Veg Box News 7th October – 13th October

Veg Box News 7th October – 13th October

Hello and welcome to this week’s veg box news! My tip of the week is an all-time best episode from my favourite gardening podcast, Roots and All. Focusing on the food web within the soil and how that impacts plant health, nutritional contents and potentially our own health, this is the best 20 minute explanation of soil ecology and its importance I’ve come across. This is such an crucial part of the organic movement, and with increasing awareness of the human microbiome it’s become easier to get across to customers – soil is alive, and that has a huge impact on whether or not our food is.

(Recipe from River Cottage Much More Veg! Image from The Telegraph)

You can always trust Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall with a vegetable! This seemed an ideal recipe for the plethora of brassicas in the veg box this week. Whilst it doesn’t feature in the original I’d even through a few chunks of swede in there as they love a little spice and if sensibly sized, will probably require a similar cooking time to the cauliflower.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp caraway seeds (optional)
A pinch of flaky sea salt
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
2 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
1 large head of broccoli (about 500g), stalk end trimmed
1 medium cauliflower (about 800g), stalk end trimmed
2 tbsp rapeseed oil, plus extra to finish
150g kale leaves

For the split pea purée
200g yellow split peas
3 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
1 tbsp tahini
50ml rapeseed oil
1 tsp cumin seeds, roughly bashed
Juice of ½ lemon, or more to taste

Method:

Start with the split pea purée. Put the split peas and garlic cloves into a saucepan with 750ml water. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 40 minutes until the split peas are completely tender and most of the water is absorbed. If there are more than a few tablespoons of water left in the pan, pour some of it off.

Tip the peas, garlic and residual water into a food processor. Add the tahini, oil, cumin, lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Blitz to a purée. It might seem quite liquid at first, but will soon start to thicken up. (If it stays a bit thin, return to the pan and simmer briefly before serving.)

While the peas are cooking, preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/Gas 5. Using a pestle and mortar, bash the coriander, cumin, fennel and caraway seeds, if using, with the flaky salt and chilli flakes to break them down a bit. Add the turmeric, paprika and some pepper and stir well.

Cut the broccoli into large florets, splitting the stalks if they are thick. Remove any tough outer leaves from the cauliflower, keeping the tender inner leaves attached, then split into quarters, down through the stalk. Cut each quarter into three wedges, keeping the stalk attached.

Put the broccoli and cauliflower into a large roasting tray, trickle over one tablespoon of oil and toss the veg in it. Scatter over the spice mix and coat all the veg.

Roast for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through cooking, until the veg are tender and starting to brown. Meanwhile, strip the kale leaves off their central stalks and tear the leaves into rough pieces. Toss them in a large bowl with a tablespoon of oil and some salt and pepper.

After 30 minutes’ roasting, take the broccoli and cauliflower from the oven, scatter the oiled kale leaves over the veg and return to the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until most of the kale is slightly crisp.

If the split pea purée has cooled down, warm it up gently in a pan, with a splash of boiling water from the kettle if needed.

To serve, spoon the purée on to a warmed plate and arrange the veg on top, scattering over any bits of toasty spice mix still in the roasting dish. Give it a final trickle of rapeseed oil before serving.

Nick@Sheffield Organic Growers and High Riggs have finally run out of veg to supply us with (on a regular basis-there may be the odd bit here or there!). Local courgettes have finished, cuc’s are down to their last few but Matt and El and Moss Valley Market Garden between them can cover the following for the week.

· Kale/Cavolo nero/Russian Kale 2.38ea
· Loose beetroot £2.88kg
· Red Kuri winter squash £3.18kg
· Beet spinach £2.28ea
· Chard (some red, some rainbow some Swiss) £2.28ea
· Class 2 scruffy but tasty garlic £8.90kg
· Also modest amounts of cherry tomatoes (£10.90kg)

The Isle of Wight have a very few cherry vine tom’s, reasonable cherry plum volumes and a very limited number of large vine tomatoes. The latter will be topped up with Dutch which are the same price. Last weeks brassica haul all looked great last week and the cauli’s were relatively good value! Again, there will be small-medium white ones at 2.18ea and a very few purple at 2.68ea. There is calabrese broccoli from Doncaster as well as purple sprouting broccoli from Tadcaster (8.90kg).

The mushroom drops include Dutch oyster mushrooms Monday and Wednesday and Lions Mane Monday only (while stocks last).

The avocado will switch from Peruvian Hass to Spanish new season Bacon variety. The latter is more delicate both in flavour and physically. There is no colour change when ripening and they can do so very quickly so monitor them closely! There will be a price drop to £6.20kg.

The apple selection for this week includes: Pirouette, Meridian Cox, Santana, Russet, Spartan and Bramley (cookers). From our local grower Hazelhurst Fruitery will be some Charles Ross apples ( dual purpose cooker/eater) and Lord Lambourne and Matt & El might have a few Kidd’s Orange.nish Golden kiwis (6.98) which tend to be sweeter and less hairy than their green cousin. 

Local offerings

Matt & El- Spinach, chard, kale, cuc’s (v. ltd) French beans (v.ltd) shallots, garlic and little Kuri squash.

MVMG Cavolo nero and maybe some chard?

UK Fruit & Veg: Celery, Chestnut Mushrooms, Potatoes, Cherry Vine & Cherry Plum Tomatoes, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Pointy and January King Cabbage, hard red & white Cabbage, Celeriac, Swede, Beetroot, Parsnips, Apples and a few Pears. & Other Highlights: Sweet Potatoes, Bell Peppers, Oyster Mushrooms, Apples, Lemons, South African Valencias, Spanish Grapefruit, Spanish Bacon Avocado, Mango, Plums, Pomegranate, Pears, Grapes (Muscat and Green Seedless).

It’s going a little brassica crazy this week! The best of the early Autumn produce all just happen to be from the same family, with Lancashire cauliflowers, Yorkshire purple sprouting broccoli, Scottish swede (yes it’s a brassica!) and local kales from Matt and El and Moss Valley Market Garden.

The UK boxes will be exactly the same! The No Potato boxes and Larger Pot boxes will have some Dutch peppers. Whilst these are still expensive they did look nice so thought they were worth it. Larger No Pot boxes will have Yorkshire leeks and XL boxes will have some Isle of Wight cherry plum tomatoes.

The apples will be Pirouette and/or Santana again. There will also be Dutch Conference pears, Spanish/Italian plums and Spanish or Peruvian mandarins. In the Larger boxes will be Spanish Persimmon.

Here are the contents of this week’s boxes. All weights are approximate and contents may vary depending on availability.

A UK Potatoes 1.3kg UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g G UK Potatoes 1.3kg UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g D UK Potatoes 1.6kg UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g Hol Peppers 300g L UK Potatoes 1.6kg UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g Hol Peppers 300g UK Cherry Plum Toms 250g K DR Bananas 850g UK Pirouette/Santana 850g Hol Conference Pears 700g Sp/It Plums 400g SA/Sp Mandarins 600g

B UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g Hol Peppers 300g T UK Potatoes 1kg UK Brown Onions 300g UK Carrots 300g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 500g UK Sm Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g E UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g Hol Peppers 300g UK Leeks 450g M UK Brown Onions 450g UK Carrots 450g Local Assorted Kale UK Swede 700g UK Cauliflower UK Purple Sprouting Broccoli 200g Hol Peppers 300g UK Leeks 450g UK Cherry Plum Toms 250g Q DR Bananas 850g UK Pirouette/Santana 850g Hol Conference Pears 700g Sp/It Plums 400g SA/Sp Mandarins 600g Sp Persimmon 400g