standard supermarket produce or £7.30 for supermarket organic. If I add in the Abel & Cole prices for the two things not available at the supermarkets my veg bag is £1.10 more than the non-organic produce and £1.45 less than organic supermarket produce.

So supermarkets do put a large premium on organic food except for cabbages and when I looked the organic mushrooms were actually cheaper as they were on special offer. My veg bag is a cheaper way to buy organic vegetables as is True Food Co-op (and presumably other community enterprises.) It is also easier as I had to shop around to find organic versions of all my veg and as I said some wasn't available at all. So is organic food elitist? I don't think it needs to be although it is in some people's interests to maintain a high price. Perhaps the question should be 'are Jerusalem artichokes elitist?' The supermarkets certainly seem to think so.

Spicy bean sprouts

2011-02-07T03:41:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned the sprouted seeds before. They come in the veg bag when there is not enough farm produce to make up the value of the veg bag. They come from Sky Sprouts in Devon and are a mixture of sprouted Adzuki beans, Mung beans and Chickpeas.

I used a handful of last weeks tub in a sandwich (with smoked aubergine dip - yum!) and the rest in this spicy lunch on Sunday.

This recipe includes grated fresh ginger. I keep pieces of whole ginger in the freezer and grate it straight from the freezer when I need it. I would have used fresh chilli but as I didn't have any I used some Very Lazy red chillies, flakes of dried chilli in white wine vinegar - very useful.

ingredients

serves 2

half an onion, chopped

teaspoon of cumin seeds crushed in a pestle & mortar

1/2 teaspoon grated ginger

teaspoon of Very Lazy chilli

200g mixed sprouted beans

shredded savoy cabbage heart (or whatever green stuff you have)

Fry the onion for 5 mins , and then add the cumin, ginger and chilli and cook for a further minute. Add the beans and cabbage and cook until heated through.

Jerusalem artichokes

2011-01-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

I've been inspired to resurrect this blog with the arrival of Jerusalem Artichokes in my veg bag. They are not artichokes and not from Jerusalem but they are delicious and good for you. These ones were relatively smooth, sometimes Jerusalem Artichokes can be very knobbly.

Some people are put off using them because they think they are going to be a lot of bother to peel. Well don't peel them! We soaked these in water for half an hour to get the worst of the mud off and then boiled them in their skins. We served them (still in their skins) with a cheese sauce and chicken casserole. the BBC food website has a section on using Jerusalem Artichokes.

Jerusalem Artichokes are supposed to give you wind but I have to say I didn't notice any ill effects!

Stir Fry

2010-10-29T02:53:00.000-07:00

My daughter wanted to take this photo because she thought it would look good on my blog - I think she is right! I quite often make stir fry with some of the veg from my bag but looking back I don't seem to have posted it before. This is from a couple of weeks ago so the contents of the bag have changed slightly since then.

The carrots, cucumber and green pepper came from the veg bag, I think the red pepper probably came from Greenshoots - a charity using gardening to work with vulnerable adults, one of True Food Co-op's local suppliers. Cucumber works really well in a stir fry and I always include it when I have some.

The tofu is 'Taifun' brand, smoked with almonds and sesame seeds. If I can be bothered I fry it up separately to get it nice a crisp. If not it just goes in with the veg! I usually serve this with rice with thinly sliced pieces of omelet mixed in, something I learnt in Singapore when we briefly lived there when I was young. Boil/steam the rice as normal leave it to go completely cold before frying it up with the sliced omelet and chopped green part of spring onions if available.

Pizza

2010-10-15T03:33:00.000-07:00

Home-made pizza is a great way of getting kids (and adults!) to eat some more veg. This one had some green pepper and cherry tomatoes from the veg bag as well as some sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil for a bit of added luxury.

The salad is also from the veg bag and is great full of peppery leaves.

We make our own pizza bases in a bread maker which is a really easy way of doing it but still takes about 45 minutes plus 20 minutes proving time so not one for when you rush home late from work and need something quick.

