What’s in Season? A Handy Chart for North Carolina

What is the most you would pay for an ingredient? Not one you planned to use for a special-occasion meal, but just for your everyday cooking.

For me, the ceiling seems to be about $5 (except for meat, of course). Yesterday, I was thinking about making an onion soup that calls for a broth made from dried porcini mushrooms. It sounded good to me. Except one tiny bag of the mushrooms cost $6.99. Um, no thank you. I’m also going to avoid the pine nuts (at $23/pound right now).

In a recent post, I posited that you would spend less money on fresh fruits and vegetables if you made an effort to eat seasonally. To help us do that, the North Carolina Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services provides this very attractive chart (there is also a printable version for the refrigerator). I see that, other than peanuts, the only vegetable that’s in season all year round is the sweet potato, which explains why I’m always struggling to come up with new ways to cook them. If you don’t happen to live in the great state of North Carolina, perhaps you might find similar information at your state’s Dept. of Agriculture.

Eating Seasonally: Two Simple Tips

Image via Wikipedia

Lately, it seems a lot of people have been writing books and articles and blog posts giving us advice on how to eat more healthfully, including two of my favorite food writers, Mark Bittman and Michael Pollan. Once you boil away the excess, their advice always comes down to the same thing:

Cut back on processed foods and meat. Eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Surprisingly, I have seen quite a backlash to this simple, commonsensical advice on the blogosphere. Eating fruits and vegetables is expensive. It’s downright elitist!

Huh? Okay, I’ll grant you that for the urban poor who live in food deserts, a fresh fruit or vegetable is hard to come by. And our inequitable food system subsidizes “product” crops such as corn and soy over whole fruits and vegetables, making them seem more expensive.

But… Many people can still afford to eat fruits and vegetables. Here’s what I think is a big part of the problem. We here in America have forgotten how to eat seasonally.

For the better part of human history, people ate fruits and vegetables when they were ripe and harvested. Yes, we have figured out some ingenious ways of preserving the harvest. Canned tomatoes are one of the great products of civilization, in my opinion. But unless you had frozen or jam on hand, you didn’t expect to eat blueberries in March or to have pears in the spring.

In our modern food culture, though, we’ve grown accustomed to having all fruits and vegetables available to us at all times. But when you buy produce out of season, it’s two or three times as expensive, and it doesn’t taste nearly as good. That’s because it was picked before it was fully riped and shipped all the way from Chile or some such place. It’s simply a bad deal all around.

One commentator on this post remarked that she tried to give her kids healthy snacks like blueberries but they cost so much. Of course they do. Blueberries don’t grow this time of year in our part of the world, so their scarcity is going to make them much more expensive. On the other hand, avocados are selling 2 for a dollar at my local grocery, and tangerines are 6 for 99 cents. That’s because they are in season and plentiful right now. They’re awfully yummy too.

If you try to eat seasonally, you’ll find that your produce bill will go down. I know it can seem like a drag, not getting to eat blueberries in the winter, but think of how much more you’ll appreciate them when they’re ripe, tasty and abundant. If you absolutely must have something out of season, buy it frozen, where it will probably be cheaper.

A while ago, I learned two simple rules to help me eat seasonally. The first is to remember what’s in season when. I just think of the life cycle of a plant and buy produce to match. For example:

• In spring, when plants are budding, eat tender leaves and flowers, i.e., greens, fresh shell beans, peas, asparagus, artichokes.
• In summer, when plants are at their most beautiful, eat colorful soft fruits, i.e., berries, melons, peaches, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini.
• In autumn, when plants are distributing seeds, eat nuts and firm fruits, i.e., apples, pears, pumpkin, winter squash.
• In winter, when plants have gone dormant, eat root vegetables, i.e., carrots, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips.

Here’s another simple rule for deciding how to prepare those seasonal fruits and vegetables:

What grows together, goes together.

Here are several links to other food blogs to help you eat better on a budget via MetaFilter. Happy eating!

Knowing What’s in Season: The Vegitannual

Book cover via Amazon

I am slowly making my way through Barbara Kingsolver‘s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Actually, the lectures on the degradation of the environment and the decline of the family farmer by industrial agriculture and monoculture that start the book depressed me so much that I had to stop reading for a while. Sometimes, when you really consider what you are up against, it seems hopeless to make even a small dent of change.

