Savoury Butternut Squash Scones with Pumpkin Seeds

Some of you will remember me writing  early in the month that I am trialling Riverford Organic Farmers Vegetable Box.   I chose the medium vegetable box which has eight organic varieties which was recommended for 2 - 3 people. 

The Riverford Vegetable box contained: seasonal Wild garlic, parsnips, onions, courgettes, spring greens, butternut squash, oakleaf lettuce, and plum cherry tomatoes.  The first thing to be cooked was the spring greens which I sautéed with in a little oil with garlic and served it as a side; and I made Parsnip Cake (adapted from my Carrot Cake recipe), but the recipe I want to share with you today are these Savoury Butternut Squash Scones with pumpkin seeds.   

I love the way the butternut squash is bursting out from the golden scones, as if its cheese bubbling to the surface, but these savoury scones are vegan.  

These Savoury Butternut Squash Scones are good with soup, but sometimes the vegetarian in me likes to indulge that's when I slice them and stuff them with cheddar cheese and a chutney and make it a Scone Sandwich!.  

If you live in the UK, have you ever considered signing up to a vegetable box scheme? Check out the Riverford website.  It has a extensive FAQ  to answer your questions in relation to having one delivered to your front door.  Riverford in South Wales is run by Jon and Janet Mier.  If you would like to keep up to date with news from Riverford South Wales, then please follow them on Facebook .  

Butternut Squash Scones with Pumpkin Seeds

Makes 12
Ingredients
400g butternut squash
Olive oil


500g self raising flour
11/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of pepper
225g vegan margarine (or butter)
150ml plant based milk (or dairy milk)
60 g sunflower seeds
Method
Preheat oven to as mark 4/180oc.
Peel and chop the butternut squash into really small cubes.
Coat the butternut squash in a little oil and roast until soft, about 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder, then stir in the salt.
Add cubes of the margarine into the flour mix, until all has been added.
Using your fingers, rub the margarine into the flour until crumbly.
Stir in the cooled butternut squash and half the sunflower seeds.
Then carefully pour in the milk in the centre of the flour to bring the dough together, if it seems to dry add a little milk, if its too sticky add a little more flour.
Turn onto a floured surface and roll to about 4cm high.
Using a cutter, cut out 10 - 12 scones.
Transfer to a baking sheet, coat with a little milk and then scatter over the remaining sunflower seeds.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until well risen and golden.
Best enjoyed on the day. Can also be frozen. 

Disclaimer: I was kindly given the medium vegetable box worth £14.85 by Riverford South Wales to trial, in return for a plant based recipe using seasonal and organic vegetables from the box.  All views and opinions are my own. 

Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Sweet Potato (with Vegan Black Pudding)

I no longer have an allotment plot and presently I don't have much growing in my back garden plot at the moment, so I have decided to trial Riverford Organic Farmers Vegetable Box for a month.

The Riverford Vegetable Box scheme began when Guy Watson began delivering vegetableses locally to 30 friends in Devon. It now delivers around 47,000 boxes a week to homes around the UK.  Riverford delivers to most of England and South Wales.  

I chose the medium vegetable box which has eight organic varieties which was recommended for 2 - 3 people. This week the vegetable box contained: Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Fennel Bulb, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Courgettes, Onions, Oakleaf Lettuce and Tomatoes.  It was hard to know what to cook with first, I finally settled on the Purple Sprouting Broccoli - a seasonal star, I should know I used to grow some and the sweet potatoes.

I decided to make a Warm Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Sweet Potato Salad with Hazelnuts that were given to me by a friend. To make this warm salad more of a substantial dish, I finished it off with some sliced of vegetarian black pudding, but that is optional. This certainly made a welcome change from our boring lettuce, cucumber and tomato salad. 

I am sharing this Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Sweet Potato Salad with Soups, Salads and Sammies hosted by Kahakai Kitchen. 

Warm Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Sweet Potato Salad with Hazelnuts
Serves 3 - 4 as a starter; or 2 - 3 as a main dish
Ingredients
2 medium sweet potatoes peeled and chopped into bite size cubes
1 tablespoon olive oil
250g purple sprouting broccoli
3 tablespoons hazelnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: Sprouted alfalfa for garnishing
Optional: vegetarian black pudding
For the dressing
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon maple syrup (or honey)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200oc.
Toss the sweet potato cubes with the oil and spread onto a baking tray.  
Roast for 20 minutes, remove from the oven, gently stir and return it to the oven until soft and beginning to brown around the edges.
Steam the Purple Sprouting Broccoli as you would do asparagus, until tender.
Drain of excess liquid. Transfer to a bowl. 
Put all the dressing ingredients into a small bowl and whisk well. 
Pour over the steamed purple sprouting broccoli and gently stir with a spatula to coat well.
To serve
Evenly distribute the Purple Sprouting Broccoli between the plates.
Then pile on the sweet potato cubes and sprinkle over the chopped hazelnuts.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Finish off with optional: alfalfa and cooked black pudding. 

If I have tempted you to try a Riverford Organic vegetable box, then please visit the Riverford website. The Riverford website is very extensive and has a FAQ to answer your questions in relation to having a vegetable box delivered to your front door.  For those of you who live overseas there may be something similar happening in your country; or there is always the farmers market. 

