Newsletter w/c 18th December 2017

The tree’s up the decorations are on,the lights are on the house, I suppose it must be Christmas. We hope you have a fantastic festive season and that Santa is good to all of you. We’re having the family at the farm this year, so tidying frantically. Cant wait to get my feet up in front of the fire with everyone here.

We’ve supplied the Brussels sprouts and parsnips to go with the traditional Christmas dinner with sprout recipe below.

We’ve worked out our Christmas rota. Deliveries over the festive period will be as follows:

w/c 18^th December  deliveries will be as normal.

w/c 25^th December deliveries will be a day later than usual ( Tuesday deliveries will be Wednesday instead and so on)

w/c 1^st January we’ll take a holiday so no deliveries this week.

w/c 8^th January  deliveries will be normal

If you have any queries re the dates please email me for confirmation on thewholeshebag@aol.com.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the bank would like me to stop presenting cheques for small amounts each week. I’d like to get as many customers as possible, whi feel comfortable with it, onto online banking. Let me know if this would cause you any worries. There are other ways round it. Also, I’m planning a price rise in the New Year. Costs keep rising and, looking back, I haven’t increased prices in 5 yrs. I’ll let you know details in the next few weeks.

As a related issue, are there any ways that you feel our service would suit you better. Do we give too little variety, too much variety, not enough choice? If I’m raising the costs for you, I’d like to raise the standard of service to match, where possible, so I’m open to any of your ideas.

I’ve changed the variety of potato this week as I’ve been finding a lot of discolouration in the ones I’ve been using so hopefully it wont affect this one. Let me know if you have any problems with quality.

PLEASE RETURN ALL NET BAGS PLEASE. WE RE-USE THEM.

The veg in the bag this week should be as follows although, substitutions may occur due to availability.

Potato, Onion, Carrot, Brussels sprouts, Parsnip, leek, red cabbage

The Large bag will also include:

Mushroom, Celery and kale

Featured Recipe

Glazed Sprouts with Carmelised Onion

Boil the Brussels sprouts for 5-10 minutes (depending on size) until they are just tender. Meanwhile, melt 25g of butter in a frying pan and add a large onion, cut into wedges. Cook over a medium heat for 6-8 minutes until golden. Add 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar and  a tablespoon of Demerara sugar and mix. Allow it to bubble for a few seconds then remove from the heat. Drain the sprouts thoroughly and toss through the onion mixture, Serve.

Fruit and Vegetables
Organic Vegetables	£13.50 per standard bag
	£16.50 per Large bag
Organic Fruit	£4.00 per Small Bag
	£7.00 per Large Bag
Organic Pasteurised Milk ( full cream/semi skimmed)	£1.20per  litre
Organic Single cream ( 250ml/500ml)	£1.20/£1.60
Organic Double cream ( 250ml/500ml)	£1.30/£1.70
Eggs
Organic Free Range Eggs	£1.80 per Half Dozen Box

Cheques should be made payable to ‘D Murray’

For more information or to place an order please contact us on 07931 738767 or e-mail us or alternatively you can check out our website at  www.thewholeshebag.com or e-mail  thewholeshebag@aol.com

South Cobbinshaw, West Calder, West Lothian, EH55 8LQ

Sort Code 83-18-24  Account no. 00175779 for online payment.

Newsletter w/c 11th December 2017

A friend tells me that I am always apologizing for something in these newsletters. Well this week its an apology-fest. Firstly, I wrote my newsletter on the PC, last week, and due to a lack of ink, couldn’t print them out. If this happens in the future, please remember that all the newsletters are on the blog on the website, so they are always available.

Secondly, and in advance, this cold snap has taken its toll on a lot of the veg. a few degrees of frost is fine, but we had -10 on the farm on Saturday night and the temperature didn’t get anywhere near 0 til Monday evening.  I’ve had to compost  the potatoes that were lifted and some fruit and beetroot, they’d all been frozen and were soft when they thawed. Everything that has been packed in the bags has been checked as thoroughly as we can. If you do find any problems with your veg or fruit, please let us know and we’ll compensate you for the inconvenience.

On a lighter note, we’ve worked out our Christmas rota. Deliveries over the festive period will be as follows:

w/c 18^th December  deliveries will be as normal.

w/c 25^th December deliveries will be a day later than usual ( Tuesday deliveries will be Wednesday instead and so on)

w/c 1^st January we’ll take a holiday so no deliveries this week.

w/c 8^th January  deliveries will be normal

If you have any queries re the dates please email me for confirmation on thewholeshebag@aol.com.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, cash-flow is an ongoing issue with us and I would like to get as many of you as feel comfortable with it, onto online payments in the New Year. The other side of this is our costs of course. I haven’t raised prices for 5 years and costs still seem to be creeping up. I will need to increase the bag price in the New Year. I’ll let you know the new tariff in the next week or two.

As a related issue, are there any ways that you feel our service would suit you better. Do we give too little variety, too much variety, not enough choice? If I’m raising the costs for you, I’d like to raise the standard of service to match, where possible, so I’m open to any of your ideas.

