My Best Organic

For those who are curious about what you actually get in various box schemes, I am embarking upon a series of reviews. I do absolutely love Goodness Direct - they have the best product range and their fruit and veg boxes are fantastic value for money. Are there any drawbacks in their scheme? Yes - you cannot ‘exclude’ any particular produce you dislike, so you just have to get creative or give away anything you can’t use. The other slight negative is that they do not always deliver the day you expect, so you need to allow a couple of days for arrival.

What was in this week’s fruit box? We received 7 bananas, 1 medium size pineapple, 1 mango, 6 oranges, 8 kiwis, 5 plums and 8 apples. The quality is generally good. So far we have tried the bananas (ripe, not too bruised), the oranges (sweet), the plums (disappointing) and the apples (quite nice as far as apples go - my sons seem to like them).

The box cost £9.99 and definitely provided enough fruit for our family for a week. It is all organic. I think this represents great value, and having had their fruit boxes many times in the past, I would say this was fairly typical. Highly recommended. Oh - and you don’t have to sign up to receive one every week - just order as and when you want.

My two year old son saw some other children eating biscuits recently - and started asking for them…so I put together this rather indulgent recipe this morning. The biscuits turned out really well - very sweet, but lovely. It also does not contain any transfats.

Ingredients

• 125g coconut oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup sugar (You could use less if trying to cut down; even with half a cup the biscuits would be sweet enough)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of plain flour
• Half a mug of self-raising flour
• Half a mug of porridge oats
• Half a mug of chopped up soft dried apricots

I used an average sized coffee mug for measuring.

Method

• Preheat oven to 175 degrees
• Cream the coconut oil with the sugar, egg and vanilla until quite light
• Add the flours, cinnamon and porridge oats until mixture starts to stick together
• Stir in the apricots
• Shape mixture into balls - each one should be about a tablespoon’s worth of mixture
• Place on baking tray/baking paper. Bake for approximately 12-15 minutes
• Biscuits will still be quite soft when they first come out of the oven, but don’t worry, they will become crisp on the outside as they cool. They’ll stay soft and slightly moist on the inside.

This amount made about 25 biscuits - kind of lost count as my son and I ate quite a few as they came out of the oven!

This post was submitted by Susannah.

I tried out this new idea yesterday, and the results have all been eaten, so I guess it was a success. I wanted to create a breakfast type snack for those with multiple allergies and for vegans who are trying to cut down on wheat based cereals. This quantity makes about 20 small squares - so about four breakfasts/snacks worth for a toddler.

Ingredients (all quantities are approximate)
75g Nature’s Path Organic Millet Rice Flakes
10 soft dried apricots
2 handfuls of sultanas
2 teaspoons golden linseed
2 teaspoons pumpkin seeds

Method
Place seeds in blender and blend until quite fine
Add sultanas and apricots into blender along with seeds and blend
Add millet etc., flakes and whiz briefly to combine ingredients
Press the mixture firmly into a small shallow dish
Leave for about an hour to settle
Cut into squares

Exceedingly healthy! (But still delicious x)

This post was submitted by Susannah.

There’s no denying it, Jamie Oliver is a bit of a legend. His work to raise the standards of food in schools is fantastic. I’ve recently seen that a firm are producing vending machines for schools that are stocked only with organic and healthy snacks - what a great idea. Children like vending machines! Schools, unfortunately, have in some cases become reliant on the extra income from selling snacks so it’s such good news that businesses are starting to provide alternatives for forward-thinking institutions.

Another aspect that I think Jamie has been helpful in, is encouraging new gardeners to have a go at growing their own food. On his website that he even has organic herb seeds with shiny grow-bag gift packs. With such enticing packaging and with Jamie’s name on it, who could resist? With fresh organic herbs so difficult to come by, it seems like a sensible solution. In that spirit I have a pack of basil seeds to try. I don’t have a particularly successful history of looking after plants, but I’m guessing the motivation of fresh basil in my quiche and in pasta sauces will be quite useful x

This post was submitted by Susannah.

I’ve just been looking at the 40% off sale on Ecotopia, and found some excellent bargains - particularly the herbs and spices. For example, organic ground ginger for 59p.

This post was submitted by Susannah.

You know those moments when you think yourself a genius? Well, it doesn’t happen often for me, but today I had one of those moments. I experimented with a new carrot cake recipe and the results made all who ate it squirm with pleasure! Even my husband said it was the best cake he’d ever eaten (and he’s eaten a lot).