But I have picked the book up again and just read some wonderful common sense I had to share. When trying to determine what is in season at any point in the year, Kingsolver suggests thinking of all fruits and vegetables as one annual plant, a “vegitannual.” If you are familiar with the life cycle of an annual plant, you know that first to appear are shoots and leaves, followed by buds and flowers, then green fruit, ripe fruit and hard fruit. Last, the plant fattens its roots and tubers to prepare for winter.

Since this cycle is true of all plants, it can help you determine what is in season when. Early in the spring are the first shoots and leaves: lettuces, spinach, greens, sprouts, garlic shoots. Then come the buds and flowers: broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus. Next are the green fruits: cucumber, zucchini, sugar snap peas, green beans. Then the ripe fruits: tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, peaches, plums. In fall, the hard fruits come into season: apples, pears, melons, winter squash, pumpkin. Finally, the roots and tubers are ripe: potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips.

I like this idea because it’s easy to remember, and it serves as a reality check when meal planning or going to the grocery store. Of course, when I see that a half pint of fresh blueberries is costing $4.99, that’s another good sign that their season is long over.

I am trying to eat more seasonally now, just like Barbara Kingsolver, for several reasons. For one, seasonal fruits and vegetables are in abundance, so they’re cheaper. They are more likely to be locally grown. They also look and taste better because they have been picked when ripe and haven’t had to endure long shipping times. And eating seasonally makes menu planning so much simpler because “what grows together goes together.”

What’s in Season? Potatoes

Fingerling potatoes simmered with butter and herbs, originally uploaded by shannon_turlington.

I’ve been seeing a lot of potatoes at the farmers market lately: red-skinned potatoes, teeny fingerlings, Yukon Golds, Peruvian purples, even baby russets (which would make excellent mini baked potatoes). Who doesn’t love potatoes? Well, I know a couple of people who don’t, but clearly they are abnormal. Potatoes are so versatile and are welcome at almost every meal.

Potatoes are low maintenance too. Mature potatoes will keep one to two months when stored in a dark place (not the refrigerator). To prep, scrub them well, cut out any green spots, eyes or sprouts, and peel if you’re so inclined. Figure on ¼ pound or ½ medium potato per serving.

There are basically three types of potatoes: waxy, starchy and all-purpose. Each is best suited for a particular type of preparation. Here are my favorite ways to cook each type of potato:

• Fingerlings: I like to simmer these tiny potatoes in just enough stock to cover until they are tender. Then raise the heat, add some butter and stir until the liquid boils away. They are great garnished with fresh herbs.
• New potatoes: These waxy potatoes are best boiled and tossed with butter before serving. I like to boil them in water with mint leaves for an interesting, subtle taste.
• Red potatoes: Also a waxy potato, these are great for cutting into wedges and roasting at 425 degrees. They also go well on the grill.
• Russets: These are starchy potatoes and are best suited to baking. Poke holes in the skin first with a fork, but do not wrap in foil, as that will steam the potato instead of baking it. In a 350-degree oven, a russet can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1½ hours to bake.
• Yukon Golds: These are the go-to potatoes, perfect for any potato recipe. Try slicing them thinly and sauteing them in a mixture of olive oil and butter.

Don’t forget you can also mash or oven-fry your potatoes. Oh, how could you forget?

For more on potatoes, including “breaking potato news” as well as recipes, check out Potato Goodness Unearthed.

Farmers Market Vegetable Soup

The problem with going to the farmers market is that it is all too easy to yield to temptation and grab up way too many fresh vegetables than you can possibly eat in a week. What better way to take advantage of all that bounty than to make a huge pot of soup? You can eat some of it for dinner and freeze the rest for when you need a quick meal. Since the produce comes from the farmers market, each batch of soup will reflect the seasonal goodness of that particular visit.

This is not a recipe. This is just a blueprint for how to make a hearty vegetable soup with all that good stuff you might bring home from the farmers market. You should feel free to vary this any way you see fit to produce the soup you want to eat. I made my version in the slow cooker, so I am providing instructions for both slow cooking and stovetop cooking below.