Veggie options

2010-09-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

I haven' t posted this week but I have still been using the contents of my veg bag. Inspired by my guest on the radio show last week from Thames Valley Vegan & Vegetarians I decided to have a vegan Sunday dinner. I got the recipe for Mushroom Bourguignon from the Simple Vegan Recipes website here. It was very tasty but I made the mistake of taking them at their word that it served 2 so doubled the quantities and now have a freezer full of leftovers - maybe vegans have bigger appetites?

My other vegetarian meal this week was a very simple mid week pasta dish. I cooked some pasta stirred in a couple of tablespoons of pesto and some fresh tomatoes and sliced runner beans (raw) and cooked for a couple of minutes to heat through - easy and delicious.

Simon's Saffron Potatoes

2010-09-12T02:45:00.000-07:00

We went to the grand opening of Fielder's Farm shop on the Pangbourne Road near Theale on Saturday. It was very busy, lots of seasonal UK veg and meat, pies, cakes chutney etc from local and regional producers - I hope they do well. We picked up some partridges for our evening meal. They were delicious pot roasted with a honey, lemon juice and thyme baste.

To go with them we had Simon's Saffron Potatoes - I say they are Simon's but we can't remember where we got the recipe so apologies to any celebrity chef we may have ripped off. To make them, scrub but don't peel the potatoes, thinly slice and arrange in baking tray trying to keep in shape of the potatoes. (see photo). Add a good pinch of saffron, a crushed garlic clove and veg stock up to about 2/3 the height of the potatoes. sprinkle with olive oil and put in oven. They seem to work in whatever temperature oven you are using for the rest of your dinner, yesterday 200 in a fan oven and they took about half an hour - just keep an eye on them.

We also had green and purple beans from the veg bag. Boiled with a small amount of water and a knob of butter they were delicious. Sadly the purple ones go green when you cook them!

Spaghetti Frittata

2010-09-10T03:56:00.001-07:00

Spaghetti frittata is a good quick mid-week meal. Very useful on a Tuesday night when I have to rush out to take my daughter to ice-hockey training. Start by putting the spaghetti on and while it is cooking make a garlicky tomato sauce with whatever veg you want to add. For this one I added sliced courgette and a handful of chopped chard leaves. The chard went in for the last 5 minutes cooking time. The sauce should be quite thick so let it bubble to boil of any excess liquid.

When the spaghetti is cooked add some olive oil and leave it to cool before adding some beaten eggs and cheese to taste. We used 6 eggs for four people. Then put half the spaghetti mixture in a pan, the tomato sauce and then the rest of the spaghetti on top. Then comes the fun bit! When is brown on the bottom you need to turn it over. The best way is to put a plate on top, turn it over so that the frittata is on the plate and then slide it back into the pan. If you've got a heavy pan you may need an assistant at this stage.

We ate the leftovers last night with a collection of other things from the fridge that needed eating up. After going on a lovefoodhatewaste workshop I've learnt to call this meal 'Tapas' rather than 'bits', sounds so much more appealing!

Sorry about the lack of photos - I've mislaid my camera.

Simple but still delicious

2010-09-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about getting a veg bag is the excitement of opening it on a Thursday to see what goodies I've got - it's like a mini Christmas every week. Of course the flip side to this is that it can make planning Thursday tea difficult. This week a stuck my neck out and bought some Mozzarella cheese and basil - surely I would get some tomatoes in the veg bag.

I opened the bag with some trepidation....of course I had a bag of lovely cherry tomatoes so I could make my salad. Very simple, slice cheese and tomatoes, throw basil leaves on top, sprinkle with olive oil and eat.

We also had three sweet corn cobs. These are fantastic. I always try and cook them on the day we get them, just boiled and smothered in butter. So there you have it the perfect tea, quick, easy, delicious and healthy (well apart from the butter!)

Runner Bean Puree Bruschetta

2010-08-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a few days with my Dad on his small holding in Anglesey. We have been eating very well including a huge brunch before we set off home so really didn't feel like much this evening. While we were away I saw a recipe for runner bean puree in the Times. We had a bag of runner beans in the fridge from last week's veg bag but I couldn't remember the recipe and am too mean to pay to go on the Times on-line so we made it up.

