Welcome to the February edition of the Veg Box Recipes newsletter.

Whilst it might not yet feel spring-like, wherever you are, the signs are there.

We've got snow drops, cautiously peaking their heads out from under the autumn's fallen leaves and even the daffodils are casually announcing their imminent arrival. And with this change comes the earliest signs of spring vegetables, usually from the warmer climes of mainland Europe.

In this edition, you've got the usual rundown on what's in season and what to do with it all, plus some of our favourite seasonal recipes. We're blogging about our millionth visitor (very exciting!) and the forums are talking about how to store vegetables, from black stockings to lime powder and beyond...

I hope you enjoy reading the newsletter - and please do join in by sharing your views via the blogs and forum or replying to this email.

Love,
Clare x


What's In Season
When it comes to vegetables, we're seeing the last of the autumn and winter squashes, but enjoying plentiful supplies of cauliflower, sprouting broccoli, kale, chard, winter spinach, beetroot, parsnip, celeriac, cabbage, kohlrabi, swede, turnips and still quite a selection of salad leaves, grown under cover.

The Spanish orange season is in full swing - time to buy your Sevilles and get marmalade making! Plus some box schemes are even getting hold of the first broad beans from Spain - UK broad beans are still a while off, though.

Some of you might be lucky enough to get your hands on early rhubarb, which is one of my favourite fruits / vegetables and is definitely a sign that spring is on its way.

Click on the links above to find out more about each vegetable and discover some delicious recipe ideas.

Got a mystery veggie? Find out what it is




Featured Recipes
Rhubarb Crumble
Rhubarb crumble is one of those desserts that lets us know winter is nearly over and spring is on its way. And it's so easy to make.
The great news is that you can make it from February to May, by using early forced rhubarb then outdoors-grown rhubarb later in the season.



Garlic Spinach
This is a delicious recipe for garlic spinach. It's a great way of using up a glut of spinach and works well with baby spinach leaves or even winter spinach. It's one of our Action Against Hunger fundraising recipes.




Sprouting Broccoli & Sesame Stir Fry
This takes literally a couple of minutes to cook and tastes delicious. Stir frying is a great way of preparing fresh, young sprouting broccoli and the flavour goes really well with the sesame seeds and tamari.



Pureed Swede With Cheese Crust
Many people are put off by childhood memories of swede - often confused with turnip. Yet its yellow-orange flesh can be delicious.
This recipe tops pureed swede with a crunchy cheese and seed crust, to add some variety and extra vitamins.




Mustard Cabbage
Wholegrain mustard transforms winter cabbage into an inspiring side-dish. By sautéing the cabbage in butter, rather than boiling, it tastes sweeter and less cabbage-like. So this recipe might even tempt devout cabbage-haters back to the dinner table.





Our Millionth Visitor!
This month has seen our millionth visitor!

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this target.

In fact, we're getting over 130,000 unique visitors every month and it's still rising (a great time to advertise with us, if you're interested...!)

I have to say that I never would have dreamed we'd make it to a million visitors, when I first came up with the idea for Veg Box Recipes. I still run the website as a hobby and it makes my day when I open my emails to find messages from people telling me the website has helped them.

So what should be the next stage?

Do you have any ideas for what else Veg Box Recipes should be offering? How should we be moving the site forward for the next million visitors?
If you'd like to have your say, please comment on the Millionth Visitor blog entry.
Thank you!
http://blog.vegbox-recipes.co.uk/2008/02/13/1-million-visitors/


Did you know...?
Did you know you can send us photos of our recipes, to add to the website?
You don't have to be a professional photographer (I'm certainly not...), as long as the image is usable on a website and gives an idea of how the finished dish can look. So if you're trying out one of the Veg Box Recipes and have a digital camera handy, take a pic or two and email them back to me:

clare@vegbox-recipes.co.uk

Thank you to Christine, Christoph and Mihail for their pictures of minestrone soup, celeriac and beetroot gratin and Greek kohlrabi salad.



Guest Bloggers
In the next few months, a couple of box scheme providers are going to be guest blogging for us - thank you guys!
If you're interested in becoming a regular guest blogger on anything to do with seasonal food or green living, please let me know.



Storage Tips - From Black Stockings To Lime Powder And Beyond...
Do you have any tried and tested, if slightly unusual, storage tips for seasonal fruit and vegetables? Maybe it's something you discovered by accident or perhaps an old family tradition your Granny shared with you? Would you like to share them? So far we've got black stockings and lime stone powder! If you think you can beat that, or just want to share a tried-and-tested solution, please check out the forum!

http://forum.vegbox-recipes.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=213



That's it for this month. I hope you've enjoyed this newsletter.

It's always lovely to hear from you, so please feel free to drop me a reply if you have anything to say.

And, once again, thank you all for your support!

Clare x


P.S. If you're involved with a website or magazine and fancy helping spread the message about Veg Box Recipes, please tell your visitors our exciting news and check out our Press section, which includes background on veg boxes, more about the website and some photographs / logos you can download to use with your article. Thank you for your help

P.P.S. Veg Box Providers: I'm happy for you to forward this newsletter to your customers.

P.P.P..S. If anyone out there would like to link to us, here's how to make it easy: http://www.vegbox-recipes.co.uk/link-to-veg-box-recipes.php

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