box 3 + tons of fruit

5 turkey sausages

beef mince

pork shoulder joint

small savoy cabbage
3 leeks
pack of rocket
2 globe artichokes (first time I've gotten these!)
box close-cup mushrooms
5 apples
6 blood oranges

And I got a complimentary fruit box this week as well:

5 bananas
5 oranges
5 apples
6 kiwis
box of seedless grapes

Leftovers: beef mince, chard, celery, 2 tomatoes, 3 blood oranges, some garlic, some ginger, 2 onions, 1/2 pomegranate (EEP!)

Initial thoughts are that I have 14 oranges and 10 apples to get through this fortnight!!! I think I will try and give some of those away as there's no way I can eat that much fruit by myself.

Also, I've eaten globe artichokes about twice in my life (excluding pickled hearts from a jar), and never cooked them, so I'm really looking forward to that!

---

Fruit Salad

So, first attempt to use up some fruit!

1 blood orange

1 apple

2 kiwis

1/2 pomegranate

couple bunches grapes

a little lemon juice.

---

Turkey Sausages

grilled turkey sausages, grilled tomato, grilled mushrooms.

box 2

small joint of pork (800g)
beef mince (400g)
diced lamb (400g)

courgettes
swiss chard
ramiro pepper
celery
vine tomatoes

blood oranges
seedless grapes
complimentary lemon

Leftovers: potatoes, 1/4 onion, bananas, 2 cloves garlic
Additional purchases: fresh ginger, onions, garlic, pomegranate, bacon

---

Spaghetti Bolognaise (sort of)

1/2 the beef mince, 1 courgette, 2 sticks celery, 1/4 onion, 3 large tomatoes
Worcestershire sauce, mixed herbs, oxo cube, tomato puree

served with spaghetti and parmesan cheese

-I like to put a lot of veg in my spag bol, partly because it stretches the meat out a lot farther and it's also healthier. I normally add bacon too, but don't have any today.

---

Banana Bread

---

Chinese Roast Pork

pork joint, garlic, fresh ginger
soy sauce, rice wine, chinese five spice, honey, brown sugar

-mixed all the seasonings, completely covered the joint and then put it the oven on a low temp for 2 hours total

served with courgette ribbons, ramiro pepper slices, 2 leaves chard.
with same seasonings as above, stir fried.

and rice.

-chard is less sweet than pak choi, but I treated it the same. It has a more earthy taste, but I don't mind that.
The pork was a wait, but very worth it because it turned out tender and moist and very tasty. I'm not a huge pork lover, but I do love it coupled with chinese flavours, and this was just perfect.

---

Moroccan Lamb Tagine

diced lamb, garlic, fresh ginger, onion, courgette, ramiro pepper, fresh lemon juice
dates, apricots, honey, ground ginger, cumin, paprika, turmeric, allspice, cinnamon, pomegranate juice, lemon juice

served with rice and pomegranate seeds

-I love this style of cooking - using a lot of spices and fruits. The result is very rich, but so, so tasty.

---

Wastage:

2 bananas
some leftover pork - I had so much of this that I just couldn't get through it all. Next time, I'll either invite someone over to share it, or cut it in half.

--

Leftovers:

Half the beef mince - in the freezer
half the chard
half the celery
2 tomatos
3 blood oranges
some garlic
some ginger
2 onions

...so basically lots, but it's all still usable. =)
 
--

Favourite meal of the fortnight was the roast pork. It was so, so delicious. The tagine was a close second though.
I had to buy extra stuff for the tagine, but it's actually the first time I've used it and I really wanted to try it out properly.

Landshare

Last summer I joined the website Landshare and listed my garden.

The idea of the website is that people with space in their gardens can 'lend' the space to a would-be gardener in order to grow vegetables, and then the harvest is split between the landowner and the grower. This struck me as a fantastic idea. I have a garden which I really don't use. I would love to grow veg myself but partly because of my health restrictions and partly because of laziness, I don't. There are so many people out there without gardens, sitting on allotment waiting lists and having to wait years before they can grow their own. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get any response and so, after a couple of months, I just forgot about it.

Then, last week I got a message from the site; someone had inquired about my listing! The guy in question is just a little younger than me and along with his girlfriend wants to be able to grow some fruit and veg, but doesn't have a garden. They also don't have a car, and the only available allotment they could find was too far away. Yesterday they came around to have a look at the garden and briefly chat with me and so come spring, they're going to turn part of the lawn into a veg patch!

