Hello Folks,

The green kale we get from chapel farm, and the green kale we’ll soon have again from our very own Locavore farm, isn’t much like the kale you get in the supermarket. It isn’t shredded, but whole leaves. They curl beautifully, looking very much like an ariel photo of some wild green hills covered in leafy trees. It’s soft, bouncy, inviting to the fingers. Slice down the middle, remove the thick stalk, and cut out any other woody bits of stem. It’s pale, but dunk it in boiling water- just for a couple of minutes- or sautee it with olive oil, and it turns bright and shiny. Bake it slowly in the oven with lots of olive oil then season with nutritional yeast or parmesan, salt and pepper, and you have a deliciously moreish snack.

Recently, I’ve been sauteeing my kale with onions and butter and stirring it through macaroni and cheese right before it goes in the oven. I also love kale stamppot, although I usually skip the sausage and treat a bowl of rich, green-flecked mash as a meal in itself. Perennial favourite Nigel Slater suggests almonds and chorizo to turn a bag of kale into a meal, and elsewhere annoints it with lemon zest, butter and garlic for a fresher take. My other fave Meera Sodha has a kale daal and a kale and chickpea curry, both of which sound like just the ticket to warm the belly and the soul in this windy, wild week.

Question of the fortnight

If you follow us on Facebook,Twitter or Instagram, we’d love to hear your views on the content we post. So far we’re seeing lots of requests for recipes, not just for the more unusual items found in our veg boxes but also for the salads and dishes you’ve been enjoying in the cafe. There’s also a real appetite for more stories from the farm and about the producers we work with, as well as more about what goes on behind the scenes (it might not be as glamorous as you think, be warned).

The survey will run for another week,  and as well as helping to influence the direction for our social channels the results will also feed into our bigger study on the impacts of our work. If you have five minutes to spare please do share your thoughts with us –  You can find the survey here. 

Events

Standard Veg Box Supper Club –  Tickets
March 18th, 8 – 10pm

You are invited to join us for the first ever Standard Veg Box supper club. The challenge we give our guest chefs for this event is one that our veg box customers face weekly – to make a delicious meal with the contents of this week’s Standard veg box.

This time the event will be hosted by our very own veg box team: Adam, Sally, Sam and Saoirse will be serving up a two course meal for you using the contents of the veg box. It’s a lovely opportunity to meet them in person, meet other veg box customers, sit and eat together and chat about all things veg box.

You will be able to buy soft drinks in the shop or you can bring your own drink – corkage fee of £1/ person for alcohol. The meal will be vegetarian. A vegan option is available; please let us know by email or when you make the booking if you are vegan or have any other dietary needs.

£11, meal included.

Veg Box Tips

Stay in touch! It can be hard work getting a veg box sometimes. First of all, you have to figure out what to do with all this veg that shows up every week. Delicious, organic, and local it may be, but we all have days when we can’t think of what to cook. And then, sometimes you want to change something about your order, or take a break, or not get any more beetroot/carrots/mushrooms. And then maybe something’s gone wrong- your milk is missing, or the newsletter said there would be claytonia but you don’t have any.

The solution to all these problems is keeping in touch!

If you want to make changes to your subscription, take a week (or longer) off from veg boxes, or let us know about a problem, it’s always best to email us at subscribers@glasgowlocavore.org

If you want to make our lives really easy, please be specific with dates (rather than saying “next week”), and try to get requests in before the order change deadline of 9am Monday.

If you want to make sure you get all our updates, reading these newsletters is a good start, but why not also follow us on social media? We’re on Instagram and we have an amazing Facebook group which is the place to go for recipes, kitchen inspiration, and to find out what your fellow veg box customers are doing.

Good Food Fund

In January 2020 our Good Food Fund sent out £1004.41 worth of fresh fruit and veg to our partner organisations who work with people living in food poverty, running foodbanks and community meals. Many of these projects rely on leftovers from supermarkets and have little choice over what they receive. Thanks to your donations we can send fresh fruit and veg out to our partners on a weekly basis. If you would like to add a small donation to your subscription, do just drop us an email.

Monthly Specials

This week, we’ve got another break from the monthly specials, but next week it’s the meat boxes. It’s too late to sign up for March’s box as we order the meat so far in advance, but email now to sign up in time for April’s.

You can learn more about our monthly special boxes here.

Check out storage guidance here for helpful tips and tricks on how to prolong the life of your fresh produce. If you’re wondering where your veg comes from, have a look at these maps. You can also join your fellow subscribers over in the Facebook group for lots of tips, tricks, and recipe ideas.

To contact us, ring 0141 378 1672 or email us at subscribers@glasgowlocavore.org

In the veg boxes this week:

Subject to last minute changes

Small veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Parsnips	Chapel Farm	Soil Assocation
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Chestnut Mushrooms	Orchard Organics, Armagh	Soil Assocition

Standard veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Cauliflower	Strawberry Fields, Lincolnshire	Soil Association
Kalettes	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Chestnut Mushrooms	Orchard Organics, Armagh	Soil Assocition

Large veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Swede	Chapel Farm	Soil Assocation
Kalettes	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Chestnut Mushrooms	Orchard Organics, Armagh	Soil Assocition
Cauliflower	Strawberry Fields, Lincolnshire	Soil Association
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association

Extra Large veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Swede	Chapel Farm	Soil Assocation
Cauliflower	Strawberry Fields, Lincolnshire	Soil Association
Kalettes	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Chestnut Mushrooms	Orchard Organics, Armagh	Soil Assocition
Purple frill	Locavore Left Field	Soil Association

Small fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Crimson Crisp Apples	Mole end, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel Oranges	Ave Maria, Spain	Caae
Kumquats	Spain	Caae

Medium fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Crimson Crisp Apples	Mole end, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel Oranges	Ave Maria, Spain	Caae
Kumquats	Spain	Caae
Comice Pears	Netherlands	Eko

Large fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Crimson Crisp Apples	Mole end, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel Oranges	Ave Maria, Spain	Caae
Kumquats	Spain	Caae
Comice Pears	Netherlands	Eko

Extra large fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Crimson Crisp Apples	Mole end, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel Oranges	Ave Maria, Spain	Caae
Kumquats	Spain	Caae
Comice Pears	Netherlands	Eko

Small supplementary veg	Origin	Organic Certifier
Aubergine	Spain	Caae
Broccoli	Spain	Caae

Standard supplementary veg	Origin	Organic Certifier
Aubergine	Spain	Caae
Broccoli	Spain	Caae
Purple Garlic	Spain	Caae

Enjoy!

The Locavore Team