Veg box recipe ideas

[LittleFriendSusan]

I need some inspiration! We get a weekly vegetable box delivery, but i always find it difficult to use it all up at this time of year, when the produce switches to more autumnal veg, so I thought I'd start a thread for ideas. The overall aim for me is to reduce my food waste... I feel quite sick every time I throw away festering fruit and veg from the bottom of the fridge drawer, so hopefully with better planning and variety I can avoid this.

So, I have, sat in the fridge, 2 swedes, 2 cauliflowers, a few leeks, 2 bags of sprouts and 3.5 savoy cabbages. Also have a sack of potatoes, carrots, onions, sweet potatoes and probably other veg I can't remember at the moment. Some underripe plums & lots of apples which none of us really seem to eat. I only really like sharp, crisp apples to eat as is and these are a bit soft and 'fluffy' IYKWIM. Store cupboards are fairly well stocked & freezer is rammed full so batch cooking not really an option at the moment!

DS & DP not big cabbage fans which doesn't help. DS also doesn't really like sweeter veg, basically all the veg we are getting now! We're not overly keen on stew / casserole type dishes but once a week or so is ok. We sound really fussy having written that but we're really not 😂.

Last week, to try to use some of the cabbage, I made spaghetti with cabbage & anchovies which DP & I enjoyed but DS not keen.

Plans so far for this week:

• a batch or 2 of soup with the more tired looking specimens
• roast chicken dinner today, prob with sprouts, cabbage & swede & carrot mash
• this: www.theguardian.com/food/2021/mar/20/meera-sodha-vegan-recipe-swede-mushroom-tacos-peanut-salsa#comments
• sweet potato chilli

Hit me with your suggestions - all welcome, but particularly any non- cabbage you tasting ways to make a dent in the savoy cabbage collection 🥬 🥬🥬.

Just remembered I also have parsnips and pak choi...

Potato and cabbage curry is lovely, even though it does not sound like it would be!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/03/meera-sodhas-vegan-potato-and-cabbage-curry-recipe

I know that recipe says white cabbage, but I reckon savoy would be good too.

Thanks @Claudethecat - that's gone on the list

Chuck softer apples in with chicken, cream cheese, white wine, mustard and onions. Serve with crispy bread and greens

I find cabbage is so much better with dry heat rather than wet - it isn't going to be particularly pleasant in soup. You could use it to make stirfry with the pak choi. I like to use cabbage in rosti too:

www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/leftovers/bubble-and-squeak-rosti

You could also try making some sauerkraut.

Cauliflower is nice roasted.

@Polmuggle

Chuck softer apples in with chicken, cream cheese, white wine, mustard and onions. Serve with crispy bread and greens

Thanks - good idea. I do similar with pork steaks but wouldn't have thought of doing it with chicken. Do you think it would work with leftover roast chicken?

Thanks @UnaOfStormhold do you have a reliable sauerkraut recipe?

We like roasted cauliflower, that's a good shout, I could do some sort of salad for lunches.

Bubble & squeak - every time I cook extra spuds with the roast with the intention of doing this DP & DS end up eating them

Bubble and squeak cakes realfood.tesco.com/recipes/bubble-and-squeak-potato-cakes.html
Rumbledethumps www.lavenderandlovage.com/recipe/rumbledethumps-scottish-potato-cabbage-cheese-gratin

Leek risotto www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/leek-bacon-risotto

Swede spaghetti www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/swede-pancetta-spaghetti

Thanks @Ricekrispie22, I like the look of the swede carbonara-ish spaghetti. DS loves a carbonara so this is definitely worth a try.

This is my plan for the week now:

S Roast chicken & as much veg as I can cook
M Swede tacos
T Chicken leek & mushroom pie (topped with mashed potato & parsnips)
W Swede & pancetta spaghetti
T Prawn stir fry
F Cabbage & potato curry
S Sweet potato chilli
S Chicken or pork in creamy mustard sauce with apples (will see what I have left in the freezer)

Lunches: soup, roast cauliflower salad, bubble & squeak with fried egg.

I'm going shopping this afternoon just for bread, milk, cheese & cleaning stuff so should be able to do all of this from the food I have in already🤞🏻. Next box comes on Friday!

The riverford website has some lovely recipes designed to use the contents of their boxes. I use that as a go-to place to find veg recipes.

Honestly, and I know this probably isn't what you want to hear, but if you want to reduce food waste, its probably a good idea to stop getting the veg box, and just get the fruit and veg that you know you can eat with your normal shopping.

