Help me stop wasting my veg box!

meritaten

pointed cabbage is really, really, nice stir fried with garlic as a side dish. or just finely slice and use in a coleslaw. it has a slightly sweeter taste than ordinary white cabbage.
a lot of the veg could be roasted, onions, carrots and peppers - drizzle them with oil lots of salt and pepper (you can add some herbs, Italian ones work well). with cous cous it makes a lovely main dish or you can eat it cool as a salad or a side for a nice curry.
actually roasted carrots are delish with your sunday roast - just do them with your roasted spuds.
Broad beans - parboil them then cool them a bit and take those white skins off otherwise they are awful then put them back in boiling salted water to cook til 'al dente'! lovely as a 'side' but can be added to a salad - and is essential IMHO to a three bean salad.

Willow92

When I do stir fry I see how much veg I can stick in. I usually end up using cabbage, carrots, peppers, spring onions, green beans and broccoli.

Dragon_on_roller_skates

CCP wrote: »

Carrots - I look forward to reading everyone's ideas as these are what tend to get left from my box, too. I don't like them raw, and find them very boring when boiled plain, so any exciting ideas will be gratefully received. :undecided

I roast carrots quite a bit. They're nice either just plain roasted or else honey roast. For the latter, put carrot sticks on a long piece of foil, season, dot with butter, drizzle over a good squeeze of honey and splash with a tiny bit of water. Fold the foil into a parcel and then roast in the oven until done. Depending on what you're doing them with, add herbs to the parcel for extra yummy flavour.

Liz_M

Hi CCP - glad it's not just me who's been wasting too much veg, and hope this thread helps you too! I'm quite boring with my carrots I just steam them or eat them raw! I think someone suggested roasting them with honey and poppy seeds which sounds nice though - and if you really don't like them then there's always pigpen's carrot cake idea! They don't taste anything like carrots then!

I made the pie! I washed all of the spinach and wilted about half to 2/3 for the pie, then froze the rest for putting in curries. The pointed cabbage was looking even more sorry by the time I got it out and I thought it might have to be binned - but I took of the outer 3 or 4 leaves and underneath was fine! Had to trim a few that have been nibbled by something but the leaves looked lovely so I had a little nibble myself while I was cutting them up.... and then had a bit more! I ended up putting most of it in the pie - I decided to use up some normal onions as well as the spring onions so I fried some chopped up onions with chopped up spinach stalks, then added the chopped spring onions and the shredded cabbage. They didn't have any dill in asda and I was worried about it being a bit bland so I put some crushed garlic in too. Let it all cool down and then mixed it all up with the eggs and cheese etc as Dragon said and made the pie! Should possibly have bought the puff that you roll yourself, or used 2 rolls because I had to do a little patchwork magic on the top.... although it didn't end up looking anywhere near as bad as I thought! Didn't help that the kitchen was really hot so the pastry went soft and elasticy very quickly! I've taken a picture but it doesn't look amazing and not sure how to post on here (I might try and work it out later!).
Did steamed new potatoes and carrots from the veg box with the pie, and used some of the potatoes steamed yesterday too with some garlic and herb chicken and a big salad (had to buy asda lettuce but used tomatoes, pepper, onion and celery all from the veg box).

I also kept a bit of the cabbage and filled up a plastic tub (one of those chinese take away ones) with some chopped up cabbage to put aside. I'm hoping it will still last a couple of days chopped up and I'll either put it in some salad raw (I heard you can eat it raw so I assume it's ok stuck in a salad?) or maybe cook it as a side dish on it's own. (Probably with some onions and garlic like I did for the pie filling as that was amazing!

I found Hugh's bean dip but he also talked about making a bean hummous which looked even more simple so will give that a go over the next day or 2!

carrielovesfanta

I make a pie similar to Dragon's.

Cut a butternut squash into chunks and roast, drizzled with a bit of oil (and salt & pepper if you like)

I use about half a large one to make the pie. Mash it up.

Fry off some onions and garlic. Mix in the mashed up squash and a cubed block of feta cheese. Then mix in 2 beaten eggs.

Line a flan dish with puff pastry and scoop the mix in. Bake for about 40 mins at about 180c. I just wait until it's brown and puffed up. Stick a knife in the middle to check it's hot.

This recipe is great for using up other bits. At various times I've added chopped ham, chorizo, spinach/kale/chard and cherry tomatoes.

It's also delicious cold

Liz_M

That sounds good too, I loved the pie - I almost half expected it to be a bit boring, but I think the onions, garlic and herbs made a big difference. And the cheeses are pretty tasty too! I think I'll give it a go using up things like that now I've made it once, especially something like ham or bacon!

Just for future reference, how long would you say a pie like this would last for in the fridge, and can it be frozen? I always freeze pies (e.g. meat and gravy type ones) but wasn't sure about freezing this because of the cheese and egg....but then you can freeze quiches so I assume this would be ok?

I've used up all the old veg now, except a few onions but I will have no problem using these. I ended up chucking the artichokes as I realised they were worse than I thought, but the cabbage, spinach, spring onions, green pepper and potatoes are all gone!

From the new box I've used half the potatoes (steamed these) half the carrots (also steamed). I used some of the bunched onions making a potato salad out of left over steamed potatoes. The green pepper and cherry tomatoes have been used up, and the red pepper will be used now that I've used the green one. I've also used some of the celery in salads and then I will be eventually making the broad bean dip and doing something with the chard (possibly another pie if I don't think of anything more appealing!).

I've actually found that making myself use up veg has mean that obviously I've been cooking more and we've eaten a lot less rubbish from it! Plus making home made food means leftovers instead of buying sandwiches in work. I took a slice of the pie on Monday, and yesterday I took a wrap made from leftover garlic & herb chicken breast, with some salad (lettuce from asda, some of the raw pointed cabbage, tomatoes and celery from veg box). I get bored really easily from plain old boring sandwiches. I've discovered that the whole leftover thing doesn't mean just reheating an extra portion of a meal either - you can just have leftovers of just one ingredient and turn them into something completely different. Like the chicken went into a wrap, and we had some leftover new potatoes which became a potato salad to go with a meal the next day. I made pasta with bacon and onions, egg and cheese (loosely based on a carbonara but I assemble things slightly differently!) and I deliberately cooked a bit too much pasta to put aside plain for a pasta salad tomorrow.