Friday 16 January 2015

What's in the Box?







On my last post Dawn asked me what I receive in my weekly veg box.  It comes from a local Cornish Food Box scheme which only supplies produce from Cornwall.  Along with the veg I also get my milk, eggs and meat for the bearded one, all produced in Cornwall.  It means that my veg is as fresh as it gets, doesn't have to travel far so cuts down on food miles and pays the farmers a fair price, unlike a lot of supermarkets.  It also keeps money in the Cornish economy, the animal welfare is high as every producer is checked and supports local business.  Yes you can probably get all of it cheaper in Aldi but I prefer to spend a little more for all the above reasons.




In this weeks veg box there were carrots, potatoes, onions, parsnips, salad bag, kale, red cabbage and beetroot.  It is a 'small' box and costs me £11 which includes delivery.  There are other sizes including a mini, but this suits the two of us and as most of my meals are plant based i think it is worth it.  I like the variety of veg, it makes me use things I may not have bought from a shop.  I get really excited when it arrives and start planning what I am going to make with it.  I love eating as seasonally as possible, it means I really appreciate each season.




For my lunch I made a winter salad with some of the red cabbage and carrots.  To this I added some raisins and dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds,  half a pomegranate,  Cornish herb dressing and cubed some tofu which I roasted with olive oil, chilli, salt and pepper.  Healthy and delish.  I am thinking of making a beetroot risotto, the parsnips, remaining carrots, kale, onions and potatoes will be used in a rosti, a casserole and roast on Sunday, the salad will be for lunches.  Nothing goes to waste if I can help it.

My cleaning list is going VERY slowly, I think a tranquillised tortoise could do it faster.  I get bored easily and wander of to do something more interesting on my day off.  The beach is always calling whatever the weather, and there are friends to catch up with.  Then at weekends the bearded one and family are around.  The list is also growing!  As you do one job you notice all the little repairs that need doing.  I have at last found a handyman who hopefully can sort out our front door, he is about the fifth person I have contacted.  The rest didn't want to know because it isn't a £5000 job.

I apologise to those who have been unable to leave comments, I am not at all technically minded and have zero patience so struggle to fix things when they go wrong.  I have changed the settings on comments to embedded and had some success so hopefully this has solved that problem.  I have also had problems seeing who new followers are as they are not always in order so have changed the placement of the followers gadget so I can see everyone.  This has caused it to 'lose' someone as on my design page it says 61 followers and the page shows 60, VERY FRUSTRATING! Has anyone else experienced any of these problems or is it just me?

 I love reading your comments, it really feels like a community when we have a 'chat' so thank you to everyone who takes the time to reply despite technical problems.

Chickpea xx





37 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing whats in the box, I think you should make it a regular feature :-) its helpful to see what is seasonal

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    1. It is easy to lose track of what is in season when the supermarkets are full of everything all year.

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  2. I love these schemes where you have the local produce and what is in season. Yours looks great and such variety! Ours would probably be just pork and brussels sprouts at the moment! As to the followers, I noticed mine had gone a bit weird today so maybe it's a blogger thing and it will rectify hopefully later. Have a great weekend xx

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    1. It is a really good scheme, but they have struggled in the past when the weather has been bad and crops have failed.

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  3. Luckily we still have parsnips,leeks, brussel sprouts, swedes and kale in the garden and potatoes, beetroot and onions in store so I'm only buying celery and carrots at the moment.

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    1. Would love to grow the variety you do, this will be my second summer with the veg patch so looking forward to growing more summer veg.

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  4. Am afraid I am one of those people who are shopping at Aldi etc. Nothing left in the garden. But this year I am putting up a polytunnel and hopefully will then be able to grow most things we eat.
    Rosezeeta

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    1. There's nothing wrong with shopping at Aldi, I'm just lucky that we have such a good box scheme. I would love a polytunnel one day.

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  5. Winter salad looks fab! I can't wait now for the weather to pick up so I can get to the lottie again.

