A Week in my Veg Box

I have realised that I make a lot of nice things that I don’t end up sharing (except on my Instagram which is fast becoming 90% “look at my attractive lunch!!”) because they are a bit too quick/easy or I ended up just making a recipe as instructed. So instead this is “how I used my veg box” because that is what rules my meal planning and maybe yours too. I get the Small Fruit and Veg Box from Oddbox every week - it’s three kinds of fruit and seven kinds of veg, which they claim is right for an “individual or couple”. I am the former and I think it’s marginally too much for one week - in the Before Times I used to get one a fortnight which is fine if half of your meals are made by other people.

Last week’s haul (plus potatoes, not pictured):

The reason I have these photos on my phone is that my veg box also serves to teach my best friend words for fruit and vegetables in German. Pilze, eine Gurke, schon wieder eine Ananas, etc. The bottom row is representative - there were more than two of each of these.

Mushrooms and cucumber first went in a cold soba noodle salad, with a dressing made mostly from peanut butter and soy sauce, topped with some sliced pickled radish and sprinkled with sesame seeds. That made two great lunches.

The remaining mushrooms went into two portions of stir-fry that also featured some of the cabbage and the tail end of last week’s leeks, as well as some slightly disappointing baked tofu (which improved by being pan-fried on the second go round).

I turned the onions (this week they were white, the previous ones were red, hence a mixture) into something I like very much but have never tried to make before - Zwiebelkuchen. It’s a German speciality that different regions do differently. I don’t come from anywhere with a real Zwiebelkuchen tradition, but obviously the way my mum (z”l) made it was the correct way. So the base is made from yeasty dough (which I had to knead by hand because my dough hooks are in another house), you chop onions finely (my canon is white only) and mix them with cream (I didn’t have any - replaced it with a mix of melted butter, almond milk, Greek yoghurt, some cornstarch and an egg, because #ConfinedSubstitutions is how we live now). Add caraway seeds, also bacon if you are so inclined which I am not, spread over the base which has been stretched out to cover an entire baking sheet and put in the oven. Ideally you have a glass of Federweisser with it. Dreams.

But you can have butter lettuce instead which just became the side salad of the week (I can’t bring myself to braise or in any other way warm it up, although I am told it is possible). I usually make a honey and mustard dressing, although the honey has been replaced with agave syrup and I am now out of grainy mustard so who knows what will happen next. (Update: what happens next is that my housemate who is not opposed to the Outside World gets more from the Polish deli and all is well.)

When it comes to new potatoes I am a simple woman - I boiled them all, ate half of them straight up with just butter and salt, and fried the other half with more onions, cabbage, caraway seeds and horseradish sauce (which I’m trying to use up because it has cream in it and tastes of nothing). Living my best mitteleuropean life - that made one dinner and one brunch. If you aren’t saving your last egg to make an apple crumble cake, it would also be a good addition.

I am still overwhelmed with everyone’s many celeriac recipes for me. This week I roasted it (and my last two onions plus some garlic) and turned it into soup. I also made croutons from my most recent sourdough bread, because that’s lockdown now. The soup was good and I still have some in the fridge for tomorrow.

I can’t really eat plums. I inevitably find them very sour and I have to pull a face when I put them in my mouth, so I made caramelised plum compote. Chop them into eighths, add sugar and water (actual quantities available on the internet), bring to the boil, then simmer. If you want that delicious caramel that is also a pain to clean out of your saucepan later, leave them for a bit longer than would have been ideal because you’re distracted making Zwiebelkuchen at the same time. Eat with slow cooker rice pudding made from sushi rice (see #ConfinedSubstitutions) = two desserts, two breakfasts.

I have had a pineapple for the second week in a row - total luxury. I was considering making cake with it but it would frankly be a travesty. Just peel, chop, drench in lime juice and sprinkle with sea salt and chilli powder - this is how you can buy any fresh fruit in Mexico and it is perfection. (Also a very good combo on popcorn if you go easy on the lime juice.) My chilli powder is actually Korean gochugaru but it works really well.

There were tiny pears. I ate them up. 

But I still have half a damn cabbage.