Organic Veg Box (and Cassoulet)

So, despite it being rather bourgouise, Kate and I have started having our vegetables delivered in boxes from River Nene Organic Vegetables (http://www.rivernene.co.uk). They grow over 60 different veg on site, and promise to pack them one day and deliver the next. They're based in Peterborough, which is near enough to count as local for us (not that I give a damn about food miles - it's only the quality of food that I care for.)

It's definitely made a difference to how well we've eaten this week, with Kate making an amazing spicy vegetable gratin, and our Friday night divergence (Kate had smoked sea trout and I had a ribeye) getting a unifying element of crushed potatoes (a thick mash with garlic, onion and herbs) and green beans (haricots verts). As well as a clear improvement in taste over even organic supermarket vegetables (the spinach was the best I've had in years) the process of cleaning and preparing the veg has been a lot of fun and made me feel a lot more involved in the dishes. Now, I just need something to do with those carrot tops...

Last night I made a cassoulet, something I've been dying for for a while and trying to come up with a decent recipe for. Kate eats fish, but no meat, and a cassoulet is a serious amount of food for one, so I decided to make a vegetarian one (any French readers now faint). In the end I replaced the meat with Quorn sausages (the frozen, unspiced ones), heavily browned, and dried porcini mushrooms. The result was a clean taste that was clearly cassoulet-like but without the fat usually extruded by the meats during cooking. I was rather pleased with it.