My cooking has had a boost lately, thanks to both a neighbour plying me with veg from her Norfolk allotment and Wholegood kindly sending me a veg box to try.

It’s been nice to try some ingredients that I don’t often buy for myself, and it’s much easier to make a non-lazy carb-based dinner when you’ve got a veg drawer overflowing with this colourful loveliness.

Greens are some of my favourite veg, as long as they’re carefully cooked so as to keep their crunch and colour. The mix on the left is broccoli, chard and leek which I semi-steamed in a pan with a cup of hot water with the lid on. I served it simply with seasoning and lemon as a side dish (um, to macaroni cheese). On the right, a bit of a made-up tart of the same veg together with some stilton cheese in a quiche type custard nestled in filo pastry.

Left, a filling tea of a sot of tartiflette (oven-baked patties of grated potato and courgette with taleggio cheese – I modified this recipe) with a saucy chickpea, tomato and spinach side. Right, a surprisingly filling solo dinner of Portobello mushrooms topped with stilton, breadcrumbs and parmesan. I didn’t need anything else with them – truly the steak of the veg world.

I love tomatoes at this time of year, especially when roasted to concentrate their flavour. Left, using up the last of the filo with a roasted tomato, onion and mozzarella tart (with some of Josh’s chilli chutney smeared on the base). Right, a roasted tomato soup which did me for three work-at-home lunches. I also used a huge glut of spinach for more soup, which is waiting in the freezer.

Of the new things I tried, two things I’ll definitely buy again are leeks and chard. They are both robust enough to last a good week or more in the fridge, which is important as I really don’t like to throw food away. Leeks give that oniony savouryness to any meal, but can also be the star of a dish when griddled or roasted. I use chard rather like spinach: chucked into anything saucy near the end of cooking to give a bit of texture and bump up the veg count. What are your veg box favourites?

Veg box supplied by Wholegood for review

I had fun last week at a night-time pickling workshop, put on by Sarson’s vinegar and held at Rita’s Bar & Dining in London Fields. Our hosts were food historian Peter Ginn and Rita’s chef Gabriel Pryce.

Peter gave us a lowdown on the history of pickling as a method of preserving fresh ingredients, and talked us through all of the ingredients that can be pickled: eggs and shallots are perhaps the most well known, but any fairly firm fruit or veg is a contender.

The brine (the vinegar liquid that does the pickling) can be flavoured with any herb or spice you like – chilli, peppercorns and mustard seeds are common, but we could also pick from lemongrass, ginger, tarragon, fennel seeds and loads more. The process is really simple: you just heat up the pickling vinegar in a pan with your chosen flavourings (Sarson’s produce big jars of vinegar especially for pickling, which are pre-seasoned and at the correct acidity of 6%), pop the ingredients in a sealable jar and pour the vinegar over the top to cover the ingredients.

After we’d stuffed and labelled our jars we sat down to a delicious meal put on by Rita’s – platters of fried chicken, amazing mac and cheese, sweet potato gnocchi, slaw and their own pickled hot sauce. Must come back here soon for a full meal because it was tasting gooood.

Here’s my rather odd concoction – quail’s eggs, plums and mooli (Japanese radish) in a brine heavily spiked with chilli and mustard seeds. The proof is in the tasting, but it needs three weeks to do its thing first… I’ll report back.

Thanks to Rita’s and Sarson’s for a fab and informative night.