I’ve blogged frequently about how I am a huge fan of Riverford’s vegetable boxes. I get a fortnightly 100% UK veg box (unsponsored, I’ve been a customer for about 2 years now). I 100% get behind the ethics of Riverford. All their boxes are organic, and all of their farms are low food waste farms. Everything in their boxes is palm oil free. They encourage wildlife on their farms. As much of their vegetables are grown in the UK as seasonally as possible (as of 2016 that was 72%). 100% of their meat is reared in the UK. If you are completely committed to eating seasonally and locally, you can opt for the 100% UK box like we do.
Riverford has also made recent moves to become majority employee owned, as well as major changes to try to decrease their gender pay gap (for example they’ve instituted more flexible working hours that can be moved around childcare and reviewing their recruitment programming for unconscious biasing).
Another positive about Riverford’s vegetable boxes that when priced comparisoned against equivalent organic vegetables from Waitrose, Sainsburys and Tesco, Riverford’s boxes tend to come out cheaper.
And when surveys went out about what aspects that Riverford can improve on, customers overwhelmingly wanted to reduce the amount of plastic packaging on food. My veg box comes in recyclable cardboard with all vegetables except for salad leaves either in brown paper bags or loose. Salad leaves are wrapped in plastic otherwise they’d be too bruised by delivery and that would increase food waste.
You can read one of my first posts on Riverford here.
Clearly, I can sing Riverford’s praises. So when they reached out to me to review some of their recipe boxes I was absolutely overjoyed to work with a company that I have so much faith in.
The recipe boxes serve two people and are priced starting at £11. The menus change weekly based on your area and what is in season. You can choose the type of box that you receive. I opted for the vegan recipe box, for obvious reasons; but there is also the vegetarian box, the foodie box, the simple box, the light box, the meat box and the prime cuts box.
The first recipe box I tried was the Mushroom and Pesto Tossed Lasagne
Ingredients:
2 red onions
200 g chard
200 g musrooms
30 g black olives
salt and pepper
vegetable oil
olive oil
1/2 pack of lasagne
20 g of pine nuts
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon of light brown sugar
2 tablespoons of green pesto
1 pack of soy cream
50 g salad leaves
Instructions:
Peel and finely cut the onions. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a medium saucepan. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. Saute for 20 minutes over low heat, stirring as little as possible, until very soft.
Boil your kettle and fill a large saucepan with boiled water. Turn the heat under your saucepan on high. Strip the chard leaves off of their stalks (keep the stalks.) Boil the leaves for 2 minutes until wilted. Drain and run them under the cold tap. Squeeze out the excess moisture and chop them.
Refill the large saucepan with salted water and bring it to a boil. Finely chop the chard stalks. Slice the mushrooms and olives finely. Break your lasagne sheets in halves.
In a large frying pan, gently heat your pine nuts, stirring regularly until lightly brown and toasted. Then transfer them to a bowl.
Add the vinegar and sugar to the onions. Cook, stirring often, for a further 10 minutes until the onions are nicely caramelised.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in the frying pan. Fry the chard stalks (on medium heat) for 6 minutes. Then add the mushrooms with a splash more oil. Fry for 3-4 minutes, until the mushrooms have softened and coloured slightly. Turn off the heat.
Add a glug of olive oil to your boiling water and boil your lasagne for approximately 7 minutes, until just tender, stirring often to prevent them from sticking. Drain, but reserve a bit of the water.
Stir in the olives, pesto and soy cream into the chard stalks and mushroom mix. Then add the chopped chard leaves and lasagne. Gently warm it. Add a splash of the lasagne water to thin it if the sauce is too thick.
Serve it topped with the caramelised onions and pine nuts.
Toss your leaves in a bit of olive oil for a simple side salad.
Verdict:
It was absolutely delicious. Sam said it was his favourite dish that he’s eaten in a really long time. I’m not usually a fan of lasagne: I don’t like when then noodles go crunchy when baked, but this definitely won me over with it’s non-baked-ness. Also it made absolutely heaps. The recipe is for 2 people and we definitely had enough left over for lunch the next day.
My only slight reservation about this recipe was that whilst the directions were easy to follow, it was quite time consuming (about an hour cooking all in all) so it definitely isn’t a recipe for a weeknight when you are exhausted. Any other time though? Amazing.
I also adored that the recipe incorporated absolutely everything: even the chard stalks so that there was zero food waste.
And the second vegan recipe box from Riverford that we tried was the Miso Glazed Aubergine and Coconut Rice.
Ingredients:
1 red onion
1 romano pepper
150 g of basmati rice
salt and pepper
oil
1 tin of coconut milk
1 aubergine
15 g of coriander
200 g of spinach.
2 tablespoons of brown rice miso
1 tablespoon of mirin
1 tablespoon of tamari
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
1 lime
20 g of coconut chips
Instructions:
Peel and finely dice your onion. Deseed and thinly slice the pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan. Start frying the onion and pepper on low heat, whilst stirring occasionally. Add a splash of water if it looks like catching at any point.
Rinse the rice in a sieve. Transfer to a saucepan and add a good pinch of salt. Add the coconut milk and 1/4 of the coconut tin of water. Bring to a low boil and cook for 10 minutes, stirring ever now and then.
Quarter the aubergine lengthwise, then cut into 2-3 cm chunks. Chop the coriander, stalks and all.
After 10 minutes take the rice off of the heat. Cover with a lid and leave it to steam.
Turn the frying pan heat up. Add the aubergine and 2 tablespoons of oil. Fry on medium heat for 3-4 minutes, to colour the aubergine a little. Then add 1/4 of a standard mug of water. Let it bubble away so that the aubergine starts to soften for 2-3 minutes. Then keep frying the aubergine until it is tender. Again about 2-3 minutes.
Handful by handful, stir the spinach into the rice. Season as needed.
Stir in the miso and mirin into the aubergine. Then add the tamari. If you need to loosen it a bit, add a splash or two of water.
Stir in the sesame seeds and half of the coriander into the aubergine. Season it and add a squeeze of lime juice to taste.
Serve the rice with the aubergine, sprinkled with the toasted coconut chips and the rest of the coriander.
Verdict:
This meal was an absolute star in my eyes. I am obsessed with it. Sam really enjoyed it as well, though out of the 2, he preferred the lasagne. Again, the recipe made heaps so there was enough for leftovers. This recipe only took about 30 minutes so it was perfect for something extremely delicious but not as heavily involved.
Overall:
I was extremely thrilled with my Riverford Recipe Boxes. I think that the vegan options are really interesting and a lot of thought has been put into them to make them flavourful, filling and well-balanced. The food was all the high-quality that I’ve come to expect from my Riverford deliveries, and as always, the customer service is amazing.
Have you tried the Riverford Recipe boxes? What about any other recipes boxes?
***This post was a gifted collaboration with Riverford, but as always, all thoughts and opinions are forever my own.***
