I won a sort of raffle prize, for tweeting about A Taste of Spain, and today the Delicatessen Box of goodies arrived by courier!

So I’ve made one of those traditional “unboxing” videos, just because I was a bit excited really, and wanted to record the contents before they get put away into different cupboards until it’s time to get them out to make lovely tapas.

Here’s the unboxing home video:

The Torre Real Delicatessen Selection food and wine box comprised of:

• Fillets of Bonito del Norte Tuna
• Arbequina select Olives
• Artichokes
• Whole White Aparagus
• Sweet Chestnuts from Galicia in Brandy
• Silencio Extra Virgin Arbequina Olive Oil
• Oscuridad special parellada white wine vinegar
• Torres VinaSol white wine

The promotion was by A Taste of Spain – thankyou.

The delicatessen box of Torre Real supplied by Idelica

Ecoworks Vegboxes- The Nottingham box scheme with added social aims

Local veg box scheme

Ecoworks has been delivering veg boxes in Nottingham for over 18 months now, and we like to think we’re getting pretty good at it. Ecoworks is an environmental community organisation established back in 1992, with the key aim of helping socially-disadvantaged people to enjoy and improve their local environment. Since then we have taken on 13 projects, all aiming to make Nottingham a more vibrant, inclusive and beautiful place to live.

Our vegboxes form a cornerstone of this work. We use them to promote the local-food movement, bringing its benefits to a much wider range of communities and giving people access to a healthier lifestyle without paying through the nose for supermarket organics. Our boxes (well, they’re green bags actually!) contain a mixture of fruit, vegetables, herbs and salad that are a healthy and affordable option for the all people of Nottingham.

Alongside the obvious environmental benefits of a local vegbox scheme, all of Ecoworks’ projects aim to increase social inclusion too, ensuring that people on low incomes can play an active part in our society’s transition to sustainability. That’s our key aim. The business-ey types out their might even call it our “unique selling point”.

All we know is that the environment and communities are integrated in a very fundamental way. This isn’t anything hippy or “new age” necessarily- it just makes sense. Every environmental problem is rooted in a social problem. Environmental sustainability can only go hand-in-hand with social inclusion.

In our vegbox scheme these values are at the forefront of our work- essentially what we do is sell full price vegboxes to those with decent incomes and then use any profit from that to subsidise boxes for those on low incomes or the unemployed. That way, everyone gets a chance to be part of the local-food movement

Our key aims in providing vegboxes:

To make quality local produce affordable-
for those who are unemployed or on low income, it costs £3.50 per week for a small bag suitable for 2 people, or £7 per week to feed 3-4. If customers are lucky enough to have a job, we ask for £5 and £10 respectively. This is still cheaper than supermarket organics, and allows us to keep subsidising those who can’t afford more.

To really reduce food miles-
On the most part, our produce is grown in Nottingham and eaten in Nottingham. Proper local. When joining our box scheme customers can choose from one of 10 collection points around Nottingham. We worked out that if we were to aim for super convenience like the Riverford’s of the vegbox world and deliver door-to-door, we would end up chugging our van over 100 miles around the city each week. With the collection point system (at libraries, community centres and some housing co-operatives around the city) we can truly minimize the carbon-footprint of our produce. We’ve found this also has a side effect of getting people more involved with their local community centres!

To support local communities-
The produce in our vegboxes is grown by local people, the majority of it on our gardens in Nottingham. They provide an  income for a host of local growers, whilst ensuring that we are able to continue our work with socially disadvantaged people in Nottingham.

Want to try one? Well, just take a look at www.ecoworks.org.uk for more information and to order yours. Alternatively you can give us a call on 0115 962 2200, send an email to vegboxes@ecoworks.org.uk, or even better come and visit us and see the gardens for yourselves! (guest post by Chris Pryke)

Today we have a guest post from Tom Howlett explaining just why we should all think about just who we buy our veg box from.

If you are looking for a veg box you have to make, what I believe to be one fundamental choice. Do you find a small local scheme or go for one of the 2 larger national companies.

Britain is becoming dominated by 2 large national veg box schemes (Riverford and Able and Cole). They do an amazing job of combining the benefits of a local veg box with real convenience. They make veg boxes more easily consumable by providing recipe cards and making videos of how to prepare the more unusual weirdly shapes things you’ll find lurking at the bottom of your box. They have done a great job of bringing veg boxes to the masses through their funky marketing. They provide a huge range of products and you can change your order online. But I don’t think they are the real deal. Here’s why.