We steamed the beans until tender and then whizzed to a puree with a blender. I think we would have added garlic at this stage but we didn't have any. We sliced some red onions and fried them until soft in some olive oil. The bruschetta was a thick slice of bread toasted on both sides and then brushed with oil from a jar of anchovies piled with the bean puree, onions, halved cherry tomatoes, a couple of anchovies and put back until the grill.

Yum - just want we needed after a few days of excess.

Borough Market Feast

2010-08-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

We had a great day out yesterday at Borough Market and came back with lots of goodies. For our dinner last night we had fried slices of giant puff ball mushroom on toasted sour dough bread - both bought at the market. Followed by Ostrich steaks with local wild mushrooms including Cep (Porcini) which my brother-in-law Jon collected from a local wood. (Exact location is of course a closely guarded secret!)

To go with it we had crushed new potatoes, using the potatoes from the veg bag. Wash the potatoes and boil them for about 10 minutes or until almost cooked. Put them in a baking tray and crush them with a rolling pin. Don't be too heavy handed, the idea is to break them up not make mashed potato. Then sprinkle with olive oil and rosemary and cook in a hot oven (220c) for about 30 minutes or until they are cooked and crispy.

We also had the chard from the veg bag and at Jon's suggestion left it raw. I'd never thought of eating chard raw before but it was very good. Fresh tasting with crunchy stalks.

Good to be home!

2010-08-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

I had a great holiday in the South of France gorging on fresh apricots, peaches and nectarines. I gorged on other things too, cheese, sausisson, wine, tarts....so I walked to pick up my bag yesterday in an attempt to burn off a few of the excess calories.

We may not have peaches growing on the side of the road but we still have some great produce in this country. I had two bags of cherry tomatoes - including some yellow ones, a lettuce, chard, spring onions, potatoes, runner beans, courgettes and a green pepper. Wow it's good to be home!

I made a couscous - 300 ml dried couscous in a measuring jug then topped up to 600ml with boiling water. Leave a lid on for 5 minutes then tip into a bowl, fluff with a fork and leave to go cold. Add couple tablespoons olive oil, juice of one lemon, chopped tomatoes, spring onions and cucumber. Fresh parsley would be nice but didn't have any so added a teaspoon of Za'atar (a Palestinian herb mix).

Those of you paying attention will have noticed there was no cucumber in my veg bag but the one I had was local. It came from Ashtrees Farm in South Oxfordshire, one of True Food's suppliers.

Baba Ganoush

2010-07-27T13:42:00.001-07:00

No I didn't get aubergines in my veg bag. We we went to the Food Festival at Elm Farm a couple of weeks ago and went to a salting and smoking workshop. One of the things they showed us how to make was putting an aubergine directly on your barbecue or gas hob leaving it until the skin is completely charred and then using the flesh to make baba ganoush. It was delicious and we decided we couldn't wait for aubergines to come into season. My justification for blogging about it here is that the cherry tomatoes and courgettes we barbecued with it did come from the veg bag.

Baba ganoush is one of those dishes that there are lots of different variations of. The one we were shown and tried to recreate was simply mashed aubergine with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and Greek yoghurt. Ours was a too garlicky for my taste, the recipe was one clove of garlic per aubergine but our aubergines were a bit small and our garlic cloves big!

One useful tip was when the aubergine is cooked put it in a plastic bag for a few minutes and it makes it easier to get the skin off.

I'm off to France for a couple of weeks enjoying lots of lovely fresh local French food. This is a difficult time for farmers supplying veg bags as people go on ho lidayand there is always the risk they might not re-start their order when they get back. I definitely will!

Local Lunch

2010-07-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged this week not because I haven't been using the produce in my veg bag but I haven't done anything new with it.

I've also been busy with a new food project. I'm presenting a show about local food on Reading's new community radio station Reading4U. It is called Local Lunch and goes out live on Thursdays 12.00 - 14.00 (UK time). I play music and talk about what's in season, local food events and interview someone involved with local food around Reading. This week my guest was Sharon Fitton who is coordinator of a project called food4families, which helps people grow their own food.

The radio station is currently only available over the internet - we are hoping to get a broadcast licence soon. It does mean that you can listen to the show from wherever you are in the world just go here and then click on 'listen live now'.

