Eating seasonally is increasingly difficult this day in time. Strawberries are in the market year round, and at current prices, it's often hard to distinguish what is actually in season, because prices may be about the same as they are all year round! At least I'm finding this to be truth. That's why I like to look at monthly or seasonal lists of what is normally available. Every now and then I'll see a low price on an item and think "Is it the season for that?" and reading the label discover it is if you live in the southern hemisphere but not in our northern one!
So I go back to my oldest, best loved cookbook and the vintage magazines and see what their menus look like for each month of the year. It's easier to get an idea of what foods I might expect to find fresh in market, regardless of price or country of origin.
One of the very best ways to know what is in season is to visit a local farmer's market or roadside stands. Here in Georgia what I'm seeing just now: summer squash, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, apples, cantaloupe, winter squash, pumpkins and peanuts. We see more honey this time of year, too, which is often harvested locally. Mind you, most roadside stand owners are picking up produce in Florida so what's available to me might not be available to you. One advantage to living next door to Florida is that we have more vegetables available fresh year round. Apples are grown and harvested in north Georgia. Once you get about an hour or so from my home we see fewer peach orchards and more and more apple orchards. I usually get a bottle of apple cider with the 'mother' in it when I purchase apples if I'm upstate.
Even if the weather hasn't cooled as much as I'd like, by the time Fall rolls around my body seems to crave the slow cooked, richer foods. This is where I feel I really come into my own season. I like hot meals but when it's 95-105f outdoors my body just can't handle the slow cooked foods as well. However, this time of year temperatures are usually milder if not exactly cool and I can indulge in the sorts of foods I really love.
Just in case you've no idea at all what's in season this time of year, have a look at this list from the USDA website
https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/seasonal-produce-guide
- Apples
- Bananas
- Beets
- Bell Peppers
- Broccoli
- Brussels Sprouts
- Cabbage
- Carrots
- Cauliflower
- Celery
- Collard Greens
- Cranberries
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Grapes
- Green Beans
- Kale
- Lemons
- Lettuce
- Limes
- Mangos
- Mushrooms
- Onions
- Parsnips
- Pears
- Peas
- Pineapples
- Potatoes
- Pumpkins
- Radishes
- Raspberries
- Rutabagas
- Spinach
- Sweet Potatoes & Yams
- Swiss Chard
- Turnips
- Winter Squash
So I thought I'd share some Fall menu ideas with you, trying to focus on what is seasonal and fresh as well as budget friendly. Root vegetables are the best buys this time of year, although onions are harvested in the spring in our area.
Pot Roast with Root Vegetables, Green Beans, Apple Brown Betty: I use various cuts of beef from rump, round, sirloin to boneless chuck for my roasts. The author of the recipe actually used a beef brisket even though it reads chuck roast. The meat cuts I mentioned are the ones I am most likely to find in our market area. I use whatever root vegetables I have on hand. I do try to keep parsnips in the fridge this time of year. I like to add them to roasts and vegetable soups.
Apple Brown Betty is a very easy and economical dish to make. It's comprised of layers of cinnamon and sugar tossed apples with bread crumbs and then you simply pour over hot water and bake in a 350 oven. I use little sugar in this and top with whipped cream but traditionally the Betty is served with a hard sauce which is a stiff mixture of confectioners sugar with a dash of bourbon or a very little bit of juice, water or milk. When a spoonful is placed atop the hot dessert, it melts over and down into the nooks and crannies.
Cider Roasted Chicken with Apples and Root Vegetables, Crusty Bread, Green Salad
I have been making this dish for weekend autumn meals for a couple of years now and it's one of my favorites. I stuff the cavity of a large roasting chicken with half an apple and half an onion, salt and pepper it well then place in a very large roasting pan. You will want the additional room about the chicken to layer in potatoes, big apple wedges, onions and carrots. This mixture and the chicken produce lovely pan juices, so I always add a Crusty bread to the menu to help sop up some of that extra broth. And leftover pan juices, vegetables and chicken make a really tasty Chicken and Rice soup as a second menu favorite.
Braised Short Ribs, Mashed potatoes, Gingerbread with homemade Applesauce
No, no salad. I find this dish so rich and delicious that I seldom bother with a green vegetable at all. The original recipe called for dried cherries and I will use them if I find them in market but dried cranberries are just as excellent and a very inexpensive substitute. I don't always use short ribs which can be pricey. At Aldi I can buy a boneless beef country style rib which is terrific for this dish or you can substitute chuck roast which works just as well.
I serve this simply. I serve each of us a bowl of homemade mashed potatoes, pouring over ribs, vegetables and broth. It's incredibly comforting on a cold rainy day! If I have leftover beef broth I will strain and then use for soup. The fruit is a little too interesting in a bowl of veggie soup!
Not all the dishes I love are made up of pricey meat cuts. Chicken is a family favorite and often inexpensive. Many dishes lend themselves well to using up leftovers, especially if I roast a whole chicken.
Chicken Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Crust, Coleslaw with apple and walnuts
John is not very fond of carrots. I'll usually toss in a handful of frozen green peas and reduce the amount of carrots. Regardless, the velvety sauce is what makes this dish tasty but the crust is what makes it autumn for me. I tell the story of this recipe in the link to it.