We're similar, in as much as I hate food waste, and love the idea of a seasonal veg box. But I always end up wasting so much, as it never quite fits in with my meal plans, or something random gets delivered that I don't know what sensible thing to make with it.

As a minimum, it might be worth pausing your deliveries until you've worked your way through the stuff you already have in.

With the things you've got left over, I'd probably make apple and plum crumble (or apple and plum, pie, but crumble is easier and preferred in this house), stir fry with cabbage, pak choi, leeks and carrots, perhaps some jacket pots for lunches with the sack of spuds, various soups.

The swede is crying out to be used in Cornish pasties!

Crispy fried seaweed made from the savoy cabbage and sesame pak choi with your favourite Chinese recipe.
www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/vegan/crispy-fried-cabbage/

Gammon or a pork neck fillet works well with the sweet root veg and apples. Just dice the veg and roast with the meat on top of apple slices. You can wrap the pork fillet in bacon or pancetta if you want to be a bit fancier.

Roast cauliflower is good in warm and cold salads. Ottolenghi has some good recipes:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/17/fried-cauliflower-tahini-recipe-ottolenghi
ottolenghi.co.uk/recipes/cauliflower-steaks-with-zahter#

They would go well with batata harra. If you want meat too, lamb shish kebabs would be the obvious choice.
www.asda.com/good-living/recipe/batata-harra

Shredded sprouts are good in a salad, just google for inspiration. They could work well with shredded carrot and the apples in a citrusy dressing with bacon and walnuts. They would also work well in a pomegranate salad to go with the middle eastern dishes above.

The tired veg will perk up after a couple of hours in water in the fridge.

I love cabbage, although possibly not as much cabbage as you have to use up!

My favourite way of doing cabbage is to sweat the shredded cabbage with leeks in butter, then add a little chicken stock and cook with the lid on until it is absorbed. This is all savoury and glistening and basically just cabbage you would have on a roast but it does freeze reasonably well in this state so that when you defrost you just stir it in a pan to reheat.

I had to stop getting a local veg box because I was having the same problem. Lovely idea in theory to have fresh local veg but the contents rarely suited the food I wanted to make. I ended up throwing out more veg than usual. Forcing myself to find and make 5 cabbage dishes in a week was a miserable challenge. We were only ordering a box for two people and my final one before cancelling contained 3 types of large cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts.

Thanks all, some great ideas there - I hope I can keep this thread going :) I've never tried sprouts in a salad but I think I'll make that for lunch one day this week.

@MilduraS @mrsm43s I do get what you mean about the box, but this is a local supplier who have been an absolute godsend during the last 18 months so I really want to carry on supporting them - and it does make us eat more veg despite the bloody cabbages!! I do tend to skip a week every now and again when we get too much of a backlog & might actually do that next week. We'd been a bit lazy over the last few weeks for one reason or another so it's all built up more than usual.

Off the top of my head I would say

1 for goodness sake don't be throwing out veg unless it's totally inedible! This is what soup is for! Any veg past it's best but still basically edible can be flung in a soup - ahhh c posted as I wrote you are a soup maker great!

2 you've said not keen on stews/casseroles but how are you making them? Do they need more flavouring a bit of a kick? You could go more the curry/chilli route if so

3 have you tried tray bakes? I've recently discovered these myself and love them. Love a good tray bake and some sausages

4 "alternative" uses to normal Uk use - if I had a glut of cabbage I wouldn't have it with pasta! I'm not terribly keen on my mums way of doing cabbage either which is to boil it to death! I'd use it in a stir fry, nut/lentil and cabbage bake with a cheesy sauce (except I can't just now cos calories and cheesy sauce is very high cal unfortunately) or a veg crumble

5 cauliflower the obvious thing is a cauliflower cheese when I make this I tend to do it gratin style. Cauli also works in a stir fry or curry or tabouleh type dish

6 sprouts are one of the few veggies I as a veggie am not keen on and don't buy. The ONE time I ate and liked them was when a chef at a restaurant I worked at took my "I hate sprouts" as a challenge! He made me a stir fry with sprouts one night and then another night he made me a sprout and nut veggie bake where he fried off the sprouts in butter first and then baked them with carrots and a mix of nuts in a white sauce - was amazing!

7 plums and apples both work well in pies, tarts and crumbles. Or simple baked apples - I've been reminded of this on another thread as a low cal warm fruit option. Core the Apple, into the gap left by the core is normally put brown sugar and cinnamon but I'm going to try it with a sweetener that can be cooked with this week as I'm finding I'm not really fancying usual cold fruit now the temps are getting lower

8 as a scot swede is "neeps" to us and we most often have with haggis (you can get veggie haggis I love it) or a roast boiled & mashed with butter and black pepper - yummy!

