Riverford veg box: Week one

Being fairly au fait with the veg box process, I have to say that Riverford have surprised me - surpassing my expectations on a number of fronts. After placing my order I had a call from their Customer Service team, checking where I'd be on delivery day. On the day the delivery driver gave me a ring as I wasn't it, and told me were he had left the box. All good so far.

Bearing in mind I hadn't wanted to go back to a national veg box scheme I was really impressed. Having seen the Riverford stand at the Hertfordshire county show and spoken to their rep I was keen to give them a go - I really liked their use of semi local farming - it's not local by any manner or means, but isn't all imported either. I had really wanted to use my local food co-op. When I looked on Big barn - you can use the widget in the sidebar - I found there was one in Tottenham. However, further excited investigation found that it had actually become inactive due to a lack of volunteers. This was such a shame, and I would say if you're reading and live in the local area, please consider volunteering. http://growinginharingey.wikispaces.com/Tottenham+Food+Coop

However, for the time being, Riverford it is. Slightly more expensive than I would like, but I think I eat a lot more veg than your average person.

Coming home to a box is always a delight, and this was no exception. The reusable box was chock full of fruit and veg - some that are nice basics and will get used up just as a matter of course, and others that need a bit more inspiration.

My box contained:

Apples
Pears
Gooseberries
Onions
Mushrooms
Broccoli
Greens
Tomatoes
Cucumber

Oh... and an aubergine

Only one of the pears was damaged, and the pears are already very ripe so they need to be eaten up smartish. I'm not sure what to do with the gooseberries yet - although I'm wondering about branching out without Mark's mum and trying jam. The rest are all veg that I will use up as the week progresses and fit nicely into my meal plan. Apart from the aubergine that is. As regular readers will know, alongside macaroni cheese, aubergine is pretty much the only vegetable I give an enourmously wide berth to. Miles sized berth. Moussaka is my idea of hell. There's just something about the texture and taste that I can't get my head around. Still, there's no escaping it now, and it's been added to my fridge bottom pasta bake in the hope that I won't/ can't taste it. Please God.

I'll update again with how the veg box experiment is going - there's obviously for me a cost implication involved and if I can't get enough meals out of it to make it good value (I am a firm believer in basics veg) then sadly I'll be back to Sainsos - but fingers crossed.