I wrote last week about how excited we were to receive our first organic vegetable box from Riverford Organic Farms… we had a lovely selection of seven, no eight, no nine different vegetables, which, apart for a little bit of kale and some potatoes we have used and really enjoyed. We still had some things left over from Christmas which is why we didn’t manage all the box… but with the arrival of this week’s I’m already planning lots of delicious meals.
Last week we had:
- carrots – soup, we had them as a vegetable on their own but we also used them in a meat pie, a beef stew, and salad
- potatoes – soup, roast in olive oil, with a sprinkle of rock salt
- swede – mashed with pepper and cream (we had friends visit us for lunch so it went all in one go!)
- onions – soup, stew, salad, meat pie
- kale – steamed and enjoyed with different meals, and champ and colcannon
- lettuce – bursting full of flavour and eaten just by me as my husband doesn’t like it, so salad, salad, salad
- courgettes – soup, bake, salad
- tomatoes
- leeks – soup, salad, stew… I love leeks!
This week we have a different selection – and a free cookery book!
- potatoes ( a different variety from last week)
- carrots
- onions
- beetroot (I adore beetroot… the difficult part is deciding what to use it for… soup, maybe!
- a squash – a turban squash maybe… so either roast in the oven, or soup!
- lettuce
- tomatoes
- broccoli
We shall be so healthy!
I think every family must have its own recipe for colcannon… but here’s an easy one:
- 1lb peeled and quartered potatoes,
- 4oz curly chopped kale,
- ½ cup roughly chopped spring onions, plus another ¼cup of finely chopped spring onions (some recipes substitute leeks, or add leeks as well!)
- 4oz butter
- salt and pepper
- Simmer the potatoes in lightly salted water until cooked, drain and add the butter, mash until smooth – season to taste, I like lots of pepper!
- Blanch the curly kale in boiling water for one minute; if it is rather tough it might need longer cooking, just taste it to make sure it is to your liking
- Add the roughly chopped spring onions to the drained kale
- Add the kale and onions and mix thoroughly (add the leeks too if you’re using them.)
- Decorate with the finely chopped spring onions .
Lois Elsden 
Mouth watering already! I adore kale, it’s part of my regional dish from cold and windy Schleswig Holstein at the Baltic Sea coast.
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Ooooh, have you some more recipes? We had a lot of vegetables my dad grew as a child so I know how to cook them, but he never grew kale… so I’m a bit boring with it and just steam it… any suggestions? I like colcannon… but I don’t know any other way of using it!
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chop kale finely, peel and chop a small blog of freh ginger and one small onion. Heat a table spoon of olive oil and gently fry the lot, adding a little salt or soya sauce according to taste;
adding a table spoon of hot water just before everything’s cooked through; put a lid on your pan, take off the heat and let stand for a couple of minutes with the lid on. Serve with those quick Chinese noodles; this is NOT my regional dish from Germany…for that you need heated goose fat or lard, a chopped onion, chopped kale, several chorizo style sausages and slices of pork belly and a generous helping of mashed or simply boiled potatoes to serve. The kale/sausage mix needs to simmer for at least an hour to allow the sausage (which in Germany would have a smoky flavour) to infuse with the kale. You could try this with gammon, too, if you’re a meat eater.
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Two yummy recipes! I think we will try the one with ginger and noodles tomorrow (ginger is my favourite flavour!) That sounds lovely and fresh and tasty.
Now I really am a meat eater so the hearty stew with pork belly and sausage and ale… that sounds just the thing for a cold day! I will try that next week… I’m not so keen on gammon, but belly pork… mmmm!
Thanks very much for these recipes!
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