Cooking in Season: Preparing Food that Tastes Great and is Easy to Make
I hope you enjoy Starting from Scratch, my second book, published each week online, one chapter at a time. Before the book’s final publication, I hope to sprinkle readers’ thoughts, opinions and advice throughout. After all, you each have helpful systems and solutions in the kitchen worth sharing. In addition, for each section, I’m consulting experts in their fields – for this excerpt, it’s Lynne Viera, founder of how2heroes.
One of the easiest things you can do to make a good meal with as little effort as possible is to buy, cook and eat food that’s in season. Because in-season produce is fresher, it is more flavorful without a slew of other ingredients or fancy preparation techniques. Not to mention, it is better it is for you and generally costs less, too.
‘Tis the season
Though a home-grown tomato in the middle of summer is my all-time favorite, there are a myriad of vegetables and fruit which grow well in the summer. Depending on your local climate, there will be variation in the quantity and assortment of what’s available. If you’re not sure if a vegetable is in-season or not, do a quick search online and you’ll quickly get a definitive answer.
Summer. Vegetables and fruit which are typically plentiful during the hot, summer months include:
- Vegetables
- Peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, peas, beans, corn, avocados
- Fruit
- Blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, melon
Fall. In the late summer and fall, a number of items reach their peak. These are:
- Vegetables
- Squash, pumpkin and greens (which also grow well in the spring, and include spinach, arugula and lettuce)
- Fruit
- Apples
Lynne has wonderful suggestions for using pumpkins beyond carving them for Halloween. “You can stuff pumpkins then roast the seeds. Pumpkin seeds are super healthy and fun and easy to roast. Don’t waste those seeds!”
She adds: “Also, apples can be stored for quite a long time. There are so many varieties of apples and millions of things you can do with them, including making apple sauce and canning them to have all winter long.”
Winter. When winter rolls around, root vegetables are a great choice to accompany meals. Roasting them is simple and another great benefit, according to Lynne, is that root vegetables last a long time in a cool basement: “My father used to grow onions and squash and we would have them for months after the season had ended. Just keep them in a cool, dry place and you’ll be good to go. Apples also last quite a while, too.”
Vegetables and fruit that are tasty in the winter months include:
- Vegetables
- Carrots, beets, onions, turnips, spinach, lettuce, broccoli
- Fruit
- Cranberries, clementines, bananas, apples
Extending the Seasons
Lynne highly recommends canning, pickling and freezing fruits and veggies when they are in season so you can enjoy them in the off-season. “If you do can, freeze, and pickle produce yourself, you know what goes into it. Rather than being processed in a huge factory, they are instead prepared by your gentle, caring hands.”
For example, blueberries are great to freeze. “Buy them when they are plentiful (and inexpensive) in the summer, wash and freeze them on a cookie sheet so they’re not stacked up. Then when they’re frozen, package them up in zip-top bags. Pull them out and have blueberry pancakes in the winter when the price of blueberries is through the roof. And they will taste better than ones shipped from Chile or somewhere else very far away.”
She continues: “In addition to apple sauce, pears are incredible canned. What a treat to have those in winter. Peaches! Can those suckers, too. Or puree, freeze and break them out for Belini’s or other peach-based cocktails or mocktails.”
Follows are some wonderful videos from Lynne’s site to provide step-by-step instructions for pickling and canning:
Pickling
Quick Pickling: http://how2heroes.com/videos/quick-easy/quick-pickling
Dill Pickles: http://how2heroes.com/videos/quick-easy/dill-pickles
Japanese Style Pickles: http://how2heroes.com/videos/quick-easy/japanese-style-pickles
Dilly Beans: http://how2heroes.com/videos/sides/danis-dilly-beans-carrots
Canning
Tomatoes: http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/canning-tomatoes
Jam Making Basics: http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/jam-making-basics
Strawberry jam: http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/strawberry-jam
Freezing
Blueberries: http://how2heroes.com/videos/techniques/freezing-blueberries
Keeping it Simple
If you are tempted to make a summer dish in the middle of winter, such as the chicken parmesan dish that’s one of our family fallbacks, don’t do it. Those January hot house tomatoes cost a fortune and don’t taste good, either. And though I focused today on produce, seafood is seasonal as well. But I’ll save that topic for next week!
If you use vegetables, fruits and seafood when they are at their peak in flavor, you have do very little to make them taste great. Like giving a child a plethora of fancy, intricate and expensive toys when he’s just has happy playing with a corrugated box, keep it simple!
The results will impress.
P.S. Check back for more of Lynne’s seasonal recipes!
About Lynne
Lynne Viera is the Founder of how2heroes, the premiere how-to video cooking website. Lynne combined her expertise in creating websites for major brands like Safeway and National Geographic Channel (as the Founder/CEO of Rival Marketing) and her passion for food to create this world-class website destination for people who really want to learn how to cook. Every video is original and carefully shot so viewers can easily replicate the recipes and techniques being demonstrated in the videos. The site features a combination of master chefs like Ming Tsai, Angelo Sosa (Top Chef) and Jason Santos (Hell’s Kitchen) as well as home cooks, farmers, fishmongers – anyone who has creative cooking ideas to share.
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