Abel and Cole fruit & veg box

It's been about a year and a half since we started to receive a vegetable box from Abel and Cole. For the first year I was buying the gourmet veg box, which I recently changed for a small fruit and veg box, as they had most glorious blood oranges (all gone now, sadly, will have to wait for the next season).
And though I know what will arrive in the next box (well, most of the products, as I ticked off some things on the list which I don't fancy, and you never know what will be sent as a substitute), I am always excited to get a new box. Eddie and I open it together.
Our recent box included:
a box of tomatoes
a bag of potatoes
a bunch of beetroot with leaves
2 courgettes
onions
mango
oranges
pears

Tomatoes are Eddie's favourites, he is happy to eat a whole box given a chance. They are sweet and juicy, and disappeared almost at once.
Mango was quite hard, so I left it to ripen with the other fruit in the fruit bowl, and later made a mango smoothie (no pictures): whizz 1 cubed mango, a small tub of Greek style yogurt and semi-skimmed milk for the most refreshing drink.
Beetroot came with the very fresh greenery, and I cooked a lovely spring borscht with the beet leaves, beet and nettle. For a recipe, please visit my post Spring borscht with beet leaves and nettle. The other day our friend Jay had popped in for a morning cup of coffee, and I mentioned the borscht and said "I love beetroot". He laughed and said: "Of course, you do. You're Russian"

Potatoes went in the chicken soup that I cook for my older son (it's the only soup he agrees to eat, so I cook it most days for him), and as the side dish for the roast chicken with stuffing (one of the onions used).

Slightly parboil the potatoes cut into chunks in the salted water, then place them in a roasting tin or dish, drizzle with the olive oil, add the garlic cloves, sprinkle with nutmeg and roast in the oven at 180C until golden brown.

I also had some leeks left over from the previous week's box and decided to cook a side dish of courgettes, leeks and pear.
2 courgettes
2 leeks
1 pear
2 tbsp green jalapeno sauce
olive oil
salt, pepper
Slice the courgettes, pear and leeks and fry in the pan with the olive oil. Season well. Add the green jalapeno sauce. Stir regularly, add a bit of water and cover the frying pan with the lid to speed up the cooking.
Serve as a side dish to any roast meat or the toad in the hole.

The oranges, zested and juiced, became an orange polenta cake. I bake this cake every week, as it's my guys' favourite, only minus the blood oranges now, which were used for decoration in the original post.
We ate the rest of the fruit, and I still have one or two onions left, which I plan to use this week.

I did a series of posts of recipes for the produce of Abel and Cole.
To see them all please follow the tag Abel and Cole on my sidebar or this link.

Whether you receive a veg box from Abel and Cole, Riverford or any other local brand, you might like to join in the #TheVegChallenge onKirschplunder's blog (link removed as old).