Farmers Market Vegetable Soup

1. Go to the farmers market and pick out an assortment of fresh vegetables. For instance, this time of year, you might choose sweet or spring onions, cabbage, tender greens, baby potatoes and carrots.
2. At home, chop the vegetables into roughly equal pieces and toss into the slow cooker or pot.
3. Salt to taste.
4. Pour in just enough chicken stock to cover. (You may want to use more liquid if cooking on the stovetop, because some will boil away; use at least 4 cups.)
5. If you have it on hand, for extra flavor stir in a tablespoon or two of pesto, a couple of rashers of cooked bacon or a Parmesan cheese rind (I keep them in the freezer for making soup).
6. In the slow cooker, cook 4-6 hours on low, until the vegetables are tender. Add fresh herbs, pepper and other desired seasoning during the last hour of cooking.
7. In the pot, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the vegetables are tender, 30-60 minutes.
8. To serve, garnish with croutons and/or shredded cheese. Remove the Parmesan rind before serving.

What’s in Season? Tomatoes

There is nothing quite like the taste of a vine-ripened tomato picked out of your own garden. Supermarket tomatoes in any season are pale, watery imitations of what real tomato-y goodness can be, and therefore not worth buying, in my book. (Fortunately, canned tomatoes will get us through the winter.) Fresh-picked tomatoes are the essence of summer; they command us to stop and savor, because the time when we will have them is so fleeting.

When I was a kid, I remember the freedom of summer days as punctuated each lunchtime by a walk out to my father’s garden to pick a tomato. I’d fry up a little bacon, slather toast with mayonnaise, add a modicum of lettuce and thick, juicy slices of the tomato, still warm from the sun. I’d eat the sandwich at the table with the book I was reading in hand, tomato juices likely running down my chin. The remembered warm sweetness of truly ripe tomatoes is just what I would imagine sunshine would taste like.

Today, a tomato sandwich is still one of my absolute favorite ways to consume a ripe tomato out of my garden (although I’ve now replaced the bacon with cheddar cheese). But I never seem to tire of eating fresh tomatoes in all kinds of ways, which is good because I can barely keep up with what my first-year garden is producing. Whether it’s the soil or these 100+ degree days or some other factor, I’ve gotten mounds of tomatoes this week. Here are some other of my favorite ways to eat tomatoes:

• Simple tomato salad: Slice them and sprinkle with salt. Let sit for about 10 minutes to release the juices, then drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and a few drop of red wine vinegar. Eat alone or combine with fresh herbs, greens, cucumber or red onion.
• Tomatoes with cheese: Like all fruits, tomatoes go great with cheese. Mozzarella is a natural pairing; slice a ball of fresh mozzarella into disks, layer with thick tomato slices and basil leaves, and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to make insalata caprese. Tomatoes also taste divine with a sharp cheddar or a creamy gorgonzola.
• Tomato vinaigrette: Halve small cherry, grape or pear tomatoes (preferably a combination of colors) and sprinkle with salt. Let sit 10 minutes, then combine with a simple vinaigrette. Use as a sauce for grilled chicken or fish.

Never, ever refrigerate tomatoes. The cold will kill the wonderful flavor, and the texture will get mushy. Just leave them out in a bowl where you can admire them. Slightly underripe tomatoes will continue to ripen out on the counter. Once ripe, eat within 2 days.

Of course, you can cook tomatoes, but I think when they’re dead ripe, they’re best showcased raw. Still, if you get more tomatoes than you can possibly eat, it’s time to make tomato sauce. I make as much sauce as I can and freeze it in 1-cup portions, so I can recapture that flavor of summer once the dreary winter months are here.

In order to make tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, you will probably want to peel the tomatoes. Here’s a quick and easy way to do that.

How to Peel a Tomato

1. If the tomato is large, core it (an apple corer works really well for this). If it is small or a roma, skip this step, but do remove the stem.
2. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
3. Slip in 5 or 6 tomatoes and blanch them about 15 seconds, or until the skin starts to split.
4. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon and immediately plunge them into an ice water bath to stop the cooking.
5. Slip the skin off — it should come away easily.
6. Repeat with remaining tomatoes.

What’s in Season? Summer Squash & Zucchini

Aren’t we awash in squash? They say that if you can grow anything, you can grow squash, and my experience has borne that out. This is our first year having a vegetable garden, we planted one squash plant on purpose, and now I am pulling a full-grown squash off every other day or so. Not to mention “donations” of zucchini and pattypan squash from gardening neighbors.

The term summer squash refers to any squash with an edible skin. This includes zucchini and yellow crookneck squash (also called just “summer squash”), as well as pattypan squash, globe squash, scallopini and chayote, and a host of other varieties. That last one is used a lot in Mexican cooking, but unlike the others, it should be peeled before cooking and can’t be eaten raw.

