Week 50: What's happening
After a bit of a disasterous episode of 2 flat batteries - one in each van, what are the chances!? - we've had a fairly successful week, managing to tick off quite a few things that have been bugging us for a while! Hopefully this bodes well for a bit of down-time over Christmas.....!?! Here's hoping.
The pic is of our freshly harvested leeks in the new unit / packing room! We've got a lot of work to do to make the most of the space there is but it feels like we're on the right track. At home we've been busy trying to save seeds from those amazing beef tomatoes that were so popular this year. Here's hoping we can get some good seedlings next year.
Thanks to all of you who've pre-ordered veg and fruit, it's really helped us with our planning and we're very grateful for the support.
As in previous years, we're donating the vegetables again for the St Thomas Christmas lunch (they cook for people who are on their own /the elderly, and deliver if not allowed to meet in person due to Covid). We're also making a monetary donation to the Vale of Clwyd food bank as they can't take fresh produce. We'll also donate any leftover veg and fruit to the amazing folk who cook for the homeless in Wrexham.
A final reminder about Christmas dates:
BOXES
W/c Mon 20th Dec Boxes delivered as normal
W/c 10th Jan 1st box of 2022. If you pay monthly you do not need to stop your payments over the holiday. If you pay weekly you can either pause the payments (don't forget to restart them) or just leave as is and use the credit next year.
SHOP
Tues 21st Dec 4-7pm OPEN
Thurs 23rd Dec 9.30am-1.30pm OPEN
Fri 24th Dec CLOSED
Fri 7th Jan 2022 9.30am-1.30pm OPEN
Eat Your Greens veg boxes:
If you were expecting lemons in your box this week and you dind't get them, don't worry we'll put them in next week instead (we were short this week).
Next week's boxes should contain the following although last minute changes are always possible in this game!..
Small: potatoes, carrots, onions, parsnips, sprouts, swede, cavalo nero, oranges
Regular: potatoes, carrots, onions, leeks, parsnips, sprouts, Savoy cabbage, beetroot, mushrooms, clementules
The Vale Grocer shop:
Plenty of: Red Cara potatoes, red / brown onions, orange / purple carrots, parsnips, red cabbages, red / golden beetroot, leeks, sweet potatoes, palermo peppers, fresh garlic / ginger / turmeric
Limited: Sprouts, sprout stalks, sprout tops, broccoli, cavalo nero, green pointed cabbages (Prion), swede, turnips, celeriac
Fruit: Oranges, clementules, bananas, pears, apples
+ local free-range eggs
+ local Cae Main apple juice
+ local sourdough bread from Nant y Felin restaurant
Recipe Inspiration:
We've been struggling a bit with cooking this week as just too much other stuff going on. Was feeling very uninspired on Sunday and threw a tray-bake together and was surprised at quite how good it was! We did it with lovely creamy horseradish mash but would have been good with rice too. So easy.
It's from Anna Jones book 'A Modern Way to Eat' - we did ours with squash, red peppers (actually roasted mild red chilli), tin of mixed beans, veg stock and smoked paprika but there's a few options below.
Six steps to making roasting tray dinners:
Pick 1 item from each section below, throw them together in a deep, A4-sized baking tray. bake for 30-35 minutes at 200C/400F/gas mark 4 until the vegetables are soft and golden.
1. Main vegetable 4 courgettes, cut into thick coins 1 roughly chopped butternut squash 800g winter roots, chopped into about 1cm pieces
2. Soft vegetable 200g Spinach 1⁄2 a jar of roasted red peppers, roughly chopped 2 leeks, shredded
3. Hearty add-on 400g tin of butterbeans, drained 400g tin of chickpeas,drained 2 slices of good bread, torn
4. Liquid 100ml veg stock 100ml white wine
5. Herb A small bunch of basil A small bunch of thyme A bunch of sage, thyme or rosemary
6. Flavour boost The zest of one lemon A teaspoon of hot smoked paprika The zest of one orange
Finally, amongst all the Christmas hype and Covid chatter, here's a thought-provoking short article if you think you could do with a little more rest and downtime in your life!
have a good week