The Produce Box

We have gathered our best tips and tricks to show you how to make use of all the juicy citrus in your Boxes – although just eating them whole is never a bad option! First up is zesting, which is grating the outer layer of citrus skin into small strips or “dust.” Zest can be used to add flavor to a lot of things and the citrus remains unharmed for you to use in the same dish or with something else. Add zest to beverages, baked goods, or cooking for a punch of citrus flavor, or candy the peel for a sweet and tangy treat. Our video will show you how to properly zest citrus so you can get the best flavor to go with your culinary creations. Make sure to follow our Blog to see more produce ideas, tips and tricks. Our next how to citrus video will be on supreming citrus (a process that cuts the membrane away from the fruit so you can get the perfect segments)! Steps to getting the perfect zest from your citrus: Wash and dry your fruit thoroughly. A clean fruit/vegetable...

Sourdough, croissants and quiche, oh my! Meet Night Kitchen Bakery and Café! Night Kitchen got its name from a children’s storybook, and opened a café in Seaboard Station in Raleigh just over a year ago. Since then, Helen and her team have been providing tasty breads and pastries to the public. The café, open daily, serves up delicious sandwiches, soups, salads and quiches in addition to the bagels and yummy baked goods.  For Night Kitchen the business depends on the regulars who stop by often for a breakfast bagel or loaf of bread for dinner. “We depend so much on their business and their loyalty is so important to us,” Helen says. Helen loves the all of the offerings in the café, but her heart is in baking bread. When she opened Night Kitchen, she made sure to get equipment for bulk orders to make wholesale bread orders a reality. From the beginning of the business plan, she saw bread as the cornerstone of her baking, and that’s why The Produce Box has been able to hel...

When you bite into the juicy red tomatoes in your Boxes this spring, we want you to know exactly where they came from. Meet LL Urban Farms! This is definitely not your typical farm. You won’t find any expansive cornfields here. The farm is a series of hydroponic greenhouses! Hydroponic growing is a way of planting things in a growing medium other than soil such as rocks or nutrient solutions, as well as in water; studies have shown that this type of growing results in faster growing, healthier plants because the roots do not have to search through soil in order to get the nutrients they need.  LL Urban Farms uses a “coconut coir” farming method to grow delicious tomatoes. Coconut coir is a growing technique that uses the outside husk fibers of coconuts. Yes, we did say coconuts, ya'll! The coconut coir is reusable, completely compostable and great for growing in greenhouses because it retains water well. In this method, the coconut fibers are the soil replacement in the h...

Guest post from our friend & member - Cassie at the United Way of the Greater Triangle As a proud supporter of The Produce Box you appreciate fresh food, efficiency and giving back to our community. But did you know that 1 in 5 children here in the Triangle don’t know where their next meal is coming from, if at all? You know what it’s like to be 'hangry'—so hungry you become unpleasant—now imagine a student who’s expected to learn and do well on her schoolwork and yet, her tummy grumbles, others hear and shame envelopes her. Back for a second year, Innovate United—an extension of United Way of the Greater Triangle—is launching its 100(K)ids Hungry No More Social Innovation Challenge to find the best idea for solving childhood hunger in our area. The winning idea will receive a Challenge award of $50,000 with an additional prize pool of $50,000!!!! HOW IT WORKS: Submit an idea that can be scaled for solutions. Don't have an idea? This is still the forum for ...

We are back for our 9th season, can you believe it? It's absolutely amazing to me...and there are more than 200 members who have been with us since the VERY beginning! We have gone from helping 1 farmer back then to buying from more than 50 small to medium-sized farmers and , good gracious, Kevin and I love hearing the stories of these hardworking men and women and how we've helped THEM grow through the years as we grew! Our boxes are full of REAL FOOD AT A REASONABLE PRICE and I'm awfully proud of that. Proud also that we pay the price our farmers NEED for their produce, not the lowest price we can get ... and we pay when they walk in the door, not 60 or 90 days later like the grocery stores. And that's important to people like Dave in Cumberland County who planted brussel sprouts this year JUST FOR OUR MEMBERS! And James in Franklin County who can't WAIT for his asparagus to come up JUST FOR OUR MEMBERS! These guys (and their families) are so thankful for the ...