Riverford in South Wales is run by Jon and Janet Mier.  You will often find them and their knowledgeable staff at food events across Wales.  If you would like to keep up to date with news from Riverford South Wales, then follow them on Facebook and Twitter.  

Disclaimer: I was kindly given the medium vegetable box worth £14.85 by Riverford South Wales, in return for a plant based recipe using seasonal and organic vegetables from the box.  All views and opinions are my own. 

A Veg Box is no substitute for growing our own

Many of you will remember that I signed up to my first veg box late February, which was to be received on a fortnightly basis. Some of you will be surprised to learn that last week we took the decision to cancel our subscription. I know so soon, I barely gave the suppliers a chance. It was not a light decision, especially as we want to eat seasonal and locally sourced vegetables, but it was apparent pretty much immediately that the Veg box scheme was just not going to work for us. I also took into account all the comments fellow bloggers left for me when arriving at this decision. For us the Veg Box was not just just not going to be a good substitute for having been able to grow our own.
I think having been a vegetable grower, albeit on a very small scale, my expectations, (some of which I admit would be unfair on the suppliers,) were not helping my reservations about the contents. It wasn’t so much the quality of the vegetables, but the lack of information about the variety of the vegetables. Any one who has grown vegetables would understand this concern. No malice is intended towards the suppliers, but within a few days the potatoes even though kept in a dark corner were sprouting, and the carrots were saggy; and these vegetables were meant to take me into two weeks. Despite, this I enjoyed creating meals with all these vegetables, but it wasn’t straightforward, as I also felt a bit under pressure as I did not want to waste these vegetables, but there was only so many potatoes one could eat! I could also foresee some vegetables languishing either in the fridge or in the vegetable stack getting mouldy by the time the next box arrived. I also foresaw many veggies going to the compost bin and that would be an expensive waste.

The delivery date didn’t suit us either. If it was a Saturday, I may have been more inclined to stay with them and then I could try to plan our weekly meals accordingly, as this is how I worked with the vegetables I harvested at the allotment.

I also found that I was still supplementing, with onions, mushrooms and seasonal greens. The broccoli that came in the veg box actually caused me concern. Was it local? Something I still don’t know, but it was the first vegetable in the veg box to be used as I did not want it rotting in the fridge.

We also decided that paying £14 was far too much to pay for a bag that was essentially made up of potatoes, some root vegetable, a cabbage and a couple of leeks. D added he felt that we were ultimately paying for delivery of the veg box rather than contents (which we could both easily pick up ourselves).

I truly do think Veg boxes are plausible initiatives and have always admired them as a lifestyle and luxury product, especially if you don't have time to go to the grocery store or live in an area where organic, local and seasonal options are limited, but that is not the case with us.

Looking on the positive side, now that we no longer have the responsibility of travelling and tending to the allotment; and the garden being in our backyard and small, hence not needing hours of attention, at weekend we can venture out to little towns and villages. Some of which have farm shops and some have farmers markets, even our nearest city Glasgow hosts farmers markets, so we can easily pick up some fruit and vegetables there and plan our meals a little better. So its not all bad, we’ll just have to spend a bit more time pondering some of these places, and even though everything won’t be local, it’ll be seasonal and grown in the U.K (well most of it will be).

My first Veg Box

Some of you may remember that last weekend we signed up to a vegetable box scheme at the farmers market. Well we received our first vegetable box this week. I thought the veg box would literally come in a 'box'. Well it was actually in a net sack. Maybe if we weren't home to receive the sack, the driver/delivery person would have left it in a box. Who knows, perhaps I'll find out at the next delivery.

Anyway, the veg box size we have signed up for is Medium which is designed for 3 - 4 people and costs £14.00. According to the Nursery Box scheme the medium box will contain approximately 7/8lb potatoes, 2lb carrot, 1lb onion and a variety of seasonal vegetables. We are going to see how this vegetable box works out for us, as we will be receiving it every two weeks. It will be also be interesting to see, how much we will have to supplement this veg box with other seasonal vegetables.

Anyway, the sack contained:

2 leeks

3 onions

Lots of potatoes

4 beetroots

7 long carrots

1 cabbage
2 heads of broccoli
Jerusalem artichokes (which I specifically requested on this occasion)

I am looking forward to cooking with all these vegetables, however I was a little disappointed, not with the contents, but the lack of information about the vegetables. As a vegetable grower I would liked to have known what variety these vegetables were. For example what are these magnificent long carrots called and what variety are these beetroot. I am guessing the potatoes are Orla, but I don't know for certain. So I'll be writing to them to request if in future they can provide this information. I think it is a reasonable request. It shouldn't be that difficult for them either, after all in the sack was included a newsletter with a recipe suggestion, so it should be relatively easy to supply this information.

For those of you who already sign up to a veg box scheme, especially in the U.K can you please give me some insight into what to expect. I am a little reserved in my reactions towards the vegetable box and think this is because I was able to grow some of these vegetables myself, so think as a new recipient of a vegetable box I may be holding some high expectations of what should come in the vegetable box. So any information would be most appreciated, as I really want to be fair. Mostly I want to enjoy my vegetable box.