Hamburger meat is budget wise and thankfully lends itself to homey dishes like Chili, Spaghetti with Bolognese sauce, Meatloaf. Meatloaf is another dish that can be 'pot roasted' with vegetables added in to bake along side. I confess I am particularly fond of potatoes, onions and carrots as a vegetable group this time of year! Mama used to make Salisbury steaks that were better than any Ribeye steak to me.
While I love oven roasted chicken I also like Chicken and Dumplings or Brunswick Stew.
For desserts I lean hard upon the 'warming spices' such as Spicy Apple Cake, or Armenian Nutmeg Cake. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves allspice, ginger, cardamom make my taste buds sing this time of year. One of our traditional favorites is Oatmeal cookies. I make up a batch each autumn and send half to Katie. I use the Quaker Oats recipe and add in half a cup of chopped dates with the raisins.
By no means all the meals I'll make this time of year, but you get the general idea I'm sure. These are meals that just bespeak autumn and warm me through body and soul. What are some of your favorite meals for this season of the year?
10 comments:
Swiss steak and mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie soup, biscuits and gravy, scalloped potatoes, pork roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, apple crisp, applesauce, meatloaf, yummy. It will be cold before we know it!
You are right. It used to be strawberries started coming into the markets here in March and by May down in price. Now it is September and I have three ads from stores this week that has e them cheaper now than they were when they were in season here. ! It is getting harder and harder to know when they are actually local and in season. Thank you for the idea of each of us posting a list of what is Actually in season for our areas. Why didn't I think of that? :-) When you do eat in season by the time the foods are in market from your area you have not had them for quite a while and hungry for them. As it is now most everything is available and we get blasé about it all. With 'new' things when each season it puts more excitement into eating again. Having to wait another year to eat it again makes it special. Sarah
This time of year I like apples, sweet potatoes, and turnip greens.
The only complaint I have about your blog involves my own personal weakness. You make everything sound sooo good, I immediately want to go start cooking, and of course, eating. Your husband is very lucky. Many men don't have wives that are as good at cooking wonderful meals,like you are. No wonder your family wants to stay with you all the time. When I was growing up, my mother couldn't cook. What she did to a roast, some people would consider murder. It is really pleasurable to come across someone that has an appreciation of good food and knows how to fix it. Thank you for sharing.
Shell
Lana, biscuits and gravy! Yes...I love to have biscuits with sausage gravy on a really cold morning. It fills you up and makes you all warm inside. That said, John complained the other morning over his morning oatmeal. Between the coffee and the oatmeal he broke into a sweat and it was 5am in the morning! I laughed but I think oatmeal may have to be moved to cold weather fare. He's not fond of my granola thus far but maybe I can convert him.
Shell, you made me laugh out loud. It's a truth that my husband has very very simple tastes. He has a list of what he considers the ten 'perfect foods' and at least four of them are canned items. He leans towards cheese burgers and pizza and hot dogs, peanut butter and bologna in his personal tastes. Thankfully he was raised to eat what was put before him and he does appreciate it but he's no 'foodie'! Nor is Master Josh or oldest son JD. The rest of us love to cook and experiment and share recipes and ideas and leftovers and are all good cooks.
Sarah where are the strawberries from? I agree it is harder to tell this time of year just what is in season and what isn't. I too like to eat seasonally for the most part. I look forward to what each season brings.
Sparky when I was growing up Granny and Mama often had fresh turnips and collards in the garden. I liked eating them both but seldom bother now that I've gotten older. I should see about adding those to our diet once more.
I saw the ad for the strawberries but did not go to those stores. The ones I got earlier were local. Anymore I usually look. We get a lot of produce from Mexico....close to us but not local !! :-) In Calif. we have many different areas that grow some of the same things. So one area has them early and another later as they grow a different variety of the same. I imagine it is like that all over America. We are so blessed aren't we. Sarah
As soon as the weather shows signs of cooler temps, we make chili. Pork chops and stuffing (Stovetop) are another staple meal in fall and winter.
I am inspired to thaw a beef roast this week and cook that low and slow one afternoon. We're going to have near-freezing overnight temps toward the end of the week, so if a have the oven on, perhaps I won't have to turn on the furnace?
Yum! I needed some inspiration. Thanks for the recipes.
I like chili and beef stew for fall. Anything appley for dessert.
I believe we are all on the same page! Last week I made our first Swiss steak along with a big batch of chile (enough for two meals). Like you, I try to add rutabagas or turnips (finely diced) to our roasts, soups and stews. We have abundant Daikon radishes out here at the farm stands at times and I sometimes use those instead and it offers the same little special tang as the turnips. It is cooling down nicely here, which was such a surprise as September has consistently been our hottest month of the year in the past. I agree with Sarah...we ARE so blessed.
Love,
Tracey
xox
Sarah, Do you recall that the first bit of this 'eat local' business was the 500mile diet. So if Mexico is within 500 miles of you then it's considered 'local' isn't it? If we all ate just what was within 100 miles we wouldn't get much variety in our diets.
Tracey, I do not like radishes raw on salads but when I was doing Atkins several years ago we cooked them and that is a wholly different vegetable! I hadn't thought of using them in roast or stew or soup. You and Lana reminded me of Swiss steak, which I may have mentioned but I was thinking of Salisbury steak when I wrote the post. And Aldi does have round steak portions which is what Mama always used to make Swiss steak. Oh goodness! I wish the cooler weather you and Tammy both mention would penetrate to us. It's still quite warm for us for this time of year.
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