My seasonal recipe on the show today was pancetta and broad bean risotto but I didn't want to post another broad bean risotto recipe here. If you are on facebook there is a fanpage Local Lunch. The lovely carrots in the profile photo are from my veg bag! My guests get the added bonus of sharing my lunch so if you know anyone who would make a good guest of if you would like to come on yourself then let me know.

Helen's veg bag minestrone soup

2010-07-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

The contents of my fridge suggested a minestrone soup so I did a quick search for a recipe. There are thousands of variations on-line so I decided that my recipe was as valid as anyone else's. So here it is - one more to add to the thousands!

Serves 4 -5

1 onion

2 carrots

1 clove garlic

1 head of fennel

teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 tin tomatoes

handful of cherry tomatoes

750g broad beans (about 200g when podded)

75g wholewheat spaghetti

1 litre veg stock

Some tinned pitted black olives

fresh basil

(Broad beans, onion and carrots from the veg bag, fennel from The Kitchen Garden in Littlestoke via True Food Co-op))

- chop the onions and carrots in a food processor and fry gently in some olive oil

- Add crushed garlic, thinly sliced fennel and oregano and continue cooking for a few minutes

- Add the tinned tomatoes, halved cherry tomatoes and stock.

- After about 1/2 an hour add the spaghetti

- 5 minutes later add the shelled broad beans and olives

- once the spaghetti and beans are cooked stir in some fresh basil and serve with Parmesan cheese.

Just a note on the broad beans, because I wanted to cook them in the soup I took off the inner skins before adding them. This was very time consuming! What I normally do is cook the beans and then take off the skins which is much easier. I think if I made this again I would boil the beans separately, take off the skins and then add them to the soup. The photo shows a broad bean before and after taking off the inner skin. If you do want to do it when they are raw I found the best way was to hold it by the stalk bit (on the bottom of the bean in the photo) nick the other end with my thumb nail and then squeeze the bean out.

Onions

2010-07-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

I had a beautiful bunch of onions in my veg bag this week. I was listening to Gardeners Question time a couple of weeks ago and they were saying that onions this year have very thick necks. You can see from the photo that the ones I've got do have thick necks almost like large spring onions.

That is one of the things I love about getting a veg bag - you get things as they come out of the ground they are not discarded because they don't meet the supermarkets idea of what consumers want.

Inspired by my bunch I searched for onion recipes and found a whole website dedicated to all things oniony run by the British Onion Producers' Association. Did you know that onions are supposed be an aphrodisiac? Egyptian Pharaohs' celibate priests were forbidden to eat onions because of the potential effects on their libido! I tried their recipe for falafel and while they were very tasty I had my usual problem with falafel that they don't hold together and I end up with a general mush. If anyone has had any success with making falafel then please let me in on your secret.

Carrots Galore

2010-07-01T03:38:00.000-07:00

We had a bit of a carrot glut this week, not only did I have some old ones left over from previous weeks' veg bags and some lovely new ones in this week's but my mother-in-law has gone on holiday and emptied her fridge into ours including ... more carrots.

The mission was to use carrots and we did well out of it. Saturday night we had different salads including a carrot one. This was grated carrots with an olive oil vinaigrette and the addition of sunflower seeds and roasted cumin seeds. We had the oven on for the quiche to go with the salads so popped the cumin seeds in for a couple of minutes - if the oven wasn't on I'd have done them in a dry pan or under the grill.

I forgot to take a photo and as you can see there wasn't much left at the end!

The new carrots we roasted whole with a sprinkling of olive oil, some garlic cloves and more cumin seeds to go with our Sunday dinner roast shoulder of lamb.

Broad Beans

2010-06-26T04:04:00.000-07:00

I was very excited to find broad beans in my bag this week. I love everything about them, the process of podding them, the fresh smell, the beautiful pale green colour and the delicate taste. I was busy on Friday night so I decided to make myself a quick broad bean risotto before rushing off to a meeting and then to the pub. It ended up taking a bit longer than I anticipated and I was a bit late for my meeting but "sorry I'm late, I was waiting for my broad bean risotto to cook" is a pretty good excuse in my book!