They can't start clearing at the moment as it's buried under snow, but hopefully in a few weeks things can get started and I am looking forward to getting some real home-grown produce! I've said that I'm happy to help them, so perhaps this can also inspire me to do more myself - and start that herb garden I've been dreaming about all year!

-Hannah

2013 - box 1

Sporadic posting continues!

First box of 2013 and I got meat this time as well, as an experiment.

small joint of lamb
pork mince
diced beef

(all 500g ish)

calabrese brocoli
tomatoes on the vine
fennel bulb
lettuce
2 leeks

blood oranges
bananas

leftovers: 1 carrot, 1 onion
additionally bought: bag of potatoes, garlic bulb.


----

Chinese braised pork:

half the minced pork, 1 piece garlic, small amount of the fennel
dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, five spice, salt and pepper, veg stock

served with rice and steamed brocoli

-technically there was enough for 2 meals here but it was so good, I ate it all. =D

----

Roast Lamb Dinner:

the lamb joint, garlic, small amount of fennel
rosemary, mint, olive oil, lemon juice.

served with roast potatoes and steamed broccoli

-had leftovers of this the next day.

----

Shepherds Pie:

leftover cooked lamb, garlic, potatoes
frozen peas, veg stock,

-I have never made shepherds pie with leftover scraps instead of mince, so this was an experience. Not really quite enough meat to make a decent pie, and could have done with more veg really, but I'm really glad I found a way to use up the leftovers... and it was enough for 2 meals.

----

Leek & Fennel Soup:

both leeks, potatoes, rest of the fennel, garlic
veg stock, chicken stock, pepper, milk, black pepper

-Leek and potato soup is my favourite thing to do with leeks, and I needed to use the rest of the fennel up so decided to try putting it in the soup. I cooked everything aside from the milk and then blended it smooth. Bagged up two portions for the freezer, put a couple portions into the fridge and then mixed a small amount of milk in just before 'serving' each bowlful. I got a good 6 portions out of this, 2 of which are still in the freezer.

----

Chinese Beef Stir fry:

2/3 the diced beef, carrot, half an onion
dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, chinese rice wine, sesame oil, garlic, chinese five spice

served with rice.

-I found the carrot and onion in my larder, which was lucky because I'd really run out of stuff and was considering heading to the shop. This was really tasty and I ate 2 helpings, finishing it all off.

----

Mexican Chilli Beef:

1/3 the diced beef, 1/4 onion, 3 (over-ripe) tomatoes, garlic
cumin, paprika, cayenne chili pepper, tabasco sauce, tomato puree

served with rice.

-Final meal of the week and definitely just thrown together to use up leftovers. I thought this was going to be boring because of a lack of beans or any other veg, but actually it was really tasty and a spicy meal was just what I needed on a snowy day.

----

Wastage:

lettuce - it sat unused in my fridge for a week and I had to throw it out. I'm terrible at using lettuce, especially in the winter. Next time I get one, I need to make an effort to use it.

half the pork mince - The plan was to use the other half to make meatballs, but I ended up cooking the lamb the next night and getting a takeaway one night and then by the time I remembered I needed to use it, it was looking and smelling suspect so I threw it away. I need to be more careful and just freeze the other half of stuff if I can't use it right away.

----

Leftovers:

Most of the bananas.
1/4 onion.

----

All in all, I'm actually very proud of myself. I normally end up throwing away a lot more, and I think I was really good with using up leftovers and turning the fennel into soup so it all got used.

My favourite meal of the fortnight was... ohh so tricky! I really liked most of them!! It was a really good fortnight. I don't normally make roast dinner just for me, so that was really nice. The soup was lovely, especially as it's been snowing this week, and homemade soup goes down so well on a cold day. Lots of chinese food (I had a chinese takeaway as well!) but each meal was very different, so not too samey.

Chicken and Bacon Salad

I am notoriously bad at eating salad. It's usually the first thing to go off in my fridge and I feel guilty as I get lettuce or salad packs in my box and they end up in the bin.

