VegBox Recipes Blog

Here’s some information from Sarah from courses4cooks. It’s about a great course they ran for people using veg boxes. Sounds like it was lots of fun!

The Courses For Cooks Veg Box Made Easy Cookery

This course is about being creative with seasonal veg, without fuss or faff. It’s about making healthy eating quick and easy. On the day we went through the latest veg box, create an interesting menu from the contents, and then cooked it as a group.

It was aimed at people who want to eat seasonally whether they are using a veg box scheme, the local farm shop or greengrocer. For those who would like to have a veg box delivery but find the idea of being faced with a load of (possibly unusual) veg a bit daunting – I showed them how to turn the box into an easy, but tasty, menu in minutes.

For those who already have a veg box but are running out of ideas – this course provides some new recipes and a chance for guests to share their experiences and tips and have a sociable day cooking. The course is also useful for people who just want to eat more seasonal veg – without taking on a regular veg box delivery.

This is hands on cookery in a small group [maximum 6 people] in a normal kitchen – informal, sociable, fun and relaxed.

Find out what was on the menu for the January course.

For more information: www.courses4cooks.co.uk or contact Sarah on 0115 9160861 or by email to: vegbox [at] courses4cooks [dot] co [dot] uk
There will be more courses soon, so please visit Courses 4 Cooks to find out more.

Thanks,

Clare x

The seasons are upside down this year. We’re still getting UK-grown courgettes and tomatoes in our veg box, yet it’s December this weekend!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – I love the summer veggies, but it feels weird contemplating recipes for courgettes and swedes at the same time!

I guess we’re in the last few weeks of the late summer veg and the abundance of root vegetables in veg boxes shows that we’re now in “late autumn”, so it’s time to think soups, bakes, casseroles, mashes and all sorts of other comfort food

So I was wondering: what’s your favourite winter vegetable – and why?

I’m going to cheat and opt for two – beetroot and butternut squash (though probably not together).

Butternut squashes stay in season for months and their bright orange flesh adds a wonderfully sweet, creamy flavour to winter dishes.

Beetroot is just so colourful, packed with vitamins and has a sweet, earthy flavour, that makes a lovely change from the pungent flavour of turnips and celeriac. I’m a late starter with beetroot, having only discovered I like it in the last 18 months. So it’s just as well we’ve got lots of beetroot recipes to enjoy.

So what’s your favourite winter vegetable and why???

Clare x

Should veg box scheme providers charge you a weekly fee for the ability to opt out of fruit and vegetables you know you won’t eat?

Most schemes used to offer this service for free (for up to 3 items), but we’ve found out that there’s a growing trend to charge for this service.

What do you think?

Do you think it’s fair? After all, flexibility does involve an administrative cost.

Or is it a bit cheeky – you get charged whether or not your opt-out veggies are in season and veg boxes can be expensive already?

Whatever your opinion, have your say in our survey.

Vote Now

We’ll be publishing the results next month and letting veg box scheme providers know what you think!

Thanks

Clare

When it comes to the world of fruit and veg, are you a risk-taker or a play-it-safe kinda person?

Do you eagerly seize the mystery vegetable in your box and set about working out how to use it, or does it linger, guiltily, at the back of the fridge, until it sneaks its way to the compost bin, shrivelled and mouldy?

When we first started getting a vegetable box delivery, I’d definitely have called myself a guilty-fridge-user. There were days when I didn’t even want to open the fridge door, to avoid the reminder of my failures as a budding green-girlie. My worst culprit was actually the surprisingly common cabbage. I thought I hated the stuff. School dinners, hospital corridors. You name it, I had cabbage baggage.

I had convinced myself it was an unnecessary addition to my culinary repertoire and, since it didn’t arrive too often with our veggies, I was able to manage the shame…

Then, one day, my life changed. In the early stages of pregnancy, I started getting cravings for (you’ve guessed it) cabbage… Pickled beetroot also scored highly, but that’s another story. So there I was, probably desperate for the folic acid and calcium so abundant in “green, leafy vegetables” and I realised I was going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to cook the stuff.

Fortunately for fans of the cruciferous family, there are now plenty of delicious recipes for cabbage and its friends on Veg Box Recipes. Some of my (am I really going to say this?!) favourites are:

• Kale Pesto Pasta
• Black Nero Cabbage Soup
• Coleslaw
• Broccoli & Kale Stir Fry
• Red Cabbage & Apple

So enough of my confessions: where do you stand? Which vegetables do you sneakily avoid? And what do you do when something bizarre crops up in your veg box, farm shop or at the farmers’ market?

I guess the one lesson my experience taught me was, just because something is unusual or brings back yucky food memories, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a go – just the once.

If you come across a stranger in your veg box and aren’t sure where to start, our Picture Gallery should help you identify it and work out what to do with it.

You never know, you might even enjoy it!