Look what I got today....

The title is a little bit misleading but this post took a long time coming...there was oodles of fruit and veg to consider!

On the 12th December I received an email from Victoria Simpson on behalf of Abel & Cole. They were offering a free box of delicious organic food to some of their favourite bloggers.
The box they are giving away was the “Medium Organic Fruit & Veg box” worth £15.95. I went on to their website and was impressed when I read about....what makes them different? They support British farmers, they work with the seasons, they look after the environment. They give a fair deal to farmers, fund raise with local schools and insist upon the highest levels of animal welfare...Of course I replied straight away, saying yes please!!!

It was delivered the Tuesday after Christmas....timing was perfect as I had run out of all my pre Christmas fruit and vegetables and it kept me going through to the new year! so thank you Abel & Cole.As a bonus they were going to be running a contest - I had to simply take a photo of one of the meals I produced with the food, post it on my blog by 31st January and the winner of the best dish gets a £50 Abel & Cole gift voucher. I used everything in the box, photographed lots of it and have decided to post them all. Not sure if they're good enough to win, but I've enjoyed taking part and loved the free produce and the family have been fed into the bargain!!!!

How exciting....free organic vegetables.

wow - they looked delicious and were fresh as a daisy...

Well as you can imagine, I could wait to get stuck in and use it. I had cooked vegetables, leftover from the Sunday roast but there is never any roast potatoes left in my house so I used the potatoes first to make up my bubble and squeak!

A real mish mash of leftovers...including leeks in a cheese sauce!

I left a few out of the B&S so I could pan fried them and then top with grated cheese for Joanne's supper (I know she shouldn't eat cheese before bed, but she likes the dreams!!!)

The next day I used the cherry tomatoes to make this tomato, mozzarella balls & basil salad to go with a pasta dish the family were having.

The leftovers went into my salad.

Then it was the mushrooms turn to make my cheese & mushroom omelette's for breakfast ...

...then some of the leeks...(look at how fresh they are!!!)

...to make my leek and Parmesan soup for lunch!

I can truly say that not an ounce of the box went to waste. The swede was grated and mixed with a finely sliced leek to make fritters. (No photos..they were eaten too quickly!!!) The Carrots were glazed and served as a side dish. The only thing left to use up was the oranges, not a fruit that goes down too well in my house, I can usually get the youngest to eat satsuma or clementines, but not big oranges, so not wanting them to be wasted I turned to the recipe that was printed on the back of the invoice that came with the box. Clementine upside down cake... Now anyone who has tasted my banana upside down cake will agree, its the best....but Oranges??? Not even the proper oranges it calls for...but big oranges....oh here goes...

Clementine Upside Down Cake

A very moist heavy sponge with a sticky orange-y top! Not nearly as good as the banana upside down cake but in fairness I did make it with big oranges, I'm sure the clementines would have been sweeter, and there was a discrepancy with the recipe...it said 10g of butter to 150g of sugar???? I took it as a typo but maybe it wasn't...who knows!!! Those who ate it said it was nice! I have never bothered with box schemes before as I always thought I'd be given lots of produce that I would simple waste...either too much of one thing the family didn't like and or not enough of the things we do! How wrong can you be?! I loved the challenge of finding recipes to use all the produce with. I tailored my weekly menu around the contents and adapted it to suit what was still left...I made banana cake with the two bananas that were left in the fruit bowl as they had started to go a little speckled in my warm kitchen...I nabbed a couple of apples before they got eaten to make an apple cake for dessert, which left the box empty!

Old photo of the same recipe...I again I wasn't quick enough with the camera.

Thank you Abel & Cole, I am seriously impressed, not just by your generous free offer but the quality, variety and freshness of the contents...at £15.95 it has fed 2 adults 2 children and numerous guests in the form of cakes and puddings. After this week I've seriously changed my view on these box schemes...if I'd have paid for it, it would have definitely been worth its money!!!