Love the idea of rosti using the cabbage, not sure I could be bothered to make my own sauerkraut as I think to do it properly would be quite lengthy due to the fermentation plus I'm not very confident when it comes to pickling and food safety, but that's just me

That does seem a LOT of veg for what a family of 3?

If you want to continue using this supplier and that's the smallest box they do could you go halves/1/3's with family/neighbours?

My mum does this she gets a veg box and huge sack of potatoes and huge sack of carrots from a local farm shop delivered BUT it's actually her and 2 neighbours go in on it together and split it across the households, negotiate who gets what when there are items one of them doesn't like etc works well for them a sort of mini co-operative

My wife will only eat sprouts on Christmas Day, under duress, because it's traditional. So when we involuntarily found ourselves the proud owners of a bag of the things in August I tried making a remoulade with them. Cut them in half lengthways, then julienne them. Add dijon mustard and lemon juice to mayo and fold the sprouts in. Works fine as a salad accompaniment to barbecue or cold meats etc. I imagine that savoy cabbage would work just as well.

However, I agree with previous posters that if you hate food waste, paying for stuff you have little choice over and therefore won't eat to be delivered to your door is an odd starting point.

@Graphista - thank you for all of your comments - this may be a long reply :)

We definitely don't throw anything until it's inedible - unfortunately this is now happening sooner than expected as my fridge is on it's way out and keeps randomly freezing things. Which then turn to mush. So that doesn't help matters!

Stews & casseroles - they taste fine, just find them a bit boring / same-y if we have them too often. I quite like tagine-type things but DS not a fan of couscous or fruit in savoury meals, so I don't make them that often. I do love a curry / chilli and we tend to have some sort of variation of this at least once a week.

Tray bakes - yes have made a few of these (mainly from the Roasting Tin cookbooks). I have some sausages in the freezer (Italian-style I think?? A Lidl special buy the other week) so could do that with some sweet potatoes. And cabbage probably .

I love cabbage & anchovy pasta but the rest of the family seem to disagree - and it doesn't use enough cabbage to make a dent!

Yes, there are 3 of us at home now - DD has just gone to university & to be honest, I think I am still inadvertently buying and cooking for 4. DD doesn't really eat cheese or creamy type dishes, so we do actually have more options now she's not here & a cheesy bake is worth a try. I made cauliflower & broccoli cheese to go with our roast yesterday - DP is lactose-intolerant so we have to use his LF / vegan alternatives & it doesn't taste quite as good as it used to. But I could always split in 2 - one small one for DP and another for me & DS.

I used to hate sprouts - along with offal it was pretty much the only thing I wouldn't eat. But my mum wasn't the best cook and used to boil them to death. I actually really enjoy them now - either roasted or par-boiled and fried with pancetta, chestnuts or something. But I think I'd still avoid if my mum was cooking them .

I made a plum and apple crumble yesterday which was really good & I will definitely try the baked apples. I think I've had them with dried fruit in the middle before? I could always make some sort of compote too to have with yoghurt in the mornings.

We had mashed swede and carrots with lots of black pepper yesterday - love this! I am having leftovers shortly in a kind of bubble and squeak type concoction. I've only tried rosti once and it was a disaster - I think maybe I cooked the veg too long or had the wrong type of potatoes as it was a bit sloppy & very messy to make (too starchy).

Re. the veg box - they do several variations but all the same sort of size. The potatoes were extra a couple of weeks ago as they were on offer - I tend to buy a sack and it lasts us ages kept in the shed! I may have to shift to a box a fortnight or so instead though - I'll see how it goes over the next couple of weeks.

Pause the deliveries
Work through what your freezer is rammed with
Renew subscription
And start using up with veg etc in beautiful stews you can freeze

Retreat when freezer rammed again

@Otherpeoplesteens - that's another good idea. I make coleslaw quite a lot so I suppose this is similar. I wouldn't have thought of using sprouts / savoy though.

I agree it could seem an odd decision to have a box delivery, however, as I mentioned above, it has been a culmination of things meaning I have a bit of a glut at the moment. Poorly functioning fridge - so I've had to bin things before I've had chance to eat them. DD went to uni & overall we are eating less and I haven't quite adjusted shopping-wise yet. We've eaten out more over the last month than we have all year, for one reason or another. Then I got a random Hello Fresh delivery I wasn't expecting (too late to cancel). And now we are all recovering from the cold from hell, so last week none of us really had the motivation to cook or eat properly. So, not to make excuses, but it's not normally quite this bad .

