A Fresh Start

Well, after a seven month break for my wedding and then Christmas I'm finally back blogging and it's the start of a new year.

The last few weeks have been spent happily in the company of friends and family; giving and receiving home made gifts, storing away this year's wrapping paper and ribbons ready to use next year and testing out last year's berry brandy liquor and elderflower champagne (both delicious).

From now on though blogs will be back to normal with a new blog appearing here every Monday. Over the next few weeks you'll find blogs on green energy suppliers, the joys of cycling, my veg box and the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch (if you haven't registered yet click on the link ). As ever I'll be looking at how I can green my life without missing out on the best bits.

Delivery Time

With a new year comes a new veg box from the Riverford box company. My friendly delivery man David managed to call during a brief 30 minutes of sunshine on Thursday, I hope he didn't get too rained on during his rounds. 

This weeks box contained classic January UK veg including carrots, potatoes and leeks. A few Spanish imports of cherry tomatoes, ramiro peppers and broccoli brightened things up, giving a bit of variety, but I can never decide if this irritates me or not. It's lovely to have peppers and tomatoes in January (especially knowing they're organic and shipped rather than flown across) but when you buy a veg box to get a sense of the seasons it seems almost counter productive. It does however make meals easier. I'm the only one eating the green veg so if we got just that it would take me weeks and weeks to get through. 

January is great for some veg, such as kale, potatoes and cabbage but it's definitely not a very fruity season. After the deluge of oranges, satsumas and other citrus fruits over Christmas January feels a bit boring. I always thought oranges must be out of season and flown across the world for Christmas but according to the Riverford website they get their oranges from Spain between October and April, so I know what I'm buying in my next box. Although it's still Spanish and not as local as my UK apples I got this week.

As well as maybe getting some Spanish oranges next time I'm considering another addition to my regular order. Riverford offer meat boxes as well as their veg ones. The cheapest one is about £30 but you do seem to get a lot from it; a stock pack, beef pot roast (1kg), pork belly joint (700g), beef diced (400g), 4-6 lamb chops and chicken quarters. The website says this should last two adults about a fortnight, which for us is probably about right as we only have meat about 4 times a week. 

The convenience of getting all our veg and meat delivered is quite tempting especially because you couldn't get it as locally or all organic in the supermarket. What I'd really love is a local farm shop somewhere close to Preston but I haven't found one yet, maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

100th Blog!

Amazingly this is my 100th post. I'm quite impressed that (allowing for computer failures) I've kept to my aim of blogging every day. We've gone from early autumn through to mid winter and by my 200th post we'll be well into spring again.

Last night was twelfth night and, following tradition, we took all our decorations down to avoid bad luck in the house. The tree has lasted well and doesn't look half as bald as I thought it would a month after we brought it inside. Clearing Christmas out feels quite refreshing and reminds me we're almost half way through winter now.

I couldn't say I enjoy the cold winter months, but the excuse to snuggle up in blankets and stay inside cooking wholesome meals is quite nice. Other than a few hours of snow in mid December we've only had rain and lots of wind this season. After several years of very snowy winters I feel like I'm still waiting for winter to kick in with white all around, but maybe we just won't get any this year. Already there are signs we're crawling out of the darkness as the days begin to lengthen and some bulbs I planted before Christmas are beginning to sprout tiny green stalks. I'm looking forward to the next season, but that's always the case, with new vegetables in my veg box, the change in the wildlife we see and a change in how wrapped up I have to get before going outside!

Leftover lunches

We haven't had a new veg box for two weeks now and we still haven't finished all the veg from the last one!
We did buy a particularly large box but I'm amazed how well the food keeps. I suppose it's because it comes straight from the fields rather than being transported for a week or so before it gets to the shops.

It's been a week of leftover meals. We cooked a joint of pork on Sunday and have been using the rest of it up over the last few days.

Tuesday was Cheesy Pork, a variation on my Mum's Cheesy Chicken which is left over roast chicken with cheesy sauce and rice. It's a family favourite and has been adapted to most left over meats including turkey and pork. We've never tried Cheesy Beef but I think that's because we're rarely left with leftover beef!

Wednesday was stir fry pork: vegetables, pork, rice and gravy. Very quick using leftover rice from Tuesday and pork from Sunday. Great for popping in a Tupperware box and taking to work when I'm working in the evenings.

Tonight will be broccoli and pork pasta. Really simple if you cook the pasta and broccoli in the microwave together. Again a great one for lunch or dinner when working late.

As well as all this evening food the pork's been in sandwiches for lunches every day! I reckon the one joint we cooked on Sunday will have done over 15 portions when we finally finish it. Brilliant value I think and it means less cooking for the rest of the week, especially if you use left over roast veg in the first few meals.

