Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. Apart from the madness that occurs at supermarkets when everyone is trying to buy their Christmas dinner staples. One year, Liam’s and I couldn’t get hold of any Vegetarian/Vegan roast alternative. No Quorn, no nut roasts. Nothing. I attempted to make something from scratch last minute and it was a disaster!!! I vowed never again would we put ourselves in this situation!
I’d never thought about the possibility of having your entire Christmas dinner delivered to your front door. This was until the lovely people over at Riverford, contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in reviewing their Vegan Christmas Dinner Box!
These are organic Christmas dinner boxes that have everything you need for a traditional roast, without the meat. However, they do provide Christmas dinners for your meat lovers too!
What You Receive
Riverford pride themselves on being organic, providing seasonal produce with as little packaging as possible! This means that the Veg you receive in December may differ slightly to what we got. For the Vegan Christmas Dinner, the Box contained;
A Vegan Nut Roast
Cranberry sauce
Clementines
Six Vegan mince pies
Vegan Christmas pudding
Riverford vegan gravy
King Edward Potatoes
Carrots
Parsnips
Brussels sprouts
Savoy Cabbage
Mushrooms
We however didn’t receive the gravy as it wasn’t available when we received our box as we had it delivered slightly earlier than release to review!
The only thing I’d say, as a slightly amateur cook, is that there was no recipe card with the Christmas Box. It took me a while to come up with an idea on how to incorporate the mushrooms and Clementines. I had to google ways to cook the cabbage because, I’m embarrassed to say, I’ve never cooked one before! Having a card with a few ideas on, would have made things a little easier. I know that Riverford have books available full of recipes and ideas on ways to cook the different veg they produce, and I think I’ll be ordering them in the near future to save me panic googling!
Christmas Came Early.
Once I’d got my shit together, Cooking the Christmas Dinner was actually pretty straight forward. Washed and prepped the veg (it’s come straight from the allotment,!so things may need a bit of a wash! ) and layers out everything ready to go.
I part boiled and then roasted the potatoes. I added some semolina towards they end of cooked to make them super crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside!
For the carrots and the parsnips, I chopped into strips and then roasted in a little vegetable oil. Towards the end, I mixed up a glaze of golden syrup and the juice from one clementine to give them a citrus glaze – holy crap I will DEFINITELY be doing this again!!
I steamed the sprouts until tender, and lightly fried diced mushrooms in a little vegan butter. Combined the two and popped into the over for 15-20?mins to roast gently. It’s basically the vegan version of sprouts and bacon!
I will admit, I asked Liam dad the best way to cook cabbage. He said boiled, and then with a feck load of butter. I went with it, and it turned out blooming lovely! Used vegan butter and seasoned with salt, pepper and a teeny- tiny bit of nutmeg! Game.Changer!
When it comes to nut roasts, we are a little sceptical. It’s never been a favourite alternative of ours. However, The nut roast from Riverford was delicious! I’ll admit, we were pleasantly surprised! It contains chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, butternut squash, lentils and quinoa, as well as some of Riverford’s own vegetables and a touch of miso. It’s ready to roast in its container so you just pop into the oven with no faff what so ever.
Riverford say that the Vegan Christmas Dinner Box will comfortably feed two to three people. I don’t completely agree. With us, it fed myself Liam and Molly, Liam’s brother and then two of our friends popped over and had a small plate each. There were STILL leftovers for a bubble and squeak the next day.
There’s also mince pies and a gorgeous Christmas pudding for afters, so plenty of yummy food for everyone!
The Verdict.
If you want fresh, organic food delivered straight to your door so you don’t have to face the daunting amounts of people and crazy ques of Christmas, then this is perfect for you! It doesn’t matter if you’re a meat eater, vegetarian or vegan. They have something for everyone. If you don’t want the meat, or meat substitute, then they have fantastic veg boxes. You can also create your own boxes, adding items from their amazing stock list, making it completely personal to you and your family!
You can pre-order your Riverford Christmas dinner boxes now with delivery between the 20th and 24th December. It costs £47.95. Some people pay that for their meat alone, so I think for what you get, it’s pretty reasonable! We would highly recommend the Vegan Christmas Dinner Box – It was delicious!
