I don't think I have ever posted about my love of vegetable boxes. It is a real treat to get a box of mystery ingredients and then being able to decide what to cook (obviously not in a scary "Masterchef...lots of pressure/you have 40 minutes to create the dish of our dreams" way but in a more relaxed, browsing all my cook books for recipes kind of way). Being faced with a vegetable you don't usually cook, may take you out of your comfort zone but it means that we usually end up with a dish we have not tried before which is a good thing. There are lots of good vegetable delivery companies local to us and I support them as often as I can. We are also blessed with a good few farm shops that sell local produce. When I am looking for a treat and particularly when I am in need of lots of fresh herbs I order from none other than Gregg Wallace's vegetable company. They deliver to lots of the top British restaurants and I have to say (I am biased of course given the MC connections) that the vegetables are simply excellent - lovely micro leaves, peashoots, borage flowers and chive flowers and really fresh veg and fruit - lots of unusual things that I don't normally see in standard veg boxes. Each box comes with a large bag of fresh herbs - some of which I chop and freeze in ice cubes for a rainy day and the remainder of which I put in everything I cook until I have run out. There is something so decadent about having a large pile of herbs to use, rather than picking sparingly from the garden so that I don't use up my whole supply or buying the little packets from supermarkets. With my last delivery, I made oven dried tomatoes with some delicious yellow baby tomatoes that were in my box; simply cut your tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds. Place on a baking sheet with baking paper or a silicon mat, drizzle with a good quality olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt, course ground black pepper and fresh herbs. Bake in the lowest possible setting of your oven for approximately 2 hours (Aga simmering oven is ideal for this) checking every half hour (and more often towards the end) until they are dried. Transfer to a sterilised jam jar and cover with olive oil to preserve. These are perfect in salads or with pasta.

Gregg's vegetable boxes are available from www.greggsveg.com