The Kitchen
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Seasonal meals
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Seasonal meals
I brought this up elsewhere, got me thinking about it. I meal plan based on what’s coming in my kitchen. I do some preserving when I have way too much of something (plus, it carries us through the winter when less fresh things are coming in.) But my goal is to eat fresh as much as possible.
Too many eggs? I meal plan using lots of eggs. Example: breakfast, steak fajita bowls with fried eggs on top. Lunch, pad thai with soy sauce eggs. Dinner, meatloaf, spaghetti squash fritters, and brownies for dessert. That used 16 eggs in one day.
To much zucchini? Sure, I’ll freeze some, can some relish. But I will also use it as the base for a breakfast scramble (in place of potatoes. Sauté with garlic and butter for a side dish. Make a veggie lasagna with zucchini slices. And bake zucchini bread with raisins and pecans and coconut frosting for dessert.
It may be a bit extreme for some, but when the peaches are ripe, I’ll make whole meals out of fresh peaches. They are sooooo good! A dozen peaches for breakfast or lunch or both is a treat I don’t get all year round. And eating a quart jar of canned peaches for breakfast just isn’t the same.
Thoughts? Anyone else meal plan for fresh eating instead of preserving the whole harvest? Or am I a crazy lady 🤣
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21 Replies
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That’s some real good thinking and planning for sure. I live alone so i might have to plan a little bit different. I hate to waste stuff. Last summer i had so many tomatoes i was giving them away.
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Tomatoes are wonderful! Put some in an omelet in the morning. Tomato mozzarella salad for lunch. BLT for supper. Thick slices on a burger. Fried green tomatoes as a side. Of course, the obvious- pasta sauce and salsa- yummy!
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Make salsa, rotel tomatoes , tomatoes and onions and can them … I just Water Bath them …
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👍 Sounds good!
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Nice didn’t know that 👍
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If you have freezer space and more tomato’s than you know what to do with, wash them and pop them into the freezer in bags. I ran an experiment and put 20lbs in plastic grocery bags in the freezer for about a year and a half. It did not pick up any freezer taste. When starting to thaw the skins come off easier than blanching. The issue for me was that about 1/2 way through they started thawing too much to core. I just tugged on the stem end and snipped with scissors. Processed half peeling and the other half without peeling. The batch without peeling I ran through the blender. We have a ninja. It was not strong enough to pulverize the seeds but took care of most of the peels. Ran through a sauce master from there to remove the seeds and unprocessed peels. I usually make a neutral sauce that can be flexible to convert to pasta sauce, ketchup, etc. later. The sauce with the ground peels had better flavor and was a little thicker sooner. If you do your primary cookdown in something like a Nesco roaster you will not have to babysit as much and will buy you time to do other things while making the sauce. Freezing will let you kick the can down the road a bit and plan processing when the weather is bad or time will free up later. Sorry for the dissertation. Working on developing processes, etc. for busy homesteaders.
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I’ve got a ton of tomatoes in my freezer that I still haven’t done anything with. I really should get on that…thanks for the reminder 🙂
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Yes!🙌 I agree. I am doing this now with my pantry preps. It’s still soup season here in NC and I will add my canned veggies that at their best by date to make vegetable soups and to add vegetable to soups that have ground beef or chicken in them. Please share some recipes!
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Soups are great for using odd bits. Spring soups are great for cleaning out last seasons leftovers before the new harvest. I make many “kitchen sink soups” – soups with everything but the kitchen sink.
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I just did that last week with a can of beef stew that the date was getting close. I added a can of corn and made 2 meals out of it. I could have done 3 days’ worth if i needed to. We learned that growing up poor. I thought i would hate potatoes when i got older but i still like them. They were cheap and filling like rice.
Mom did what she had to do to feed us all of us kids.
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Thats how I explain myself too. I figure recipes using the ingredients I have on hand. I rarely shop for a certain recipe. Mostly whatever is fresh, or wherever my hand falls in the freezer gets pulled up.
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Yes, yes, yes. It’s become popular to write a meal plan based on what sounds good, then go to the store to buy ingredients. To me, as a homesteader, it makes more sense to look at what’s in my kitchen and in my garden, then meal plan around that.
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This is probably the way most people ate in general, eating up what was there in front of them as it was ripe, saving some for winter. We’re so spoiled now. We just want to eat what we “feel like” eating instead of just eating the bounty that is provided when it’s being provided. We see all those peaches and think, oh yum, but not now. We eat a few and can up the rest for another day. I’m sure there’s some balance between eating what’s ripening and preserving for winter, but your method sounds completely natural to me.
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The “ancestral health” movement is what got me thinking about it in the first place. There’s a bit of laziness involved, too. Why can it when I could simply eat it now? 😄
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I love the laziness factor! Sometimes I think modern people work way too hard. That’s why I dehydrated nearly a year’s worth of tubers and veg by the wood stove all winter. No extra electric bill to pay (less work away from home to pay for it).
I also think certain foods grow at certain times to provide us with the right nutrients at the right time of year. That may have more to do with wild foods but must apply as well to most domesticated food as they all came from wild foods.
Modern people are just used to having what they want when they want it. It’s just a habit; it’s not natural.
Eat what’s ripening and store the rest for winter and the following spring until the next harvests. That’s what people used to do.
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This is a great Idea! I do the same for the same reasons especially peaches.
I have a ton of asparagus also and do that somewhat but I do get tired of it more than once a day after a bit.
I bought a freeze dryer Black Friday and plan on doing that with a lot of produce.
So would like to see your recipes.
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Asparagus would be a more difficult one to get creative with. It’s such a strong flavor that it doesn’t have the versatility of some milder flavor crops.
A freeze dryer is on my wishlist. Someday.
Most of my recipes I got online, so a Google search will bring up most of what I mentioned. But if there is something specific that you can’t find, let me know.
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Sounds great I will search when the seasons come for recipes.
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Asparagus is great pickled and canned.
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Oh ya do some of that.
Give a bunch away even freeze it in bag’s then throw those in the crockpot whenever I use that.
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Zucchini is often dehydrated and powdered, used up to a third of the recipe in replacement for flour. Once in a dehydrated state, it can be stored, with an oxygen absorber or vacuum sealed, for years.
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