Recipes
Sometimes you might get something in your veggie box that is totally unfamiliar to you! You might not be aware what parts of a plant you can even eat! So here’s some recommendations and links to recipe ideas to help you cook something super delicious with your veg!
Kaicycle salad mix
Beans
Beans are such a delicious summer crop. Sneaking a bean fresh from the plant while working in the māra feels like the epitome of summer gardening! Beans can be eaten raw or cooked; I like mine cooked a tiny bit but still with a healthy crunch!
Beetroot
Beetroot is great eaten raw, grated in salad or sandwiches, roasted with other root veggies, or included in a soup or pasta sauce. Beetroot are closely related to silverbeet/chard so make sure you’re eating your beetroot leaves too!
Broad beans
My favourite way to eat broad beans is fresh out of the pod added to soup as it’s served, or in a salad. Broad beans are easy to overcook so be cautious lest they turn to mush (unless that’s what you’re going for)! I use broad bean pods when making a ‘pesto’, it really bulks it out and if you have a powerful blender or nutribullet type thing they blend up very well.
Broad bean shoots
Broad bean shoots or tips are the top of the growing plant that is edible and super yum! It’s a real treat to have them as they’re very delicate and tend to wilt so they’re not widely available! You can eat them raw in salads or sandwiches, or lightly sauté them and serve on top of something like a pesto pasta! Yum!
Carrot
Aah carrots! A staple but never the hero! We probably all know some basic, potentially boring, ways to use carrots, grated in salads or sandwiches, boiled, roasted. Some further ideas; cake, added into a soup, a delicious crunchy snack, the list feels kinda endless when it comes to carrots!
Celery
Another staple, potentially unexciting, classic veg. Also somewhat divisive….
Daikon
Daikon is a super yum Japanese radish. It can be eaten raw in salad, cooked, or pickled.
Daikon leaves are also edible. I like to add them in when making a pesto or soup but they can be wilted and used like you would spinach or silverbeet.
Fennel bulb
Fennel can be another divisive vegetable. With a strong flavour and scent it’s not everyone’s cup of tea! It can be eaten raw or cooked.
Fennel leaves
The fennel leaves are likewise a powerful flavour! They’re great added to salads, used as a garnish, added into pesto or blended in pasta sauce.
Māori potatoes
Kale
Kale is a Kaicycle staple! It grows well at our site and is a reliable crop over the whole year. It’s in the boxes most weeks over winter which can become a little tedious, so here’s some ideas of ways to get creative with your kale!
Leek
Leeks are one of the most delicious late winter /early spring veggies, heralding the coming of the warmth!
I love to make a soup with leeks and any other greens I have lying around, cooked thoroughly then blended up and served with fresh herbs and cream or cheese.
Another staple is a leek and bacon (or facon) pie.
Marrow
A marrow is just a zucchini fully ‘ripe’, in the plant’s terms. The seeds are mature and the skin is hardened to protect the seeds. Marrow is great roasted and souped or, my personal favourite, stuffed!
I like to use this recipe as a starting point, making changes along the way, adding any vegetable I have on hand as well as a carb to the mix.
Mung bean (sprouted)
It is recommended that sprouted mung beans are cooked before eating so they’re great in a stir fry, baked into a pie, or as their own side dish.
However if you do want to eat them raw they’re great in a salad or sprinkled on top of toast. My favourite is peanut butter with sprouted mung beans!
Pak choi
Pak choi can be eaten raw, chopped up in a salad mix, or even in sandwiches. Classically it’s a stir fry vegetable or steamed and served with a sauce as a side dish.
Parsley
Parsley is a real winter staple for the Kaicycle boxes, often massive bunches are included over the colder months! My favourite thing to do with a big healthy bunch of fresh parsley is make a ‘pesto’. I add olive oil, salt, pepper, chilli, nutritional yeast, and any other leafy greens that are a bit past their prime or would add a good flavour, sorrel, fennel, basil, even microgreens, all add great depth of flavour! I always use the leaves and the stems of my parsley so none of that flavour is going to waste!
Another thing I love is a parsley salad. Chopping finely the leaves and stems of the parsley and using it as you would lettuce. My recommendation is a parsley salad that’s equal parts vegetables and carbs. Lentils, chickpeas, and Israeli couscous are all good options on the carb front!
If you’re not into eating your parsley stems, they’re a perfect ingredient for making your own stock! Save veggie scraps like parsley stems, onion skins, carrot peels, and any other herb offcuts in the freezer until you have enough to make a delicious homemade stock!
Pumpkin
Nothing can beat that incredible flavour of a perfect, sweet pumpkin! I love my pumpkin roasted, souped, or stuffed.
A winter Kaicycle veggie box
Radish
Radish roots are best eaten fresh in my opinion, either sliced into a salad or eaten as is with a bit of butter and salt. However, you can cook them!
Radish leaves are also edible and super good for you!
Silverbeet
Silverbeet is another winter staple, meaning you’re liable to run out of interesting things to do with it over the weeks!
Sorrel
I’m not ashamed to say sorrel is my favourite leaf, the end. If you’re not familiar with sorrel, that’s not surprising! It’s leaves are similar to spinach but a much lighter green and it has an amazingly lemony flavour to it. In fact, it’s traditionally used instead of citrus in places like Russia where it’s too cold for citrus to thrive! Not to be confused with wood sorrel which is also edible and looks a bit like clover.
My favourite thing to do with sorrel, apart from just chomping the leaves, is to make a dressing/sauce out of it. I blend up sorrel leaves (stem and all) with olive oil, a healthy amount of nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. You can add chilli, or my personal preference is to add greek yoghurt to make it into a creamy affair.
Sprouting broccoli
We don’t grow broccoli heads at Kaicycle, we opt for the seemingly endless supply of sprouting broccoli. Both the stems and leaves of sprouting broccoli are edible and delicious. I like to roast the stems so that the head and stem are soft with still a bit of crunch and the leaves are crispy and crunchy!
Various sprouting broccoli recipes
Tomato
The queen of summer! Fresh tomatoes are best eaten fresh by the dozen. Served with basil, olive oil and mozzerella is a great way to get the fresh tomato flavour with some of it’s best culinary friends.
Roasted and used as a pasta sauce or spread for toast are other great ways of enjoying them.
If you’re finding the summer tomato frenzy too much for you, tomatoes freeze very well and this way you can save some of that summery flavour for the cold dark months!
Turnip
A vegetable unfamiliar to the Kiwi palate, is the humble turnip! I’ll admit I had never eaten a turnip until a couple years ago and it is a vegetable that seems old timey, to me at least. I think of pre-industrial home gardens!
BUT, the options are endless!
Small turnips are best eaten raw, sliced or grated into salads or sandwiches. Larger turnips are good for roasting, souping, or pickling.
And the leaves are edible!
Zucchini
Zucchini is another vegetable that people tend to get sick of, or run out of ideas for, when there’s been the usual summer glut. Cubed and roasted and put in salads, sliced and grilled for sandwiches, raw in salads, grated and used in cake, there’s actually zillions of recipes!
My favourite thing to do is make a summer pasta sauce by roasting zucchini, eggplants, and tomatoes with liberal olive oil until they can be mashed with a fork. Then you can either add other veggies like summer sprouting broccoli, beans, peas etc or just stir through pasta! Yum!