I'm hoping I can get back on top of it and make the most of the box, but obviously if I carry on having to bin things, then I will have to consider cancelling/ reducing the frequency of the boxes. I think meal-planning is the key - as soon as that drops off, then everything else goes to pot...

Baked apples are delicious stuffed with marzipan. Not very healthy though! You could also use them grated in overnight oats.

You really need to squeeze all the excess water from the potatoes for rosti. Waxy potatoes make for crispier rosti, floury ones go a bit mashed potatoey in the middle. Still delicious but different.

That's really annoying re fridge hope you're able to replace it soon. That would really concern me as I've ocd and one aspect I struggle with is food safety concerns

Took me a while to get used to cooking/buying for one when my dd left home too it's an adjustment for sure

Compote too is a good call

A box a fortnight could be another way to go given the size of the box and if it's winter veg that does tend to last longer

My parents always bought sacks of potatoes and carrots from farm shops wherever we lived (dad was army so we moved around a lot this would be one of the first things they'd look into upon moving to a new place along with new dr, dentist etc) as being a more economical way of buying these and they'd live in the garage or shed or if that wasn't possible the cupboard in the hall and yes they could last ages in there but for a family of 5 they'd generally get used pretty quickly

I was cursed with a dd that hates potatoes! So that wasn't an option for me (it later transpired not simple fussiness she has a disability and for some who have it there's something in potatoes that irritate/inflame certain parts of the body for them but we didn't know that until she was at high school)

Every family has their preferences/quirks in how they cook and eat I totally appreciate that and simply hope a few of my ideas were of use

I've recently had a fair amount of food I had to throw myself which was annoying due to my having COVID. Combination of very little appetite, not being fit to cook at all really (I'm disabled and even normally it's a struggle so with covid on top there was no chance!) and I had the weird symptom that I only learned then WAS a symptom for some sufferers where anything remotely savoury tasted like pure salt! Gross!

I'd just had my usual grocery delivery the day before it hit me hard (had been working on me that weekend but I thought cold/tonsils at first) and I am trying to lose weight anyway and so plenty of lovely fresh fruit and veg much of which then ended up thrown as I just couldn't eat it. So annoying!

I even skipped a delivery one week altogether as I simply was barely eating and I had enough of other items in that I could manage to do that.

But generally speaking I'm pretty good at keeping food waste to a minimum

You may want to check out the "frugal foodies" threads on here too they were very active during lockdown last year and the other posters were such clever switched on people helping myself and others use the weird subs we were getting due to lockdown strange buying patterns of others and there was lots of great storage advice and ideas I think would be worth a browse for you

I'm pleased to say that, thanks to all of your suggestions, we've managed to get the mountain of fruit and veg down to a small hill over the last week .

Most things we tried were successful. Swede tacos were so much better than I expected & will definitely do them again. I'm going to try swede chips soon, I think - I often saw them mentioned on the low-carb threads but never fancied them, but the roasted swede was so good that I think I could have been wrong on that front... Swede & pancetta spaghetti was ok, but I took my eye off the ball and burnt the onions so that made it all a bit bitter.

We really liked the Meera Sodha cabbage and potato curry - made this last night with a mix of white cabbage and Savoy, one tired large potato & a bag of new potatoes. Definitely will be doing this again! I've not got any of her cookbooks but I may have to invest - we've tried a few of her recipes lately & they've all gone down well.

Fruit-wise, I made a plum & apple crumble, stuffed apples (https://www.recipetineats.com/baked-apples/ - this was tasty but a bit too sweet for me so I would reduce the sugar next time) and this caramel apple loaf cake - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/caramel-apple-loaf-cake#rating - I used half a tin of Carnation caramel I found in the cupboard & it was so good I am making it again today

I've cancelled next week's box as we are hoping to get away for a few days over half term. This week the plan is:

• BNS chilli
• out for Sunday lunch tomorrow
• pork steaks, apple, cabbage, potatoes
• jacket spuds, cheese, coleslaw
• ginger tofu, pak choi, mushrooms, crispy cabbage
• some sort of burger, sweet potato fries, corn salsa
• cauliflower & macaroni cheese
• leek & potato soup / roast veg salads for lunches

That should use up most of what we have - though no doubt there will still be cabbage 🥬.

Sorry for the long ramble - posting here mainly to make myself accountable! We managed at least 10 different fruit & veg most days last week (not all full portions), which I'm very happy with. DS moaned a bit, as expected, but he's still ill so I'll let him off...