Farmison - heaven in a box - review

I was recently sent a box of fruit and vegetables by Farmison to review. Farmison put together boxes of fruit/vegetables, meat and cheeses and deliver these straight to your door, the idea is simply the normal veg box notion with a few pluses, unfortunately veg boxes are something I have not found easy to access in the past because of where I live. Farmison will deliver within days of placing an order, you can check on the website if they deliver to you.These are the 7 core values of the company (taken from the same website).
1. Farmison provides home cooks with fabulous foods that would normally only be found in the kitchens of discerning, ingredient-aware chefs.
2. Farmison provides a lip-smacking alternative to the year-round monotony of supermarkets.
3. Farmison constantly changes what it sells to reflect what's in season. When foods are not at their best, we don't stock them.
4. Farmison supports biodiversity in our food chain by promoting rare breed meats and searching out less common fruit and vegetable varieties.
5. Farmison gives small-scale food producers a UK-wide platform to showcase and sell their products, complementing their own local initiatives.
6. Farmison sources food from the UK first and foremost and only chooses imported food if there is no British equivalent.
7. Farmison sells foods produced in a way that respects farm animals, producers and the environment. 

The box contained:
Squash                          Comice Pears
Green Cauliflower          Melon
Parlsey Root                  Punnet Strasberries
Garlic                             Live Natural Yoghurt                   
Potatoes
Red Long Peppers
Small Onions
Turnips
Farmison claim they will source fruit and veg varieties that you don't find as easily in the supermarkets (similar claims are made for the meat and cheeses too). The boxes change each week and details of what is contained within that weeks box is on the website to see before you order. Everything in the box I received was in lovely fresh condition and carefully packaged, the yoghurts for example were wrapped in a chilled jacket to keep them fresh, the delicious just ripe softer fruit items were in a separate layer to the harder fruit and vegetables. The box includes a list of what the box contains and where the produce is from, everything in the box was English on this occasion, except the melon and the garlic that were both from France.

As well as a list of contents the box contains a recipe for

some of the more unusual produce, on this occasion recipes
for Parsley Root and the Small Onions.

















Below is how the contents were eaten in a week within our household.

Squash - roasted with other veg (seeds given to hens!)                                 

Green Cauliflower  - boiled & served as part of a roast dinner   

Parlsey Root - roasted with other veg            

Garlic - used in roast veg/soups/spag bol/garlic bread                                   

Potatoes - jacket potatoes with cheese x 2 for a lunch & mashed potato for another meal

Red Long Peppers - roasted with other veg

Small Onions - used the Farmison recipe and made a side dish for a main meal (delicious!)

Turnips - made ginger cakes x 2

Comice Pears - eaten raw & also used in a baked pear and chocolate tart

Melon - eaten raw (seeds given to hens!)

Punnet Strasberries - eaten devoured raw

Live Natural Yoghurt - devoured with strasberries!

There were 3 pluses for me from this review 1. The box contained fresh items I couldn't buy locally, 2. It made me a bit more imaginative with how I used the contents, 3. We ate more veg that week than usual and 4. I did not waste anything from this box, (even the hens got something from it) so therefore I thought it was good value. Farmison have a range of boxes for pre-order for Christmas, these include the usual Christmas dinner meats as well as fruit and vegetables. 

One other thing that struck me was that a box like the one I received would make a great gift or thank you. Or imagine receiving one of these boxes every week when you start the new year diet!

NB: These views are mine. I was not paid or asked by Farmison to do this review I offered to do it, any additional ingredients to make other dishes were all purchased by me.