Next week I'll need to use up the cauliflower, celeriac, broccoli and half a leek that are still lingering in the fridge. I've got a baking potato somewhere too. More leftover meals (probably with lots of grated cheese) and then we'll be ready for a nice new box. I love the way you can see the food going down over the weeks. On delivery day I'm struggling to shut the fridge then two weeks later I discover things I'd completely forgotten we had! What are you favourite recipes for using up leftovers? I'd love to hear about them.

Growing My Own

It's Friday and that means a new veg box arrived yesterday!

This week my vegbox was

• Onions
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Salad leaves
• Red peppers
• Leeks
• Cauliflower

All of the veg is UK grown except the peppers which come from Spain. My UK veg comes from Home Farm in Yorkshire and is grown by Peter Richardson and his team of farm workers. The farm was converted to organic in 1996 and Peter clearly feels it gets them closer to both their crops and customers. On the Riverford website he says

"You feel more of an intimate relationship as you weed the crops, rather than just going across with a sprayer. "

"There’s a closer connection with the customer, there’s no two ways about it. "

He has a closer relationship with customers because, unlike before, the veg is now packed on the farm. He can see what is being sold each week and it leaves the farm exactly how it arrives on my door. Previously the veg left the farm to be packed and then sent on to be sold.
Another benefit is that, unlike for the supermarkets, there are less restrictions on size and shape of the vegetables, just taste and quality matter. For the supermarket packaging courgettes had to be less than 21cm, now they just have to be delicious and ripe.

Looking forward to cooking up some yummy meals with all this. Last week I used the sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes and onions to make soup. It was great and very orange. We used four portions up after we cooked it and I've frozen another 5-6 in the freezer. All I did was fry/roast the veg, blend it all and add about a pint of chicken stock and some spices.

Lettuce on the left and middle, chilies on the right where you
can see the cardboard sticks they were planted next to.

I've been growing some food of my own too. Three weeks ago I planted some very old lettuce and chili seeds in a box on my kitchen windowsillNow they've started growing and soon the lettuce will be ready to start picking and chilies will be ready to be planted up into separate pots. I love having nice green leaves growing in the house while everything outside is dying back. It was so easy, as long as I don't forget to water them every few days!

Food For Thought

Where does your food come from? Local food isn't a new issue but it's one that's easy not to think about and might seem hard to do something about.

When I started university my answer would have been Tesco. After a closer look at some plastic packaging I could probably have managed a country of origin or production for some foods. It's an interesting exercise. Pick a selection of foods from your fridge and cupboards, guess where they come from, then see if you're right. I got a shock when I found my apples had been flown in from Chile when I could see fresh, ripe apples growing outside in England.

Now, at least for fruit and veg, I've grown used to knowing country and county (even farm most of the time) before the food arrives home. I think that makes me quite unusual. No, I don't wander the supermarkets making lists of where each apple comes from. The key to my food knowledge is my veg box, which arrives fortnightly or weekly depending on how much I use/need each week.

My parents started having a veg box at home when I was a teenager, so I've grown up with the idea. But if you haven't heard of it before this is how they normally work:

1. Order your box online or by phone
2. Enter your delivery address and payment details
3. Receive your veg box to your door

About as easy as ordering something from Amazon and just like Amazon once you set up your details and first order it just gets easier (isn't it interesting that things get easier when people want your money?). You can set up a regular order, so you don't have to do anything except receive your box each week, or you can add, change or cancel your order each week. You don't even have to be home when they deliver with some box schemes.

A quick search online brings up more than 10 different veg box schemes in my local area. I use Riverford Organic Veg which is quite a large scheme but has kept it's produce local by splitting into regional farm areas. This week my mini box (£9.85) contained (and came from):

• Onions (UK)
• Carrots (UK)
• Broccoli (UK)
• Sweet Potatoes (UK)
• Cabbage (UK)
• Lettuce (UK)
• Cherry Tomatoes (Spain)

As well as only selling organic produce Riverford never airfreight their food, they ship it by boat or lorry which has a lower carbon footprint. My mini box claims to be suitable for 1-2 people for a week (for me often two weeks), usually includes potatoes, carrots and onions and always contains 7-8 different types of veg. The thing I love is that it changes every week. There's no wandering the supermarket deciding what to pick this week, you get whatever's ripe, in season and at its best.

I'll talk more about my veg box in the future; about how ethical/environmentally friendly it is or isn't, price comparisons with the supermarkets and what I'm getting each week as we head deeper into Autumn. Maybe even some recipes!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my blog. So if you're reading this please comment, even if it's just to say "Hello!"