We had some frozen homemade chicken stock so I decided to use that which had the added advantage of making space in the freezer. We are pretty good at freezing left overs so as not to waste anything but at some point you have to use them. I made a risotto with arborio rice, just adding an onion, some black pepper and a slug of cider vinegar. The vinegar went in after adding the rice and before adding any other liquid and it added a lovely sharp taste to the risotto. I boiled a handful of frozen peas and a similar amount of podded broad beans. They were so small and fresh that I didn't need to take off the outer skins. They only needed 3 minutes cooking - in fact 2 would probably have been enough but the peas weren't ready.

When they were cooked I mixed them into the risotto with some fresh herbs (chives, parsley and basil - just what I happened to have available). Delicious!

Shopping miles

2010-06-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

My veg bag is delivered to a local neighbourhood rep and we then have to go and pick it up from there. This reduces food transport miles and is part of Tolhurst Organics minimising their carbon footprint. Reducing overall food miles though relies on customers using sustainable transport to pick up their vegetables. We are all used to worrying about food miles but forget that the distance we travel from home to do our shopping can be a significant component of food miles. Ac cording to the cabinet office report, Food Matters, 13% of the carbon emissions caused by food transport are accounted for by consumer vehicles.

So how do I pick up my veg bag? It used to be easy as it was on my cycle route home but since starting a new job I don't work Thursdays and have to make a special effort to collect it. It is 0.9 of a mile from my house to my local rep (I just checked on Google Maps!) so not too much of an effort. Usually I cycle, either with my bike trailer or just stuffing it all into a rucksack. If I'm feeling like I need the exercise I walk. For the last three weeks I've been covering for holidays so I've been working Thursdays and have picked up the bag in the work van. It does seem a little extravagant to arrive in a refrigerated transit van to pick up one bag of veg but it is on my way home - honest!

Beetroot Tzatziki

2010-06-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

More lovely beetroot. This week I made some beetroot tzatziki. I got the recipe from a fantastic book I was given for my birthday. Its called Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen. It tells you how to make your own butter, hang game and make your own chorizo. I haven't done any of these things I'm afraid! It also has some straight forward recipes like this tzatziki, although it was supposed to be something you did with your home-made yoghurt.

It was very easy, just mix together all the ingredients and chill. I was a bit worried about grating cooked beetroot, I changed into some old clothes before I started, but wasn't too bad in the end. The end result was a beautiful bright pink colour.

110g beetroot, cooked and grated

8 tablespoons natural yoghurt

2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped

salt, pepper and pinch of caster sugar

Carrot muffins

2010-06-14T13:30:00.001-07:00

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall had a selection of savoury muffin recipes in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago. They all looked delicious but as I had some carrots in the veg bag I thought I'd give the carrot and spinach ones a try. You can see the recipe here. I didn't get any Spinach in my veg bag but I managed to buy some local spinach from True Food Co-op.

They looked great but weren't 100% successful. My fault, no reflection on the recipe. I forgot the salt which I think they did lack although I wouldn't have used the 1 1/2 teaspoons the recipe said. I also didn't add the seeds as I didn't have any. The main problem I had was that I couldn't get them to cook properly. The recipe said stick a cocktail stick in them and if it comes out clean they are ready. Mine never got to the clean cocktail stick stage even when the tops were almost too hard to get the stick through. In the end I took them out of the oven and they did firm up when they cooled so maybe I was applying the criteria a bit too strictly. I also had a mini muffin pan but normal size muffin cases so I wondered if that might make a difference to the way they cooked.

Having said all this they were tasty and I'll definitely try them again with the salt, seeds and smaller muffin cases (or a bigger pan!)

Beetroot Is Back

2010-05-31T08:58:00.000-07:00

There isn't much of the year when you can't get UK grown beetroot but the last few months have been beetroot free. I must say by January I find it hard to get inspired by the weekly beetroot but it is always exciting when the first new ones arrive. These looked prettier when they first arrived as they had the stalks and leaves attached. I cut them off because apparently they keep better without them. You can use the leaves in salads but they don't keep long.