The great thing is, the recipe is dairy-free, does not contain any hydrogenated or trans fats and is substantially lower in fat than the average cake. However, two drawbacks are: because it’s made with coconut oil, it does contain saturated fat (I think about 4g per slice - recommended daily intake for adults is between 20-30g per day) and it does require a bit of faffing about in the kitchen. It took me about 20 minutes to prepare and 25 minutes to cook (and about 10 minutes to wash-up as I don’t have a dishwasher). But it’s worth it.

Ingredients

• 250g organic self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 50g coconut oil
• 250g sugar (I use organic unrefined)
• 2 teaspoons apricot extra jam
• 4 eggs
• 10ml vanilla extract
• 2 large carrots

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees (might need slightly higher for non-fan oven)
2. Peel the carrots. Chop one of them and put in small saucepan with some water and bring to boil. Let simmer for about 15 minutes whilst you do rest of preparation
3. Grate other carrot and put aside
4. Blend the eggs and coconut oil together. Add sugar, cinnamon, jam and vanilla extract and blend some more.
5. When carrot has simmered for approx 15 minutes, add to blended mixture and blend some more until quite smooth
6. Put blended mixture in a large bowl and fold in flour
7. Add grated carrot to mixture
8. Pour mixture into a prepared cake tin (about 10″ diameter. I do usually find that using unbleached baking paper gives a better result and ensures that no chemicals have leached from tins
9. Bake for about 25 minutes until a knife comes out of cake clean if stabbed into it all the way to bottom of tin
10. Let cool in tin for about 10 minutes
11. Turn out onto wire rack - and try to resist cutting a slice immediately x

This post was submitted by Susannah.

We had this for dinner this evening, and it went down a treat. As it’s quite a cheap meal to knock together we splashed out on some decent organic pasta…Seeds of Change have a nice range.

Ingredients
50g sundried tomatoes
2 fresh tomatoes
1 red onion
generous handful young spinach
mushrooms
Kallo Vegetable Stock Cube
pasta

1. Rinse and then rehydrate the sundried tomatoes following instructions on pack. Do not discard the liquid afterwards.
2. Rough chop onion and steam fry for a couple of minutes in a little olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of liquid from the sundried tomatoes
3. Rough chop the tomatoes and add to onion along with the sundried tomatoes
4. Add spinach and more liquid if needed. Gently cook for about 10 minutes until soft
5. Place above in blender and blend until consistency of pesto
6. Clean and chop mushrooms. Steam fry in olive oil and more left over liquid from sundried tomatoes, add a Kallo Veg Stock Cube

Serve cooked pasta mixed with the sauce and place the mushrooms on top in the centre for a bit of presentation malarkey

This amount of sauce should be enough for about four servings x

This post was submitted by Susannah.

I’m not sure if this product is widely available, as I just checked the online Sainsbury store and couldn’t find it. Maybe they’ve only just introduced it? Not sure. Anyway, at our local Sainsbury store I bought a pack of eight frozen organic beef burgers for a mere 49p. Bargain!

This post was submitted by Susannah.

This is really easy and tastes amazing. It’s suitable for vegans and those with dairy allergies but does contain nuts.

Ingredients
100g (approx) Brazil nuts
250g (approx) soft dried dates

Finely chop the nuts (yeah, I use my poor old blender)
Blend the dates
Mix together - easiest done using your hands to kind of press the mixture together
Press mixture into shallow tin and cut into small squares

This amount of mixture made about 30 squares each measuring approximately 2 cm
Next time I make it I’m going to try to include a few rough-chopped dried cherries to add a bit of a sour kick to the taste and a bit of drama to the texture x

This post was submitted by Susannah.

This recipe only takes five minutes to prepare and about 15 minutes to cook. It’s great with veg and nuts (or chicken if you’re a meat-eater).

Ingredients
1 onion - peeled and cut in half
1 or two cloves garlic - peeled
2 fresh tomatoes - cut in half
1 tin coconut milk
1 teaspoon paprika
1 or 2 teaspoons korma mix (Infinity Foods in Brighton do a great one)
pinch seasalt

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, this makes enough sauce for about four people. It is quite a thin sauce, but very tasty.
Steam-fry veg/chicken for couple of minutes
Add sauce and bring to bubble. Simmer gently for 15 minutes or until all cooked

Gorgeous - and a real hit with children, too, as it’s mild and quite sweet x

This post was submitted by Susannah.