Get Recipe

They’re nearly all gone for the year now. If you’re growing them and you’ve got some still on the vine but they’re still very green, try cutting off the vine and hanging it up indoors somewhere, or putting them in a paper bag with a ripe banana!

Once they’re ripe, make the most of them with our recipes for Autumn Pancakes with Blue Cheese Sauce, Tomato and Roast Garlic Soup, or Homemade Tomato Sauce (which you could freeze to use later in the year when the tomatoes are gone).

Tomatoes Baked with Parmesan, Parsley & Garlic

This toasty tomato recipe from the Vista Veg cooperative might help use up the final few tomatoes – perhaps nestled into a basic risotto or on fresh, warm buttered bread? Mmm…

We’ve only really got one month left to enjoy British grown peppers and chillies, so best make the most of them. As well as trying our new and special feature recipe, don’t miss other VegBox favourites like Andrew Williams’ Spicy Vegetable Lasagne with Peppers, or our Baked Autumn Omelette which you can cram with as many seasonal veggies as you like!

Honest to Goodness’ Cinnamon Roasted Seasonal Vegetables

cinnamon roasted veg

We love how simple this is, and we love the cinnamon variation on roasting whatever’s in season. Thanks to our friends at “Honest to Goodness” for the recipe!

Get Recipe

Read more about this ingredient.

Oh-So-Simple Jerusalem Artichokes and Sauteed Onions

sauteed with onions

This truly oh-so-simple recipe was provided by Polly B from Holymoor. How about serving this dish with rice for a substantial meal, or with hunks of bread at lunch time?

Get Recipe

Chilli Broad Beans and more...

This month sees the last of the broad beans. But before you dig out the hankies, here are some brand new broad bean recipes for making the most of them with. Remember that broad beans get tougher as the season goes along, so you’ll almost definitely want to pod and skin them before you eat them. See our Broad Beans page for a guide on podding and skinning…

Here are our newest recipes for finishing the broad bean season with:

• Warm Beetroot, Broad Bean and Potato Salad
• Chilli Broad Beans
• Broad Beans with Fromage Frais
• Broad Beans Quinoa

Which will you be trying?

PSB, Tenderstem and Calabrese

Broccoli is a member of the brassica family, like cabbage.

The plant produces green flower heads on thick stalks. They are picked and eaten before the flowers bloom.

There can be confusion between these different types of Broccoli so let us try to help.

Click through for the low down on each type, including their different seasons, and ideas on what to make with each of them…

nature's WD40?!

Pretty much every weekday morning right now we’re mindlessly chunking up cucumber and throwing it into the box with salad leaves, peppers, spring onions, cashews, and mushrooms for lunch. Add a bit of black pepper, a splash of balsamic or even a tin of tuna and some mayo and I can be pretty sure we’ve saved ourselves from the pot noodle for another day!

But is there more to cucumber than salad? Is there more to cucumber even than tsatsiki? Cucumber side effects? Oiling your hinges? And is it possible that it can be cooked?! Read on …

would you eat them?

Following on from the June feature on ethical egg shopping, this month we’ve collaborated with the good folks over at Farm-Direct to bring you some thoughts about the chickens behind the eggs.

Since the start of VegBox Recipes, we’ve been focused almost exclusively (and unsurprisingly!) on supporting you to eat local, seasonal, organic fruit and vegetables.

However, not all of our readers are strict vegetarians or vegans. So whilst it’s still true that one of the best ways of reducing your household carbon footprint is to switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet, if we’re going to eat meat, poultry and fish, or cook it for others, the natural choice would seem to be swapping quantity (especially ‘worryingly cheap’ quantity), for quality.

Read on to find out how to know what you’re eating, and for recipes to try with your ethically-sourced chicken.

** thanks to our regular reader, Steve-in-KL, for the photo of his “ladies”!

in season in july

THIRTEEN new ingredients are coming into season – it must be July!

Click through to see the whole list and to let us know which you need help with.

Make sure you get the list at the very beginning of the month – sign up to the free VegBox Monthly Newsletter…

is free range enough?

This month, as well as focusing on the fruit and veg that’s in season, we wanted to get your input on eggs and what you prefer to buy.

It seems like buying free range was one of the first ethical supermarket choices available to us. These days, however, there is a nagging sense that “free range” is not enough.

Click through to find out what we’ve discovered about ethical egg eating, and for our scrumptious recipes for:

• Victoria Sandwich with Fresh Raspeberry and Blueberry Filling
• Simple Souffle
• Cheesy Asparagus Flan
• Rocket and Gruyere Omelette, and
• Eggy Bread

Enjoy!

sauces, salads, tarts, soups, stews...

Tomatoes are a delicious and welcome sign that summer is here!

And they crop right through until the first frosts of autumn.

Anyone who has tried home-grown / veg box tomatoes will know their flavour and texture is vastly superior to standard supermarket tomatoes.

This is because the home-grown / veg box are left to ripen on the plant, rather than being picked too early, ripened artificially and then transported for days or even weeks, in cold storage. That’s why supermarket tomatoes often have a “floury” texture.

Read on for tips on storing, ripening and skinning, and for our brand new selection of recipes for:

• Red Lentil, Walnut and Tomato Pate
• Classic Tomato Sauce
• Super Quick & Easy Tomato Tart

and more…