So today I decided to make a mixed salad to try and use up some of the salady bits. =)

Cooked chicken - (from a ready-to-eat packet)
bacon
mixed salad leaves
lettuce
tomatoes
closed cup mushrooms sliced
slices of parmesan
french dressing

Should have been ranch dressing really, I guess, but I didn't have any... and the low-fat french dressing is probably a bit healthier.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Pasta - two ways

I love PSB it's one of my favourites... and when it comes in my box, I always get a LOT of it. Cooking for just me means that it can easily stretch 3 or 4 meals and I hate eating the same thing all the time, so here are two entirely different ways of having PSB and pasta. =)

PSB with pasta in basil and garlic

- cooked pasta
- Purple Sprouting Broccoli - I tend to keep the florets and the leafs and discard most of the stalk because I prefer cooking it very briefly.
- garlic - I used a LOT because I was trying to see off a cold and it ended up a bit strong
- fresh chives
- fresh basil
- parmesan cheese
- olive oil
- lemon juice
- fresh ground pepper and salt

This is, essentially, a quick version of pesto without the nuts. I took a large handful of fresh basil, a handful of fresh chives, a few garlic cloves, a dribble of olive oil and a dribble of lemon juice, pepper and salt, shoved it all into a pestle and mortar and beat it into a paste. Great stress relief.

I gently stir fried the broccoli in a little water until the florets start losing their purple colour, then added the paste, cooked for a short while, mixed with the pasta and served.

This tasted very fresh and healthy, the garlic was pretty strong but that's what I wanted. Yummy!

PSB with pasta in a cheese and bacon sauce

- cooked macaroni
- PSB - again florets and leafs
- garlic
- fresh chives
- fresh tomatoes
- smoked bacon
- red Leicester cheese
- parmesan cheese
- plain flour
- butter
- milk

Often, to save washing up, I cook things in shifts using the same pan, but if you want you could cook all this simultaneously and end up with multiple dirty pans.

First I fried the bacon, then removed from the pan and set aside, wiped the bacon fat out of the pan.

Then I chopped the tomatoes into eighths, roughly chopped the chives and the garlic and put all this and the PSB into the pan with a little water and stir fried until the tomatoes were soft and the PSB green. Then I set this aside too.

In the same pan I melted a large knob of butter, then stirred in a heaped tbsp of plain flour. Stirred this into a smooth paste and removed from the heat. Stirred in milk until I had a smooth single-cream consistency then put back onto a very low heat. I sprinkled in a large handful of grated red Leicester and a little amount of grated Parmesan and stirred in until it all melted and became smooth.

Finally I added in all of the bacon (chopped into strips), pasta and the veg mix and stirred thoroughly to mix.

Muuuch less healthy than yesterday, but very tasty and good comfort food!

Spaghetti Bolognaise (fortnight 1, day 1)

Well almost a whole year later I am back!

I was inspired by the blog NeverSeconds to start up my food blog again!

Today is box day, and I got:
large bunch of small carrots
celery
flat runner beans
swiss chard
cherry tomatoes
golden bosc pears
apricots

plus leftover mushrooms, courgette, red onions and a tiny bit of lettuce.

Today I am making Spaghetti Bolognaise!

Having said that, it's a loose resemblance, as you'll see. =)

Ingredients:

• Lean minced beef
• tin tomatoes

• red onion
• runner beans
• courgette
• carrots
• mushrooms
• celery

• garlic
• mixed herbs
• oxo cube
• Worcestershire sauce
• tomato puree
• red wine (I think it was a Shiraz)

• dried spaghetti
• Parmesan cheese freshly grated

Chop all the veg. I always end up eating a few runner beans raw as I go along because they are so tasty! I tend to chop my veg very chunky partly because I'm too lazy to do it finely and partly because I like the texture when I'm eating it.

The carrots that I got in the box were very small ones so I just gave them a good wash instead of peeling.

I tend to use a wok to fry most things because the high sides are convenient. Firstly I cooked the celery, onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Then I transferred that to the main pot.

Fried the beef, drained off the water/fat liquid, crumbled an oxo cube directly to the meat and added the Worchestershire sauce, tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs and then transferred that to the main pot too.

Stir fried the rest of the veg very quickly and then added them to the main pot as well, along with the mushrooms raw and a good amount of red wine.  I don't drink wine at all, so I just buy the small bottles for cooking with.

Put the lid on and leave to simmer for a while, meanwhile get the pasta on to cook.

Serve with spaghetti and some grated (or dried) parmesan cheese. mmmmmmm tasty.

And unfortunately the pears aren't yet ripe, so I finished the meal off with a couple of apricots instead! =)

~ Hannah