Best Tips to Incorporate Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables in Your Meal Plan

I absolutely love this time of year! Produce markets and farmers' markets are overflowing with juicy, fresh fruits and vegetables.

Reasons to use seasonal produce:
Tastes better
More nutritious since it is picked at its peak ripeness
Cheaper
Support local farmers

Tips for Using:
Know which items are in season in your region
Keep meals simple
Ask the farmer their preparation tips
Find recipe inspiration
Avoid ingredient burnout

Check out the full episode for additional details!

Transcript of the Episode

Hi, friends it’s Andrea here with another episode of adventures and feeding my family. Recently, my husband and daughter were driving back from the beach and they stopped at a local fruit stand. This was on the side of the highway on the eastern shore of Maryland. And if you're not familiar with Maryland, the eastern shore is filled with farms and farmland area. They had some asparagus, I think a couple other items. But most importantly, they purchased a quarter strawberries. And let me just say, by the time they got home, there were only maybe four strawberries left, they just were so good and so fresh and so flavorful, but they couldn't resist eating them straight right in the car. That's what I love about this time of year, there's a bounty of fresh produce. And today, I'll give you a few tips on how to use those local fresh ingredients in meal planning so that you can take advantage of all the fresh, wonderful items that are available. Now. If after this episode, you still need some help crafting a winning meal plan for you and your family. I'm here to help. I've done this recently with some folks. And I actually really love doing it. I hear about what works best in the rhythms of their family, what nights they're busier, what nights they have more time to food prep, what their family's food preferences are, and all that information. After that I'm able to produce a meal plan that works for your family. And that you can really streamline into your household routine. Reach out to me if you'd like help doing this as well. I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. And I think that they had one of the very first farmers markets and it was a major event. The State Capitol is set up on the block. So there are four streets going around it. And every week every Saturday, I think A 051 Final Copy AIFMF Page 1 of 3 Transcribed by https://otter.ainot in the in the winter months. But from every Saturday, probably from like March until November, every Saturday the farmers market was set up there. And when I say that every side of that capital Square was packed with vendors. And it was packed with people week in week out. And this was even in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up. So that was really popular before it was popular everywhere else. I even remember one year, I was out there with my four H club and we were selling baked goods, it was a fundraiser. And my mom made her famous peanut butter cookies. Now they weren't famous because for any specific reason, I think they were just payments because they were really the only baked goods that she made literally the only big item that she made when I was growing up. And she used the recipe from I think it was the Betty Crocker cookbook. It was like the classic thing cookbook that she got as a wedding gift when she was younger. And my guess is that many of you know that cookbook, because probably your parents had it in the house as well. So nothing too fancy. But I don't remember how much the bake sale made for this fundraiser, but it was fun being out there. And to this day, I love going to the farmers market, it's definitely an event. There are definitely many benefits for using farmers markets, and particularly seasonal produce. First of all, you get to support local farms and farmers. So that's definitely a plus and a bonus. seasonal fruit and vegetables just tastes better. So the reason for this is that in season produce is fresher, and it's perfectly right. So it's picked kind of at its peak ripeness and so the food is allowed to ripen on the vine or on the tree or wherever it comes from. And so it's got more flavor packed in there. And so for this reason to that's why seasonal foods are much more nutritious as well. out of season produce is usually harvested earlier in its its growing cycles because it has to be shipped from farther away. So it has less time in that case it has less time for all the nutrients to develop and kind of concentrate within the the food itself. There are also a lot of environmental benefits because seasonal produce has less distance to travel to get to you. So it doesn't hurt Fire, artificial heating or air conditioning, and obviously less gas mileage, so fewer carbon emissions into the world as well. seasonal produce is cheaper. So when farmers are harvesting in large abundance, the prices actually go down because there's so much availability. So how do we use all of this abundance to our advantage? So there are a few things that you can do to include some of these seasonal options into your meal plan. But it's first important to have an understanding of what's in season, there are lots of charts and things like that to find what items are most available in your area or region. But my guess is that you have a pretty good sense based on what you see at markets and when the price has dropped significantly. Even if you're at a traditional grocery store, that is a clue that that is an item that is locally available. So when you're using seasonal produce, I want you to keep things simple. Sometimes we get stuck. If we're trying a new vegetable or fruit, that we get stuck because we think I don't know how to prepare that. If it's a vegetable, it's a good bet that just roasting it is gonna turn out really, really fantastically. Just roasting it with some olive oil, salt and pepper is a good standby. If you're not sure how to prepare that vegetable and don't use that unfamiliarity as an excuse not to use it. You can find recipe inspiration in lots of places. So you, you can simply google the ingredient. And you'll come up with lots and lots of options to use that ingredient. But beware, you can go down a rabbit hole here, because there's so many options out there. But yes, the internet and Pinterest can be a really good resource for this. Keep them simple and habitual. So if it's a pizza night that you have every Friday night, you can mix it up with some local toppings, some local ingredients, fresh produce, to use as toppings on your pizza, things like that. So how do you avoid ingredient burnout, my mind immediately goes to thinking about the never ending supply of zucchini at the end of summer, people literally can't give it away fast enough. I always noticed that at work in the kitchen, there's like a table and people will bring in their extra produce. And it's always filled with zucchini because they seem to ripen all at the same time. And then there's just more than you can possibly use. I know that here in Maryland, when I've been to the farmers market leader in August, they will literally sell green beans by the bushel. And I remember one year saying you know I can't eat all these green beans, I just want some of it. And the price was so good. I think I offered to pay the farmer like the same price. It just I didn't want to waste all those green beans and they basically pleaded with me, please just stick the full amount, give it to some friends, that type of thing. So at the end of the summer, like some of these vegetables that are really available in your area, there's just so much of it. So you really need to think about finding a variety of ways that you can prepare the same ingredient so that they don't go to waste and so you can best utilize it. So the zucchini if you want so I put together a list of five ways to use zucchini and you can grab that with a link in the show notes. And so hopefully that'll give you some good ideas to use up that zucchini because that was always the trickiest for me. So since we are in summer, pretty much the kind of the peak season of fruits and vegetables, the most common that are available in this area. Tomatoes, corn, peppers, green beans, things like berries, cucumber, eggplant, peaches, yellow squash, zucchini, potatoes, and then all those melons if you live in the right climate cantaloupe honeydew watermelon, the stone fruits like the cherries and the plums and nectarines. Oh my gosh, it's making me hungry. And then raspberries, blueberries, strawberries. I hope you like this episode. It's a simple one with some simple tips on how to utilize those seasonal fruits and vegetables in your meal plan. If you liked this episode, go ahead and share it with a friend Read it and review it. That's how we get the word out and make it more available so that your friends and other people that we know can get access to the podcast too. Until next time, take care