We got our squash plant from the farmer’s market. It is a type of yellow squash called “zephyr.” I like it because it has a sweeter flavor than ordinary crookneck squash and a nifty two-tone finish (see the photo).

Summer squash keeps well, up to 5 days in the refrigerator. One medium squash or 1 cup sliced equals one serving. Because summer squash has such a high water content, I think they taste best when cooked over a high heat. We’ve all had those diet platters that feature watery, unappealing, steamed squash. Please, keep squash out of the steamer.

Instead, slice them up thick and broil or grill them for about 10 minutes. A little olive oil, salt and pepper, plus any kind of fresh herb to finish, are all you need to season them.

Summer squash also do well sautéed in butter or olive oil. To make them brown better, slice them into rounds, sprinkle with coarse salt and let them drain in a colander for 30 minutes before sautéing. This will drive a lot of the water out. Be sure to wipe the salt off before cooking.

If you’re like me, you may be inundated by so many squash this summer that you’ll come up with many unique ways of preparing them. Here are a few recipes from the blogs that looked particularly interesting:

• Bengali-style Summer Squash (Tigers & Strawberries)
  
• Early Summer Tian (Figs Olives Wine)
• Summer Squash with Goat Cheese & Romesco (Food Wishes)

What’s in Season? Asparagus

I won’t say that I’ve been eating enough asparagus lately to make my pee smell (because I’m a lady and I don’t talk about that sort of thing), but I have been eating a lot of asparagus.* Asparagus is the quintessential spring vegetable, in my opinion. It even looks like a bud on a stem, getting ready to flower. That’s not surprising when you consider that asparagus is a member of the Lily family. Yes, now we can get asparagus all year round. But for me, spring means asparagus.

I think asparagus is one of the great vegetables, a vegetable that would satisfy even if eaten alone for a meal. It’s also really good for you, since it is loaded with folic acid, potassium, fiber, and vitamins A, C and B6. But you have to eat it fast. After buying fresh asparagus, it’s best to use it within 3 days, or it will start to turn slimy. When you’re shopping, look for asparagus with firm, tight buds and fresh-looking (i.e., not slimy or woody) stalks. Store in the refrigerator wrapped loosely in plastic. One serving is about 1 cup or ½ pound, which equals around 5-8 stalks; I can always eat about twice that, though.

To prepare asparagus, I simply bend the bottom end of each stalk until it snaps. It will naturally break in the perfect space to remove the tough, woody bottom part of the stem. If you’re really in a hurry, you can just snap off one stalk, then line all the other stalks up on the cutting board and slice them through at the same place. A little rinse, and you’re ready to go. I never bother to peel asparagus, although if the stems seem particularly tough, peeling might be advisable.

There are many ways you can cook asparagus, but my two favorite techniques are roasting and steaming. Each results in a very different flavor. Roasting works best with thicker stems, and turns the asparagus sweet, smoky and hearty. Steaming is the ideal preparation for thinner steams and results in a delicate, vegetal flavor.

You can roast asparagus in the oven or in a pan on top of the range. Either way, toss it with some olive oil and coarse salt for the best flavor. Then cook it over a moderately high heat (or at 425 degrees, in the oven), turning once or twice, until it’s well browned. This may take anywhere from 5-15 minutes, depending on thickness. This hearty preparation can stand up to strong flavors, such as mint, sauteed peppers, goat cheese and pine nuts (see photo).

To steam asparagus, suspend the spears in a steaming basket over boiling water until the stems turn bright green, 5-7 minutes. Alternately, stand the spears up in boiling water to boil the stems and steam the tips. Steamed asparagus needs a lighter treatment than roasted. I usually dress steamed asparagus with vinaigrette, melted butter and of course, hollandaise sauce.

Asparagus goes so well in many recipes. Tonight, I added it to a risotto (watch for a recipe coming soon). You might also try it in a stir-fry, soup, lasagna, pasta or with fried eggs for an Italian-style breakfast. However you eat it, eat it fast because — as Robert Frost tells us — nature’s first green doesn’t stick around very long.

*By the way, that link is one of the sites that comes up first when you google “green asparagus pee,” and I couldn’t resist linking to it. If you really want to know why asparagus makes your pee smelly, go here instead.

What’s in Season? Sweet Potatoes

Of course it’s no secret that sweet potatoes are in their prime right now. Why else would they be ubiquitous on the Thanksgiving table? But sweet potatoes should come to visit more often than once a year in a sweet and sticky casserole. They can do anything that potatoes can do, and they can do it with more nutritious value and more glamour, thanks to that bright orange color.

