So here we are mourning the veggie box

Bloody farmers.
I will not launch in to a long rant against french farmers (oh go on then) who since the post war period, when parts of Europe were starving, have benefitted from enormous encouragement from the French state and the European Union. The common agricultural policy, of which France has long been the main beneficiary, is the main common policy to have survived and was designed at de Gaulle's insistence. Whatever, the bloody French farmers are used to healthey subsidies and tipping pig manure on the steps of the town hall but right now that is not why they are so annoying. Loic, the farmer who provides us with the vegetables we collect every saturday for the veggie box has decided to pull out, despite our signing elaborate contracts and paying him in advance for vegetables until March. After putting up with his muddy chard and mutant celeriac, HE has deided that our AMAP is not big enough and that we don't help out at the farm enough... Bloody hell, we are paying for the kolkhose. So hopefully we will get our money back and find a new veggie box distributor, one that doesn't require us to spend our January weekends digging up onions.

So here we are with the december veggies

As we approach winter, the vegetables are becoming increasingly, er, well, boring.

Saturday December 6th

Half a celeriac root
500g carrots
A leafy bunch of chard
500g of lovely red Roseval potatoes
4 of the lovely apples
250 g of onions
250g beetroot
250g spinach (left it- too wet, slimy, earth and impossible to sort the fresh young leaves from the tough old dark ones)

So here we are with the november veggies

Interesting developments on the veggie box front! here are the last couple of weeks.

Saturday November 22nd

500 g carrots, i.e. 2 (they are getting huger and huger)
half a cauliflower
500g potatoes
a huge (child's football) beetroot
half a celeriac
large bunch of celery
3 lovely apples (belle fille de salins variety?)
250 g of hideous, tough, yellowing, slug-chewed spinach (went straight to bin)

Ham and celery soup (serves 2)
This turned out to be a great little recipe : soothing to make, warming to eat, cheap and healthy. One important ingredient was the ham bone I got very cheap (1€50) from my local butcher/deli. It was about 20 cm long and still had plenty of ham on it.
First, take bone and remove nice bits of ham, i.e the pink moist bits, not the fatty/gristly or fast-stuck-to-the-bone bits. Try not to eat them all. In a dish, arrange the bone with a quartered onion and a roughly chopped carrot (tomatoes, shallots, herbs could also be added) and put in oven to bake for about 20 minutes until lovely juices have appeared and the bone has coloured a bit. When done, throw all this into a pot. Add half a dozen peppercorns, bay leaf/ves, and around three big handfuls of celery leaves. cover with cold water and leave on low heat for at least an hour. Make sure it is bubbling but not boiling.
When ready, skim of scum and remove celery leaves and all other solids (strain). Boil vigourously to reduce to correct quantity (you want about a pint per person for main course). Add half a very finely chopped carrot, ditto shallot, ditto celery stalk and some light pasta (I used alphabet, but vermicelli would be great). These should take about 5 minutes to soften. Salt, pepper. At last minute add ham.

Saturday November 29th

We were at the AMAP all morning as it was our turn to do the "permanence". We opened up shop (actually it's a restaurant*), set up the tables and so on, arranged the veg, and ticked off people's names as they picked up their stuff. At the end,we swept and tidied and washed away the mud, and took all the remaining veggies :)

500g potatoes
250 g lovely, small, shiny yellow little onions
500g carrots (one!! can they get any bigger?)
500g of the lovely apples
250 g spinach (I waded through the boxes looking for the nice fresh baby leaves)
250 g beetroot
half a celeriac
1/2 a "broccoflower" (see here for a picture as it is possibly the most beautiful thing in the veg world!). Called Romanesco cabbage in French.

* a associative restaurant that runs according to a really cool concept, maybe subject of next post.

So here we are veggie boxing some more

Saturday 25th October

500g potatoes
250g beetroot
a small lettuce
half a bunch of rather muddy radishes
ditto carrots
a handful of cherry tomatoes
a few stalks of swiss chard (exchanged for potatoes)

Saturday 8th November

500g potatoes
250g beetroot
two big handfuls of lambs' lettuce (mache)
a small leaf lettuce
half a bunch of carrots, increasingly mutant
3 large apples

So here we are veg boxing and cooking indian food

Saturday 18th october

500g potatoes
half a bunch of spectacularly mutant carrots
250 g beetroot
a large handful of cherry tomatoes
250 g monstrous yellowing spinach leaves
a tiny, beautiful aubergine
half a head of brocoli
a radiccio salad
a long skinny red pepper

beetroot à la Madhur Jaffrey (serves 2)
Heat some oil in a pan, medium hot. Add 1 tsp of cumin seed and a few seconds later a finely chopped clove of garlic. Soften for about a minute. Add one roughly chopped onion and stir for a minute or two. Add a tsp of flour, a half tsp at the most of red chili powder (cayenne pepper) and stir for another minute. Add 3 medium chopped beetroots, cut into chunks, half a tin of tomatoes (or equivalent of fresh peeled ones) and 250ml water. Bring to simmer, put on lid and let simmer for about 1/2 an hour, or until beetroot is softish. Take of lid and boil until sauce has reduced. If beetroots are still hard, add water and repeat until they have lost their crunch.

So here we are veggie boxing

Chook and I have been going to the AMAP for a year now. AMAP, or Association for the maintain of peasant farming (or loose translation from the french)is a general term for the people who do veggie boxes. The idea is that you pledge to buy fruit and veg from one producer near where you live for six months and in return every saturday you go and collect your organickish produce. The AMAP is mainly a bobo,token conscience-gesture towards sustainable farming. In reality it is usually a rather dull and soggy bag of alien vegetables.

For 7euros50 a week (that's 187 euros for "half a basket" every week for six months)we usually get about 4 kilos of fresh, mostly edible, very seasonal vegetables (very rarely fruit) and of course the odd slug.

So, in the spirit of seasonal food, here is what we get:

Saturday 4th october

500g potatoes, watch out for the slimy/split/full of holes.
Half a big bunch of carrots, mutant, usually shaped like male genitalia/mandrake roots.
one green pepper, long and skinny.
One fat small lettuce, good.
500g tomatoes
1 large raw beetroot
1 large turnip
A big bunch of lovely , gorgeous baby leeks, thickness ranging from little finger to flower stalk.

leek and potato mash (serves 2):
Leeks : finely chopped white parts in to discs (should have around a soup bowl full), melt in butter at very low heat, salt and pepper and a splash of milk.
Potatoes, cut potatoes (3 medium ones) into small cubes, boil in salty water till almost decomposing. Drain, mash with fork, add butter, add milk and a bit of creme fraiche.
Combine leeks and potatoes and serve with lamb chops.

Saturday 11th october

500 g potatoes
500g tomatoes
250g turnips
half a big bunch of carrots
250g spinach leaves, huge, tough, half eaten by bugs and yellowing at the edges
a big beetroot
a small leaf lettuce
a long skinny red pepper

Red early autumn soup (serves 2):
Finely chop half a large onion and put it at low heat in some olive oil till soft. Add 4 or 5 chopped tomatoes and let them decompose. Add a chopped red pepper, then a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tsp of paprika and let simmer on low heat.
Fry bacon or lardons (upto 200g) making sure you drain away the white salty liquid. Once browned, throw into red mixture. Let flavours combine and add more paprika to taste.
Blitz til smooth, the more bacon you have the less smooth it will be.
When ready to serve stir in a tablespoon of creme fraiche into each bowl and add some chopped chives and basil (optional)