We are so lucky in Brussels to have plenty of schemes out there to choose from: most of the schemes cater for single person households or larger families; people looking for only veg or a fruit and veg mix; and pick-up locations all around the city (and a few that deliver to your door).

Here’s five reasons why I think veggie boxes rock:

1)   It’s seasonal, fresh and usually very local – this is less food miles/kilometers and better for you and the planet

2)   Organisations worth supporting – veggie box schemes are run by bunches of lovely people committed to their cause of providing good quality food – we can’t say that about every supermarket!

3)   Community – they are delivered close to home or the office and often we get a chance to meet like minded people where we pick them up…

4)   Variety is the spice of life! If we always go to the same shops at the same moment of the week we are most likely to continue to pick up the same ingredients. Letting someone else choose helps us to add that bit of variety…

5)   They spark our creativity! I so often hear people saying they have no time to be creative (i.e. no time to paint!) – but cooking is one of the best creative activities that we can do every day, and we can eat the results. Winner.

Getting a celeriac or Jerusalem artichokes in the box forces us into finding new recipes or to make them up

Here’s a few suppliers in Brussels…

https://www.efarmz.be/fr/

www.cirkle.be/

http://www.lheureuxnouveau.be/

https://www.diepenboomgaard.be

or through a local collective buying group (GASAP) https://gasap.be/

The post In the (veggie) box – Brussels’s wonderful offer on organic vegetable boxes appeared first on Brussels Express.

Ingredients for 6 Burgers:

For the Beetroot patties:

• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped in fine cubes
• 2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
• 1 small chili, very finely chopped
• 2 tbsp fennelseeds
• 500g beetroot, peeled
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika powder
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 50g oats
• 2 tbsp panko or normal breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs (L)
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Others:

• some olive oil
• 6 tbsp apple tomato Chutney (recipe here)
• 6 burger buns
• 100g firm goat cheese, cut in thin slices
• 100g Shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and halved
• some butter
• approx. 75g fresh spinach, washed
• pickled big radishes, onions (recipe here), or simply pickles
• 12 tsp truffle or normal Mayonnaise

 Below the preparation

Preparation:

1. Heat a pan on medium heat. Add olive oil and onions, garlic, chili as well as fennel seeds. Fry until soft and translucent.

2. Grate beetroot into medium big stripes into a bowl. Add salt, smoked paprika powder, oats, breadcrumbs, eggs, olive oil, as well as the fried onion mix from the pan and stir everything well in, cover bowl with clingfilm and let sit in fridge for about an hour, so the oats can soak up the juice from the beetroot.

3. Take beet mix from fridge and have shiitake mushrooms ready. Heat two pans (a big and a small one). Pour 3-4 tbsp olive oil into the bigger pan and some butter (around 1 tbsp) into the smaller one. Form 6 equal patties from the beetroot mix, around 2 cm thick, and squeeze a bit to get rid of some of the juices. The patty should be moist, but not too moist, otherwise it’ll fall apart. Then place in the hot oil. Fry on one side for 3 minutes, or until golden brown and place 3-4 stripes of goat cheese on top. Fry for another 3-4 minutes and if needed, shortly cover them with a lid so the cheese melts quicker.

4. At the same time add shiitake mushrooms to the pan with butter and fry until they’re cripsy outside but soft inside. Set aside.

5. Cut the burger buns in half horizontally and toast with the open side. On the bottom part of the bun spead a tbsp of the chutney, place the grilled patty with cheese on it. Add a tsp of mayonnaise, then the shiitake and then some spinach leaves, and some of your pickled vegetables. Add a tsp of mayonnaise on the open side of the upper bun part as well and close the burger with it.

6. Serve warm, with extra Chutney, oven baked potatoes or sweet potato fries (recipe here).

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