Many people around these parts refer to sweet potatoes as “yams,” but they’re not the same thing at all. Sweet potatoes are the orange tuber we’re all familiar with. Yams are harder to come by, and are usually white or red. Still, yams can stand in for sweet potatoes, as can boniato, pumpkin and winter squash.

One medium sweet potato will serve two easily. Look for smaller sweet potatoes that are deep orange in color. Try to avoid those with worm holes or soft spots, but if you get one, cut away the affected area when peeling; the rest should be fine. Sweet potatoes will keep for up to two weeks in a cool place (not the refrigerator).

Mashed sweet potatoes are a holiday staple (see my simple recipes here). But there are lots of other ways to cook a sweet potato. Here are some suggestions:

• Simmer ‘em: Cube and simmer over low in 1/4 cup stock per 1 pound cubed sweet potatoes with a little butter until just tender, 20-30 minutes
• Braise ‘em: Dice and brown in butter before simmering until tender in 1/4 cup liquid
• Bake ‘em: Prick the skin with a fork and bake at 425 degrees until soft, about 1 hour; great topped with Parmesan, butter or even pesto
• Roast ‘em: Peel, cube and roast; they are particularly nice as part of a medley of roasted root vegetables
• Make “fries”: Cut into wedges, toss with oil and cayenne, and bake at 475 degrees for 20-30 minutes
• Make “hash browns”: Cut into matchsticks and pan-fry over medium-high in oil or butter until browned, about 15 minutes

Sweet potatoes make an unusual addition to many recipes. Why not try them in risotto, as a filling for ravioli or use them to make a vegetable bread (similar to pumpkin bread)? I have one left over from Thanksgiving that I am planning to turn into a filling for burritos; I’ll post the recipe afterward.

So, how are you going to use your leftover sweet potatoes?

What’s In Season? Butternut Squash

I try to eat seasonally as much as possible. I think seasonal eating is something we have lost touch with in our culture of “have it when you want it.” But when you eat a vegetable at the appropriate season, it’s more flavorful and more nutritious. Likely, it has traveled a shorter distance to get to you and required less elaborate storage, meaning less impact on the environment and less use of fossil fuels. So local, seasonal eating is good for you and good for the planet.

Of course, you don’t have to go overboard. Last time I checked, we didn’t grow avocados in North Carolina in any season, but that doesn’t mean I’m going without guacamole for the rest of my life.

To find out what’s in season, visit your local farmers market and buy whatever they’re selling. You also get to meet the people who grow your food, and unless they’re trying to pass off papayas as “local,” you know you’re getting produce that was grown and harvested nearby. Whenever I go to the local hippie-dippie grocery store (called Earth Fare around here, a wonderful place that is open 24 hours a day and is always empty), I buy whatever’s labeled “local.”

My goal is to someday have the space and time to grow a lot of my own food. This was our first summer in this house, so I started out small with a pretty comprehensive herb garden (see photo). Next year, we’re planning to put in a couple of raised vegetable beds. Before you know it, we’ll have chickens, goats and a full-scale orchard. I wonder how that will go over with the homeowners association.

But we were going to talk about butternut squash (the guy on the right). Butternut squash is what is known as a winter squash. Winter squashes are harvested now and then stored for eating throughout the winter. Unlike summer squashes (such as zucchini), winter squashes have a thick, inedible skin that you have to remove somehow.

What I do is hack the squash in two just where the “bulb” begins. Then I slice off the skin, trying to remove as little of the flesh as possible. I scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff in the middle, which is always a bit messy. Then I cube the squash meat for cooking. One serving is equivalent to 1 cup of cubed squash. Generally, a smallish 1-pound squash will yield 2 cups of flesh.

When you go to buy a butternut squash, choose one that feels firm and heavy when you heft it. Store the thing in a cool, dark place for up to 1 month. Once you’ve cut it, wrap the cut end in plastic and store the unused portion in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

What can you make with butternut squash? Well, the one pictured above is going to be turned into soup (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow, probably). But you can also roast it or simmer it in liquid and butter until soft. Once it’s cooked, you can mash it like potatoes. Butternut squash is a nice addition to a pasta or risotto. You can even use cooked squash to make squash bread (instead of pumpkin bread or zucchini bread, for instance).

Let me know what you did with your butternut squash.