Online Ordering for 2nd February – 6th February (Week 5)
It’s citrus season, and we might say everything’s looking (and tasting) bloody lovely.
We’ve got oranges of all shapes and varieties coming through the doors at the moment. Pictured above, from left to right: bitter oranges from Gospa – ideal for marmalade, honeybell oranges from Dynamis, an easy-peeling hybrid of tangerine and grapefruit, blood Moro oranges from Geima, and finally the sweet, pink-fleshed Cara Cara oranges, also from Dynamis.
And if you scroll to the bottom of today’s newsletter, you’ll find our in-house chef extraordinaire Alph’s latest recipe – a very good homemade blood orange granola bowl. 🤤
Good afternoon again everyone,
And just like that, with storm Chadra shaking all of our windows, February is once again upon us. It’s looking fairly bleak out there tday for a lot of us but despite the cool temps and raging winds, we’ve got the best late Jan list of veg we’ve ever had for you guys to go at so it ain’t all bad : )
One big gust of wind this end and our minds in the office turn to fretting about our fate of our mushroom deliveries. These arrive to us from Northern Ireland by boat but if it’s blowing ahooley, it can get too choppy for them to launch or dock. That can mean some deliveries miss the metaphorical boat in our warehouse as vans are scheduled to depart us at certain times each Mondays and Wednesdays. With no domestic supplier of organic mushrooms left in the UK, there’s little we can do to get around this but as ever, we’ll always try out best to find you guys subs if the worst does ever happen.
To matters more positive, our new regular red pepper supplier Terra Rica came through with the goods with their first delivery and the peppers tasted great. This week we’ve also got some of the fab calcots available for you from Cal Valls. For those unaccustomed, these are a type of green onion traditionally grown in the City of Valls in Tarragona, Catalonia in North Eastern Spain.
So specialised to the area they’re grown, these have been granted special EU Geographical Status – we’re chuffed to have access to them. They’re traditionally charred on bbqs and the like and once you’ve removed the blackened outer skin, you dip these sweet, skinny leek-looking bad boys in a nutty romesco sauce and gobble them down. They’re really delicious and if you’ve not tried them, well you really should!
Staying with sunnier climbs for a minute, the Spanish blueberries are now very closeand we’re planning to start with Frutti’s tarocco blood oranges next week from Sicily too. Though the tarocco is one of the least bloody of the blood oranges, it’s the most popular table orange in Italy. They’re bloody delicious, we know that much, and like the calcots, a real annual highlight.
This week’s veg updates:
- Starting in the UK, Royal Oak has kalette stalks, kalette tops with hearts and 25kg bags of their markies white, caledoninan rose and red Cara spuds. Newfields have also added kalettes to their offering.
- On the UK fruit front, Mole End have added some more meridian cox apples and Oakwood have some Adam’s pearmain apple juice for us to go at.
- From Spain, as mentioned above we’ve got calcots from Cal Valls on the list this week (hurray!) as well as some white marsh grapefruits from Biovergel and blood Moro oranges from
- From Italy, Mads has been chatting with JWE and they’ve now got all their herbs available in 50g punnets.
- From Holland, Zann has some purple artichokes, radicchio, limequats, ciaculli mandarins and honeybell oranges.
- From France, Uni-Vert has added some little gem while Bio & Bio have some aubergines, mint and parsley flat and our top picks out from Dynamis this week are the peas, yellow soreli kiwis, tango clems, president heron pears and passe crassane pears.
- On the cheese front, we’ve a couple new types available from Botton Village Creamery which are their classic Gouda with chilli and their moorland tomme which has a nutty and slightly sweet flavour.
- And just as one final note, any customers that buy from the guys at Sky Sprouts. If you are planning to put in a large order please could you give us a little heads up the week before as the UK green scene isn’t great at the moment and we will need to confirm the full order before hand. Thank you!
That’s about it from us this week but see below for our Alphin’s first recipe below. Alph’s only been working with us for a few months but he’s settling in great. He works with us in the warehouse the office and he cooks most of our staff brunches too. A chef formerly, he has some great culinary skills. So much so, we’re thinking of making a book out of his weekly creations. All hail Alph!
Speak soon everyone, have a great week,
Sean, Mads, Alph, Cathryn, Ell and Team ON x
Alph’s Blood Orange Granola Bowl 🍊🥣
You’ll Need:
- 1 Blood Orange – Biovergel
- 50g White Flour – Whissendine
- 50g Oats Jumbo – Pimhill
- 50g Soft Salted Butter – Netherend
- 4 Tbsp Wildflower Honey – Forest Wholefoods
- 100g Natural Yoghurt – Loch Arthur
- 25g Pumpkin Seeds – Forest Wholefoods
First, preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Then to make the granola, add the flour, oats and butter to a large bowl. Begin rubbing the mix between your fingers until it resembles something similar to an oaty crumble. Then mix the seeds through and add 3 tablespoons of the honey and mix well. Next, lay the mix out flat on a baking tray and bake in the oven for roughly 12 mins or until golden. (If you don’t fancy making your own granola we have some great options from Side Oven to choose from.)
Once the granola is cooked and cooling, start preparing the orange. With a sharp knife take the very top and bottom of the orange off, so that you have sliced into the flesh slightly and it sits flat on the chopping board. Then start to slowly peel down with the knife taking neat layers of the skin from the edges, keeping as close to the skin as possible. Once peeled, begin cutting the orange into bitesize pieces.
Now it’s time to build the bowl, I always start by spreading a thick layer of yoghurt evenly around the bottom of a cereal bowl. Then I add a good sprinkle of the granola and neatly spread the orange on top. Lastly, drizzle the remaining honey all over the bowl and enjoy!