We don’t just choose a veg box for the fantastically fresh seasonal produce. A local veg box connects us with our local farmers. Our hard-earned cash isn’t filling the pockets rich businessmen, it’s helping local people earn an honest living from the land.

Many local veg box scheme’s purity means they include a more limited range of produce then the national schemes. The ever-changing seasons mean we are delivered an ever-changing variety of vegetables. On good days we discover fantastic new recipes. On bad days we struggle to find a use for 3 swedes and a beetroot. All year round we are challenged to find recipes for a new seasons produce; its part of the fun and help us regain our connection with the cyclic nature of our environment.

Buying veg boxes online

What about convenience? If you want to change your order with a local scheme you usually need to make a telephone call, although more personal, it’s easy to forget and at times it can go wrong. The large schemes spend 1000′s on online systems that allow customers to change their order week by week, encouraging them to buy more and giving the company the opportunity to sell a wider range of produce and provide a viable more ethical alternative to a supermarket shop. At From Where It’s Grown we are providing local veg box schemes with solutions that match the sophistication of the big 2′s systems for a small monthly fee.

So if you are faced with this choice do at least find out about and give your local veg box scheme a try. If they don’t offer what you are looking for tell them what the need to do to win your custom, I think they will appreciate your candour. Local veg box schemes are a unique type of business. They are driven by beliefs not money, They deserve our support.

So there you are, will you think really local when it comes to buying your  veg box?

This is what I like to do with the sprouts

Sprouts Recipe

Wash the sprouts and cut off any damaged bits. With these top quality organic sprouts the amount cut away really should be minimal. Maybe a a piece of stalk here or there and one or two outer leaves, but there is no need to cut off every stalk or peel off all the outer dark green leaves. Try to keep as much of the organic goodness as possible.

Add to boiling unsalted water and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave for another 5 minutes, then drain, retaining the liquid for making gravy with.

Place the cooked sprouts in a shallow ovenproof dish then sprinkle roughly crushed walnut halves over the top. Add slices of blue cheese over the walnuts then put it in a hot oven or under the grill until the cheese has melted to a bubbling sauce and some of the walnuts have toasted. The sprouts should still have plenty of crunch and the special slightly bitter flavour with which they are associated is complemented by the rich cheesy nutty combination.

Whether you are having a vegetarian special or a meat based Christmas dinner, the walnut and blue cheese sprouts from the organic boxes will be a serious rival to the main item. If you are vegan however, I don’t think there is any alternative to blue cheese so I’d suggest using some toasted sesame oil and either vegetarian cheese substitute or tofu.

photo credit johnsu01 recipe by Organic Vegetable Boxes.

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad

And what about Vegan sex – is that even legal?

So many more questions are thrown up such as how would these claims apply to those vegetarians who eat the occasional bacon roll and what are the ramifications of consuming dairy produce – could double whipped cream be a dampener after all?

* Green chillies : Don’t put the raw green chillies straight in the fridge. To keep them fresh for a long time remove the stems and put them in a ziplock bag or in some storage box.
* Carrots: Cover the carrots with a damp cloth and put them in fridge. They can keep for a whole week like that instead of going soft and limp in a few days.
* Herbs: Bunches of coriander have to be one of the common one to go bad before you get to use it all. To keep them fresh I store them in a salad container so the leaves don’t touch the icy wall at the back and get frostbite. You can use the same tip for greens too.
* Brocoli: When you store brocoli look for dark green buds with no yellowish color. And store them in a airtight container or in a sealed bag and it will last up to a week. Don’t store more than a week.
* cucumbers: Pick the ones that have no soft spots or visible bruises. It should be dark green and firm, So it will last longer in the fridge when you store it in the air tight bag. It will stay fresh up to 5 days, but really it’s probably better to take it out of the plastic wrap and use it sooner rather than later.

When you are stocking organic vegetables in your refrigerator, make a list of them and stick it in your fridge door. That way when you are trying to make up your mind on what to cook you can quickly decide on what to use first and avoid wasting vegetables that go bad faster. I hope these tips are useful for making the best use of your precious vegetables from the organic vegetable boxes.