I decided to make a classic beetroot, walnut and goats cheese salad except I substituted a local sheep's cheese, Wigmore, that is soft like a Camembert but with a more tangy taste. I scrubbed and then boiled them (don't peel them until after they're cooked or the colour drains out). The very tiny ones only took 15 minutes but the larger ones about 30. Once they were cooked and cooled I sliced and put them on some peppery rocket that also came in the veg bag. I drizzled them with a dressing made with a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and 2 tablespoons olive oil. The cheese and toasted walnuts were then just sprinkled on top.

I found a good blog with a posting about beetroot (or beets - it's American) while looking for ideas. I particularly like the advice about not calling the doctor the first time you go to the loo after eating beetroot!

Onions and Cook Books

2010-05-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

I had some onions in the veg bag this week. According to the Tolhurst Organic website they are bought in but must be from the UK as they don't import any of the veg. They were an unusual shape - slightly flattened. They smelt gorgeous really fresh so I used one last night in a stir fry - the Dutch ones I had in the cupboard could wait.

I thought I photo of some onions wasn't very exciting so I'd give you a nose at some of my cook books. These are the smarter hardback ones the more dog-eared paperbacks are in the kitchen.

Using the bean sprouts 2

2010-05-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

It had to be a BBQ in this lovely weather and that gave me a chance to use the punnet of bean sprouts that came in the veg bag as an accompaniment . These are not the bean sprouts you have with Chinese food they are the sort you get if you sprout your own beans so you get the bean and the sprout. These were a mixture of lentils, chickpeas and other beans. I looked up a few recipes and a some of the ones for sprouted chickpeas said to cook them so I boiled them for a couple of minutes and then drained them and put then in cold water. I added half a chopped red pepper, a couple of table spoons of chopped parsley, half a red onion finely chopped and made a vinaigrette with cider vinegar. They were good. "surprisingly good" apparently!

Chilli to the rescue

2010-05-22T00:43:00.000-07:00

Thursday night I made a rice dish with some leeks, red peppers, brown rice and red lentils. I thought is was tasty but a bit worthy. Neither of the children ate it and I ended up with loads left over. There was too much to throw away and I've vowed to stop using the freezer as some where to store stuff we don't want to eat before throwing it away two years later. So I got some Cumberland sausages I'd bought at the Real Food Festival out of the freezer (a good use of it!) and tarted up the rice to go with them. I mixed in some ricotta cheese and fried a chopped fresh red chilli and then added the mixture to the pan with the chillies. It was much nicer this time and one of my children ate it.

Using every last bit

2010-05-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

We had a leg of lamb for Sunday Dinner and after using what was left on Monday night spiced up in wraps, I boiled the bone to make stock. Just added some pepper corns, old bit of celery, parsley stalks and dried herbs. At the same time I put a handful of black turtle beans to soak in cold water. I then made some soup with a leek (from the veg bag), the stock, beans and a few bits of lamb meat.

When I reheated it for lunch I added a chopped potato which thickened it up nicely. It was very tasty, far too good to share - I've hidden the rest at the back of the freezer for lunches when I'm on my own.

Spring Greens and Chorizo

2010-05-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

Today I used the spring greens from my veg bag. They've been in fridge since Thursday but were still in good condition. Here's what I did.

Ingredients -

1 tea spoon corriander seeds
3 spring onions sliced
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
175g spring greens sliced (thick ends cut off but included most of the stalks)
100g chorizo cut into 1cm chunks
glug of sherry (10 ml?)

Melt knob of butter in a pan that has a lid and gently cook the coriander seeds for a minute of so until they start to smell nice. Turn up heat and stir fry the spring onions, greens, garlic and chorizo for a couple of minutes. Add the sherry turn the heat as low as possible and cook with the lid on for about 5 minutes.

I served this with creamy mashed potatoes. This amount wasn't really enough for 4 more like 2 or 3. We filled up on bread and cheese which as we happened to have some local Wigmore cheese in the fridge wasn't too much of a hardship.

Recycling bags

2010-05-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

One of things I love about my veg bag is that it is a good way of reducing packaging. Most of the veg comes loose in the bottom of the bag with somethings, like spinach, in clear plastic bags. The green heavy paper bags that the veg comes in are also reused. I say they are reused but this obviously depends on customers returning them. I was ashamed to find a big pile of them in my cupboard this week (see photo). I did take them all back and exchanged them for one full of lots of green things - spinach, chard, spring greens and salad as well as the usual potatoes, leeks and carrots.

