Thinking of getting a weekly veg box - please tell me about pros and cons

[FeelingLucky]

It will cost £9.50 a week. or I can get one which will include fruit for £15.50

I've ordered my first one from Abel and Cole, it's arriving tomorrow!

I feel a bit excited about it although have heard very mixed reviews

Mine will be coming from a local organic greengrocers as want to support local shops

Realistically will you eat the contents every week? If not is it a problem to cancel the occasional box. Assuming your box will be seasonal and local-ish (ours is) at this time of year we get a lot of root veg (carrots, swedes, parsnips etc) and apples.

If you don't currently eat a lot of veg etc, will you be likely to change your diet and incorporate new foods/recipes.

We have had a box for 4 years now. I do cancel the odd week which we are allowed to do. Ours costs £10 and we get on average 12 items, fruit and veg. A typical item might be 1 pepper, 4 large carrots, 4 apples, 2 large parsnips.

We are allowed to make special requests but generally just accept what arrives, I quite like not having to choose what we buy iykwim. This wouldn't work for someone who had a lot of likes/dislikes of course.

A big pro was in the Summer the most gorgeous local strawberries arrived. We also get fab mushrooms. Really fluffy potatoes for baking/roasting.

The cons - I have run out of ideas for swede.

hth.

sorry ... that probably came out a bit. Meant to say, wasn;t sure about Abel & Cole because didn;t want to do local shops out of business

no no I know what you mean

I went for Abel and Cole because they deliver to the pub next door and the food is nice in there

mysterymoniker you may need to hire their chef as well, it may not be just the veg that makes the food so nice.

(not suggesting that your cooking isn't up to much btw)

We get able and cole and the fruit and veg are great. I top up the box by buying from the local fruit and veg shop. However you do learn some new recipes and i have had veg that I would never have thought to buy, such as celeriac.
I too have run out of ideas for swede and kale.

I put it (swede) in a thai curry once AussieLou it was ok but not truly delicious. The dds aren't desperately keen on it but will eat it if mashed with potato and some mature cheddar.

We get a £10 Essential Veg box from our local supplier. It always has potatoes, carrots and onions plus 5-6 other seasonal things. I think that's better than the more fancy boxes unless you are a very exotic cook, it means the basics are covered.

Pro's - you don't run out of veg. You get unexpected and exciting vegetables and they are fresh and tasty.
Con't - you have to be imaginitive or plan what to cook around the week's list. You may end up with excess of something you don't like.

I do recommend Keith Abel's book, Cooking Outside the Box - it has lovely recipes for virtually everything you might get in a veg box (don't bother with the beetroot pasta though - bleurgh!). Also a good soup cookbook is worth having.

Enjoy!

I've found the best thing with a veg box (£12 a week for mine, but includes 5 stir fry things as well) is to cook old-fashioned food. DH loves it - we have a roast and lots of veg on Sundays, and things like shephards pie with potato and celariac topping, lots and lots of veg soups (top tip is to fling in some curry paste and call it spicy [insert name of veg] soup, and use as many veg as possible as crudites for dips.

I would add that I have made more delicious veg soups in the last 6 months than I thought possible. Though the weekly red cabbage is defeating me at the moment.

I loved the idea of it, but found I wasn't getting through a lot of it and, since I menu plan each week, I was still having to do some shopping for fruit/ veg elsewhere- the kids are reasonably fussy, and I ended up amassing a pile of beetroot, which we all hate It became a casualty of my belt-tightening, I'm afraid.

we don't really need imaginations though, there is always mumsnet for inspiration and advice

(you might be on to something though brussel sprout!)

We used to have Abel and Cole but we had the following problems:

1. glut of certain veg (only so many courgettes or Kohl rabi I could manage)
2. sometimes questionable quality
3. expensive for what it is

great for:

1. website!
2. taste
3. ability to add likes and dislikes to choices
4. the fact that they don't use air freight

All in all more positives than negatives, good on you!

Surely they must use air freight? How do they get their fair trade bananas over?

Just realised that my Christmas name is quite apt for this thread.

That reminds me we had sprouts on the stalk a few times. Imo it is hard to be adventurous with sprouts. I am afraid we just boil them in the traditional way (but not until they get mushy of course!)

maybe all the tarantulas that are hiding in them swim them over?

Our bananas (and other fruit not available in this country) apparently sail over.

feels even more excited

By ship apparently FL

Oh yes, have just read the Abel & Cole website which says that it's a common misconception that all goods are air freighted - it's just the expensive, delicate ones we need to avoid

I want to get the box again now , hopefully this cold spell will kill them all mystery

I was having a weekly box delivered from a local organic farm until just before Xmas (it's on hold whilst finances are tight), and I thought it was fantastic.

There was a point when I seemed to be stockpiling onions, but I emailed them and they didn't put any in for a couple of weeks. You might find that you need to try a couple of different suppliers - the first box scheme that I tried wasn't great... the fruit & veg didn't last well and the staff weren't particularly helpful with regards to substituting veg etc.

You can really taste the difference, and if you get it from a good supplier the veg seems to last a lot longer than anything you'd buy off the shelf in the supermarket.

We used to get the box from Riverford but found we didnt eat a load of stuff because we didnt know what to do with it and ended up binning it. So we switched to choosing our own stuff from them.

Actually this was pre-DD when we ate out and worked late a lot. May switch back to a box now that I cook so much more.

You have to have lots of inventive recipes for unidentified lumps of mud!

having had a box from a local supplier in the past and got fed up with too many cabbages and kale in thge winter we are now using Abel and Cole - £23 pw fro family fruit and veg box. Yes is pricey but I find it useful to know in advance what is coming and is so easy to skip something if we get a glut.

second the Abel cookbook - and we have had a lot of soup too!