PLEASE RETURN ALL NET BAGS PLEASE. WE RE-USE THEM.

The veg in the bag this week should be as follows although, substitutions may occur due to availability.

Potato (Sarpo Mira) you’ll have noticed it’s a very dry variety, Onion, Carrot, beetroot, white cabbage, kale and fennel

The Large bag will also include:

Kohl-rabi, broccoli and parsnip

Featured Recipe

Kale pesto

I’ve been tasked with giving some variations on kale recipes and thought this fitted the bill perfectly. You can use it as a healthy dip, tasty spread or just stir it into pasta.

Take 4 medium sized leaves of kale and strip the soft leaves from the stem. Put them in a food processor with 150g crushed walnuts, 2 garlic cloves, 4 tablespoons of olive oil and 100g parmesan. Blend into a paste adding more olive oil til you get your desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Fruit and Vegetables
Organic Vegetables	£13.50 per standard bag
	£16.50 per Large bag
Organic Fruit	£4.00 per Small Bag
	£7.00 per Large Bag
Organic Pasteurised Milk ( full cream/semi skimmed)	£1.20per  litre
Organic Single cream ( 250ml/500ml)	£1.20/£1.60
Organic Double cream ( 250ml/500ml)	£1.30/£1.70
Eggs
Organic Free Range Eggs	£1.80 per Half Dozen Box

Cheques should be made payable to ‘D Murray’

For more information or to place an order please contact us on 07931 738767 or e-mail us or alternatively you can check out our website at  www.thewholeshebag.com or e-mail  thewholeshebag@aol.com

South Cobbinshaw, West Calder, West Lothian, EH55 8LQ

Sort Code 83-18-24  Account no. 00175779 for online payment.

Newsletter w/c 4th December 2017

Sorry about the lack of a written newsletter this week. They should be back next week. We’ve been away a lot lately and last weekend had us on our travels again. We visited Strathpeffer to spend some time with friends and to see, the up and coming band, Skipinnish. They really put on a good show which they obviously manage to do consistently, as they won the Best live Band category at the Scottish Traditional Music Awards, the following evening. Rory, the drummer with the band, was at Primary School with Finn, and I think he’d like to follow Rory’s path to success. Keir only lasted til the first break at the concert. He said his preference was for heavier, rock music like AC/DC or Metallica so he was just going to go home and listen to that. What can you say?

With us being away for the last two weekends, Keir has missed rugby games as well, so I’ve had no updates as to the performance levels of his team and as to whether their late surge up the league table has started yet. I’ll let you know next week.

Bananas were colouring slightly as I delivered last Tuesday, so the cold was obviously affecting them, but by Wednesday they were black and squishy. I took them out of all the orders for later in the week and replaced them with whatever we had. If the forecast looks cold for the following week, I may just omit bananas altogether and replace them with something else to avoid disappointment.

We’re getting low on net bags again. If you have a stash of them, please try to remember to leave them out with next weeks delivery.

It definitely doesn’t feel like 12 months since I last sorted out Christmas delivery dates, but it is. My plans are as follows:

w/c 18^th December  deliveries will be as normal.

w/c 25^th December deliveries will be a day later than usual ( Tuesday deliveries will be Wednesday instead and so on)

w/c 1^st January we’ll take a holiday so no deliveries this week.

w/c 8^th January  deliveries will be normal

If you have any queries re the dates please email me for confirmation on thewholeshebag@aol.com.

PLEASE RETURN ALL NET BAGS PLEASE. WE RE-USE THEM.

The veg in the bag this week should be as follows although, substitutions may occur due to availability.

Potato (Sarpo Mira), Onion, Carrot, Parsnip, Savoy, Swede, leek

The Large bag will also include:

Mushroom, Celeriac and Kale.

Featured Recipe

Braised Savoy Cabbage with Bacon

Fry 3-4 rashers of chopped bacon, in a large pan, with an ounce or two of butter. Shred your cabbage after discarding the core, add to the pan and give it all a good mix. Add half a glass of dry white wine and season with salt and pepper. Cover the pan and cook gently for about 10 mins until the cabbage is tender. Stir in 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds, and 2 tablespoons each of chopped parsley and crème fraiche and serve. This recipe could be amended to be used with many brassica family members including Brussels sprouts and kale in place of the savoy.

Fruit and Vegetables
Organic Vegetables	£13.50 per standard bag
	£16.50 per Large bag
Organic Fruit	£4.00 per Small Bag
	£7.00 per Large Bag
Organic Pasteurised Milk ( full cream/semi skimmed)	£1.20per  litre
Organic Single cream ( 250ml/500ml)	£1.20/£1.60
Organic Double cream ( 250ml/500ml)	£1.30/£1.70
Eggs
Organic Free Range Eggs	£1.80 per Half Dozen Box

Cheques should be made payable to ‘D Murray’

For more information or to place an order please contact us on 07931 738767 or e-mail us or alternatively you can check out our website at  www.thewholeshebag.com or e-mail  thewholeshebag@aol.com

South Cobbinshaw, West Calder, West Lothian, EH55 8LQ

Sort Code 83-18-24  Account no. 00175779 for online payment.