Bubble and Squeak

2010-05-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

I know bubble and squeak is supposed to be a way of using up cooked potato and cabbage but in a world where you can buy it as a ready meal cooking cabbage and potatoes specially doesn't seem so strange. In fact we do it quite often and always follow Ainsley Harriott's recipe from 'Gourmet Express'. You don't really need a recipe for bubble and squeak but this one is good. You fry some onion and garlic and then add your cooked potato and cabbage. When the crust forms on the bottom you add Worcestershire sauce and stir it up so all the lovely crispy bits get mixed in. You repeat the process twice more. A great way to get kids to eat cabbage without complaint.

Carrots with pasta?

2010-05-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

Having a veg bag is a bit like being on ready steady cook - you have to make something out of what you've got. I've got carrots, leeks, cabbage and potatoes. Tuesday night it has to be something quick as we have to eat early. What I came up with was pasta in a tomato sauce with leeks, carrots and flavoured tofu. I chopped the carrots up small so that they would have time to cook. They were still a bit cruchy but I thought that was nice. I still have three carrots left as I only put one in because my daughter was watching me cook saying “you can’t put carrots in pasta!”

Real Food Festival

2010-05-10T10:13:00.001-07:00

On Friday I went to the Real Food Festival at Earl’s Court. This is a celebration of small scale producers making traditional craft food products. As well as the pies I came home with cheese, bacon, sausages, smoked mussels and chorizo. Oh and chocolate brownies that were definitely the best in the show because I sampled them all to make sure!

While I was there I listened to the Rude Food rants. Rude food is a cereal company and they’ve started a tradition of soap box rants at food festivals where people with a passion for food talk about their favourite subject for 5 minutes. I went because my friend Porridge Lady was ranting (about oats of course). What caught my attention in relation to veg bags schemes was Henrietta Green’s rant about local food. She was making the point that as “local” becomes a marketing tag we need to be clear what we mean when we talk about local food. It needs to be about more than just distance. If you lived next to a coke factory would that make it local food? It needs to be about using ingredients sourced as locally as possible, about sustainability and treating people (and animals) fairly. In terms of veg bag schemes there are a number of national ones and they offer great produce but why not check if there is a small farmer in your area who would appreciate your regular support. It is great feeling that you know the person who grew the food you are eating.

This weeks bag

2010-05-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

I pick up my bag on a Thursday but this week I didn't pick it up until about 11 pm as I was busy helping get Reading's first Green Party councillor elected (Yeh!!).

I thought I'd do an inventory as this is the first new bag since I started the blog. There were potatoes, leeks, carrots, a cauliflower, spinach, salad and cabbage. No onions - until I started getting a veg bag I hadn't thought about onions being seasonal.

So far all we've used is the cauliflower. I went to the Real Food Festival yesterday and came back with some yummy pies that we had with cauliflower cheese. Not the most imaginative thing to do with cauliflower but still good.

Using the bean sprouts

2010-05-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

We are in the middle of the hunger gap at the moment - the period when the winter veg has finished but the summer veg hasn't come in yet. This means that veg box schemes often have to supplement with produce that hasn't come from their farm, or even close for a month or so. We have been getting a box of mixed bean sprouts in our bag most weeks and I must confess I struggle to use it and ended up throwing last weeks away. (That is a terrible confession and I felt really bad!). I don't know why I find it difficult because I always enjoy them when I do eat them. This week I'm determined to use them and last night was very organised and prepared lunch to take to work with me today. I sliced and fried some spring onions with a handful of the bean sprouts, some chilli and soy sauce. I mixed it with some cooked rice and had it cold for lunch. I've still got two thirds of a box to use though!

Leeks and Leftovers

2010-05-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

I collect my veg bag on a Thursday so by this time of the week I'm looking to use up what is left. Today I it was leeks and thought they would go well with the leftovers from Sunday dinner. Pretty special leftovers. We had pork tenderloin from Laverstoke Park in cream and mustard sauce. I sliced up the left over meat and fried it with the veg bag leeks, added the rest of the cream and stirred it all into some pasta.