I am having veg box angst - can anyone help?

[bozza]

I have started ordering from River Swale which is a sister company to Riverford which I have heard about on here. I am having one or two teething problems.

Firstly I am having problems getting through all the leeks. Just how do you manage that? Last week I made leek and potato soup, then I made a roast chicken and had sauteed leek and cabbage as a veg, then I made a chicken and veg crumble and put leeks in that. Tonight we are having jacket potatoes and savoury mince so I could sautee a leek with that. But they are still mounting up.

The other problem is the oranges. I have been buying a mixed fruit bag and every week it contains apples (geat DH takes one to work every day), another fruit (lemon, use in cooking so OK, plums, they were lovely) and oranages which we just don't eat. I have cooked with them but just about every recipe only uses one orange.

Also I wondered how much do you rely on your veg box and how much do you supplement from other sources?

Juice the oranges, make jelly with them.

Cheesey leeks are delicious

Make cheese and leek pie YUM

OWWWW!

Revenge is a dish best served cold, hey?

chicken and asparagus pie with leeks.

its basically chicken, asparagus, leeks, stock, a tub of philly and whole grain mustard.

I'd freeze some too, they'll prob stop sendign them after a while.

I use my veg box to do bulk cooking so I spend a few hours in the kitchen and then freeze everything. This slightly alleviates the weeks when we have tons of something bizarre.

I haven't used River Swale so I don't know their policy, but usually you can ask not to be sent something, such as oranges. They will substitute something else instead.

I am in teething stage with a new veg box supplier as well and currently have one large box delivered every fortnight, which I supplement with extra salad stuff from the greengrocers, as we eat loads of that atm and not so much stuff like potatoes.

We are just about managing on a double large fruit box each week but yesterday ran out, so I had to buy extra. I think in future I should get away with just buying extra bananas - I've excluded them from the fruit box as we were getting 20 green bananas every week

You may find this particular scheme is too rigid for you if they don't allow you to pick and choose a bit. Hunt around and see what else is out there, if so.

If you've got Nigella Bites there'a a lovely orange muffins recipe - good for a weekend breakfast.
I have a River Nene box (same company as yours) and we used to get an onion mountain, they asked for feedback and a lot of people said they'd prefer not to get them every week - so we get a mix now - onions, leeks, spring onions, shallots. email them and let them know you're a bit fed up with your glut of leeks!
I rarely supplement what we get unless it's a specific recipe. Today our box has got pak choi, mushrooms and spring onions so I'm thinking stir fry - so I might go out and get some coriander, garlic and ginger for instance.

Anyone got a recipe for cheese & leek pie? We've got a leek mountain building too & I've had to stick a note in with our payment asking for the leeks & cauliflowers to be replaced with something else next week.

Thanks all. Interesting stuff. We are not as good at eating fruit as we ought to be. I do supplement the fruit with stuff that I know the DC will eat. I also stew fruit that we have a lot of and freeze but oranges are not really a stewing fruit.

There are various sizes of veg box and I got a small (8 items) the first week and a mini (6 items) last week and this week. Part of the leek problem is because I already had some in when I started the scheme. I am not aware that you are able to deselect items although they have a list of extra items you can order so I have got watercress, cherry tomatoes and rhubarb this week. I am sure I have seen a recipe for rhubarb and orange crumble in one of my books.

The additional items I tend to buy are things like peppers (I use them in lots of recipes), strawberries for DD, cucumber for DS etc. DS has requested a stew this week and I usually use a lot of root veg in a stew but we only have carrots (which DH doesn't like so I can put some in but not have it predominately carrot). So I can put carrots, onion, leek, potatoes in the stew but could do with buying a swede or something as well.

Oh another question. Dirty veg. Do you wash it when you use it? I thought this was normal. But the carrots come in huge paper bags that take half the fridge up, so could do with getting them out of the bag.

Wash them if you're putting them loose into the veg/salad boxes of the fridge.

I have a Leek Souffle recipe and a Stilton & Leek Tart recipe - do you want them?

Yes please.

In the bumf we had from River Nene when we started it says only wash the veg just before you use it. I think it's something to do with them drying out and losing nutrients. I've just thrown 2 swede away from last weeks box! (me and dh don't like them and I've already frozen a tonne of it for ds!)

Stilton & Leek Tart (makes 8 little tarts, 11cm/4.5" wide) - or make a large one.

Cheese Pastry (or cheat and buy it!)
6ox plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp mustard powder
3oz butter, cut into small pieces
2oz grated Parmesan
1 egg, beaten

Measure flour, salt, mustard & butter into a bowl and rub in until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the parmesan and beaten egg and mix till it comes together. Chill for 30mins wrapped in clingfilm.

Roll pastry out thinly, cut into 8 rounds (I use a large flat Yorkshire pudding tin). Bake blind at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 for 15 mins.

Filling:
knob of butter
1 leek weighing about 12oz, washed & thinly sliced
4oz stilton, coarsely grated or crumbled
handful fresh chopped parsley
2 eggs
10fl oz single cream
salt & black pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
12 black olives, stoned & halved (optional)

Heat butter in pan & cook leeks for a few minutes. Cover the pan and put on a gentle heat for 15 minutes, after which give it a quick boil to remove excess liquid.

Divide the leek between the pastry cases and sprinkle on grated cheese. Beat the eggs and add the cream, nutmeg and some seasoning. Carefully pout the egg & cream mixture into the tarts and top each one with olives.

Bake at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 15-20 minutes until filling set and beginning to colour.

Leek Souffle

2oz butter
1lb leeks, thinly sliced
1oz plain wholemeal flour
1/4 pint milk
4oz strong Cheddar, grated
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan
1 tsp made mustard
salt & pepper
6 eggs, separated

Melt half the butter in a pan, add the leeks and toss until coated in butter. Cook for approx. 5-7 mins until soft.

Melt the remaining butter in another pan, stir in the flour and cook for 1 min. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Cook, stirring, for 1 min then add the cheeses, mustard, and salt & pepper to taste. Stir until the cheeses have melted. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 5 mins, then beat in the egg yolks. Drain the leeks, then stir into the sauce.

Whisk the egg whites until very stiff, then gradually fold into the leek mixture. Turn into a greased 1.2 lite (2pt) souffle dish and bake in a preheated oven 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 45 mins until well risen and golden brown. Serve immediately.

PS. The Leek & Stilton tarts freeze really well - cooked first.

Those recipes sound really lovely thanks. I have never made a souffle though - aren't they supposed to be difficult?

I avoided making souffles for years because I thought they were hard. I tried this one in fact, about 3 years ago, and it was fine! You do need to eat them straight away though so if you have teenagers hiding in bedrooms and a DH that is trapped in his laptop at dinnertimes, you will need to YELL at them really loudly!

ooh I might try taht too. I've never made a souffle neither, for the same reason. I love leeks too.

what do you serve with a souffle?