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    1. I will look forward to seeing what you grow in your lottie, I'm still a novice at veg growing.

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  6. Seasonal, local + fresh cant beat it. We still have masses of stuff in the garden, the only thing we are lacking is celery, the mice ate everyone right down to the ground.

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    1. I'm hoping to grow more this year, but I still have a lot to learn

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    2. Is there a GIY group anywhere near you Chickpea or an organic growing group that give short courses? Google GIY. international to see if there is a group near you.

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    3. Thanks for the tips Anne, I will check it out

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  7. I would love to have a delivery of local foods.
    We have several Community Supported Agriculture here but you have to go pick them up.
    I love tofu and your salad looks wonderful.

    cheers, parsnip

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    1. Thank you Parsnip, Is Tofu (or beancurd) popular in Japan?

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  8. I love coloured veg like purple cabbage, cauliflower and onions - for the depth and interest factor they add to a dish.

    In Cape Town there was also a "keep it local" home veg delivery service available. We all know how long the food miles are for fruit and veg at supermarkets - I often wonder how nutritious they are by the time they are purchased.

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  9. Oh that first paragraph just made my mouth water! I sometimes get meat and dairy boxes from Chyvarloe Farm, and find them very good value for money. The farm is near Gunwalloe, and they are NT tenant farmers. They have open days during the summer, which Olly loves to go to. There is a very good farmer's market in St Ives where fresh produce is sold, so I sometimes go there. And I do grow my own a little. But I must admit that mostly it all comes from Lidl. We took on an allotment plot last year, and one day I hope that it will provide us with lots of fresh stuff all year round. It's a virgin plot, so at the moment it's covered with plastic and old carpet.
    Have a good weekend,
    Leanne xx

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    1. It is really good for children to see where their food comes from. I will look forward to seeing what you grow on your lottie, you seem to have green fingers by the look of your beautiful garden.

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  10. We used to get a local veg box quite a few years back but stopped it one summer when we started growing our own. I think I might start it up again if I can locate the company for the very reasons you list. Love the look of your salad, we've been using red cabbage in our home made coleslaw & I'm really enjoying it.

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    1. Red cabbage in your coleslaw sounds yummy.

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  11. Chickpea, you won my draw for the book so don't forget to email me your address please. I can't seem to find your email to let you know :-/

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    1. Woo hoo! Thanks Pensive Pensioner, will do that xx

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  12. my son's first school ran a veg box scheme, I loved it, and missed it when he moved up. I think people can follow anonymously so that might be why the numbers differ? or it could be one of those mysteries about blogger that we will never understand and I have given up trying to x

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    1. The picture popped up and then disappeared when I moved the gadget, so haven't a clue what happened. Like you I've given up trying to work it out.

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  13. Im probably trailing behind you on the cleaning front, so many other things to do !

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    1. So many much nicer things to do, I think my spring cleaning is going to take until the autumn to finish at this rate. Perhaps I should get a filofax like yours!

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  14. Lovely post, your ethics are perfect, the supermarkets do NOT rule our lives!
    Cleaning is for wet days only!

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  15. Love the look of the salad. What's in Cornish herb dressing?

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  16. I didn't make it, it's my favourite dressing from Halzephron Herb Farm, very yummy.

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  17. I have noticed that my follower numbers go up and down, no idea why! Your veg box sounds great! xx

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  18. Love your veggies,I get all mine from the local farm really fresh.Can't help with the techi stuff I am just as bad lol.Happy Sunday.

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  19. Just catching up here and enjoying all the talk of veg. I just wish we had a local box scheme here. We have a farm shop that sells produce grown on the farm - great - but they only grow so many things themselves and everything else seems to come from far afield - not so great.

    I always had that one follower discrepancy between dashboard and gadget. I took the link to the gadget off the blog a couple of years back though as I find Bloglovin more reliable.

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  20. This made me smile, I have 2 followers you are doing ok. xx

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I love reading your comments and will try to reply to all you lovely people xx Spam will be deleted so don't even bother!