Sarah Green writes from the fields of Essex:
“June is always a very busy month in the vegetable fields. We hardly know which way to turn with so much to do – planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting the organic vegetables. June is a month that, no matter what the weather does, the weeds just seem to thrive and keep growing and everywhere we look the rows of vegetables seem to need weeding. These few weeks are also when pigeons can cause so much damage as they drop down from the trees at the field’s boundary and eat our new season’s vegetables. Once the barley is ripe in nearby fields they will leave us alone until the cold of winter and feast on the ripening corn.
Around the organic fields grassy margins I have spotted stoats and or weasels more frequently than in previous years. They always make me smile as they look like such characters. I’m still unsure at a glance which is a stoat and which is a weasel, but I know they are ‘stoat-ally’ different!”
Don’t forget we’ve got our AGM next week, upstairs at The Grafton! We’re looking forwards to seeing as many of you as possible. Vegbox AGM, The Grafton pub, 6pm-8:30pm, Wed 3rd July. RSVP here: https://dandelion.events/e/vegboxagm2024
Tom Steele
What’s in the bag this week?
| Small bag: Spring onions – Ripple Farm, Kent Carrots – Bagthorpe Farm, Norfolk Purple sprouting broccoli – Bedlam Farms, Cambridgeshire Spinach – Bore Place, Kent
Standard bag: New potatoes – Sarah Green’s, Essex Mushrooms – Capel Mushrooms, Suffolk Kale – Ripple Farm, Kent Lettuce – Bore Place, Kent Bunched radish – Foskett’s, Sussex
Fruit supplement: Strawberries – Hugh Lowe Farms, Kent Family bag: Spring onions – Ripple Farm, Kent Carrots – Bagthorpe Farm, Norfolk Purple sprouting broccoli – Bedlam Farms, Cambridgeshire Spinach – Bore Place, Kent Aubergine – Langridge Organics, Gloucestershire Parsley – Langridge Organics, Devon
Mega bag: New potatoes – Sarah Green’s, Essex Mushrooms – Capel Mushrooms, Suffolk Aubergine – Langridge Organics, Gloucestershire Kale – Ripple Farm, Kent Lettuce – Bore Place, Kent Bunched radish – Foskett’s, Sussex Celery – Langridge Organics, Devon
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Wash all veg and fruit before eating. Store carrots, lettuce, mushrooms, broccoli, aubergine, parsley, radish and celery in the fridge. Protect potatoes from light to avoid sprouting.
Recipe: broccoli with chilli and soy sauce
1-2 spring onions, chopped 1 pack broccoli
1 clove garlic, chopped 1 chilli, chopped
1 tbsp flaked almonds 2 tsp soy sauce
- Break the broccoli into thin florets.
- Heat some oil in a pan and fry the onion for fifteen minutes.
- Add the garlic and chilli and fry for another minute.
- Add the broccoli florets and fry for five minutes, stirring from time to time.
- Add the flaked almonds and the soy sauce fry for two minutes, stirring to mix.
- Check for flavour and serve.
Recipe: kale crisps with lemon and cumin
A Nicholas Balfe recipe.
1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp sea salt flakes
bunch of kale, washed and dried thoroughly rapeseed oil, for drizzling
zest of 1 lemon
- Preheat the oven to 160C / gas mark 3.
- Toast the cumin seeds in a dry frying pan, until the seeds start to darken.
- Remove from the pan and blend with the salt, either in a spice grinder or a pestle and mortar.
- Strip the kale leaves from the stalks, taking care to keep them in large pieces, ideally a few centimetres wide.
- Toss in a large bowl with a good drizzle of rapeseed oil, making sure every leaf is just coated with the slightest sheen of oil.
- Place in a single layer on a flat baking tray and cook for 6 minutes.
- You will find that they crisp up as they cool, so they may come out of the oven a little soft.
- Season with the cumin salt and a grating of fresh lemon zest, and serve.
Recipe: slow cooked kale
Taking your time with kale draws out the sweetness.
bunch of kale ½ sprig rosemary
½ chilli, or similar ½ bunch spring onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
- Bring a large pan of heavily salted water to boil and blanch the kale for 2 minutes.
- Drain, let cool and squeeze out excess water with your hands.
- Coarsely chop the kale and set aside.
- Put 4 tbsp oil in a pan over a medium heat, add the rosemary sprig and chilli and let it sizzle for about 1 minute.
- Reduce the heat and add the onions. Cover and cook gently for 5 minutes or so until soft and starting to brown.
- Add the garlic and then the kale and cook gently until the kale is crispy at the edges, about 30 minutes.
- Discard the rosemary and chilli before serving.
