Thursday 17 March 2011

Veg Ahoy!

Hi!
I am so excited because I am going to talk about my veg box (which I love). We decided to have another stab at veg boxes after theorganicfarm.com really let us down (avoid like the plague) and went this time with national company Abel and Cole because there was very little offered locally. You can get most anything from them, we went with a small veg box at £6.50 and a small fruit box at £7.50. It arrives about the same time every Tuesday and thus far it's been super.

The company sources most of its produce from farmers in England, using LPG vans to deliver it, but they do sometimes ship from nearby countries veg that is in high demand. I don't really know how I feel about this. Ultimately I only what to eat what is available... This is a big down-side for me. Also, I'm happy to support British small-farmers but I would love to specifically support local ones. This is something everyone should weigh up when choosing to have food delivered.

So what have we been getting? Well fruit wise we've had blood oranges, satsumas, bananas, apples and pears so far. They are all sweet and juicy, the apples particularly so. Some of the nicest I have had. I've been baking with the blood oranges, recipes at www.thoughtsforoli.blogspot.com and also the bananas. Found out this week that 1.2 million bananas are thrown away every day in the UK so my interest in ripe banana recipes has been stirred! I'll be putting up recipes as I find them.

Veg wise, we've had radishes, salad stuffs, beetroot, onions, carrots, mushrooms, big tomatoes... and potatoes every week. All have been delish and have kept a long time in the fridge due to them being so much more fresh. The sheer size of some of the stuff we've been getting has been surprising! Check out this pepper we got. It was the biggest I'd ever seen and made two meals. I've put an egg next to it for scale:

Check that out! Awesome.

I'll let you know how it goes with the veg box and if we find a more local company (I have had suggestions). I'm moving house soon, hopefully to a place with outside space, so the summer may be all about growing things myself. I'll definitely be blogging because I will need help!

Lots of boxy love,
Ash xx