The Key to eating Locally and Seasonally . . . . . .

Is a Local and Seasonal Meal Plan.

I have a Menu Plan up in the corner, but I'll confess now, I don't use that much anymore. It was a good start, and I think that it is a good idea in general to have a menu plan. If you go to the store/farmer's market without a menu plan, then you end up buying stuff, but not having a plan of how/when you are going to use it, and too often, then food goes to waste. Also, when I don't have a menu plan, WAY too often, it gets to be 6:30 at night and I'm still scrambling around trying to figure out what to fix for dinner that night.

One of the things that I really like about Local/Seasonal meal plans is that it ensures that you use items that are available during that season. It also helps so that you select recipes that use those kind of items instead of using recipes that use items that aren't available at that time of year.

I talked about the idea of setting up Seasonal Notebooks and one of the main things that I was planning on doing was including a Seasonal Meal plan and the recipes for the different meals. Uh, I haven't had time to do it yet. But I still feel like it is a great idea. I need to break up the job into small chunks so that I can get it done. I need to remember to do that with lots of things - too often, I get overwhelmed and end up doing nothing.

Anyway, here are some general tips for local/seasonal menu planning.

1. Check your refrigerator (focus on things that you need to use up before they go bad) and freezer to see what you have.

2. Check your pantry/food storage to see what you have. It is helpful if you use inventory sheets, especially when you are starting out. Now I pretty much have the list of what we have in memorized and it just takes me a quick glance to see how many we have used. And the beauty of canning (and freezing and drying) is that it lets you eat local food that isn't in season without having to BUY it out of season.

3. Look at a list of what foods are available in your area for that month. (Again, here is where preserving food is helpful in say, WINTER. There is very little that is growing in Illinois from December through March, so if you don't preserve food, your menu would probably have to lean heavy on food that is available locally year round like beef, chicken, pork, eggs, milk, and cheese.)

4. Create a menu. I find it easiest to plan for a month, and buy most things once a month, but I also create a weekly shopping list for produce and dairy. Focus on meals that use the items that are available that month and the food that you have in your fridge/freezer/pantry/food storage.

5. Find recipes for your meals. Focus on recipes that use the items that are available that month and the food that you have in your fridge/freezer/pantry/food storage.

6. Check your spices/cupboards, etc. to make sure you have the items necessary for your recipes.

6. Make a shopping list. Like I said in step #4, I make two shopping lists - a monthly shopping list and a weekly shopping list.

I would like to get a Summer menu plan done in the next week or so before the bulk of fruits and vegetables are ready for harvesting. When I finish, I'll probably post it here, but please just use it as an example. What my family eats and your family eats is probably different. And if you don't live in Illinois, what you have available is probably different.

Local/Seasonal/Organic .... On A Budget???

The local/seasonal/organic movement has been building for the past few years, and Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle brought even more attention to it. I've been interested in eating like that for years, but for awhile, I, like many people, figured that it was just more expensive to eat that like.

And if you want to have 17 different varieties of fruit and vegetables at one time, it probably is. And when you are just starting out with canning/dehydrating, it probably is.

Over the years, I've shifted slightly the way that I eat. And to be brutally honest, I still have some non-local/non-seasonal/non-organic food in my home, but it is primarily for the preschool/daycare children that I take care of in my home. I still strive for healthy snacks and lunches, but I don't always serve them the food that I buy for the rest of my family because I know that they won't eat it, and I don't want it to go to waste. I also have some non-local/non-seasonal/non-organic in my food storage, although I am striving to preserve more and more of food from my garden for my food storage.

Anyway, I started with just Organic. And I started by trying to buy Everything Organic. That lasted about a month. We didn't need Organic or Non-Organic Oreos. So then I went mostly the other way, where I only bought a few things Organic (primarily milk and apples.)

Then I started with Local (and by default mostly, also Seasonal.) I went to our Farmer's Market and I'd buy things, but that first year, I'd get frustrated when I'd go there that first week, and the only thing that they would have was radishes, spinach, and herbs. I wanted corn. I wanted carrots. I wanted tomatoes. So I'd buy what was there, but I'd buy what I wanted at the grocery store. At the grocery store, you can get whatever you want, whenever you want.

And then a couple years ago, a new Health Food store opened in town and they sold milk from a local dairy. I started getting my eggs from a local farm. And I started in earnest to study about vegetables that I wanted to plant in my garden. And I started noticing more about when fruits and vegetables came into season.

Last year was the first year that I canned by myself (well, not by myself. I canned with my sister. But it was the first time I canned as an adult. It was the first time I canned when I wasn't just helping my mom.) It was almost magical how I could preserve food from my garden and be able to eat it during the many months in Illinois when there aren't any crops growing.

So here we are to this year. My first priority is Local. I buy my milk from a local dairy. I buy my eggs from a local farm. Same with my cheese. I buy cream from the local dairy so I can make butter. I'm asking for a yogurt maker for my birthday so that I can make local/organic yogurt.

Then I go for Seasonal. This is either bought at Farmer's Market or from the Health Food store (they sell local/seasonal food as well as organic food.) BUT, and here is the real Kicker. I only buy either ONE type of vegetable and/or ONE kind of fruit per week that is in season. I budget a certain amount per week for produce and that's what I spend. I supplement with food that is grown in the garden, although most of the food in the garden is preserved.

There are some slight exceptions to this rule. For example, earlier this month, I went to a Strawberry U-pick and picked 15 pounds of strawberries and made strawberry jam. That was over my produce budget. Later on, I'll buy lots of peaches and can them, and in the fall, I'll buy lots of apples, and make applesauce. But when I buy lots of fruit for preserving, I buy them when they are in season, and I buy them locally.

Another exception is I do buy things, like yogurt, which I don't make yet, and I don't have a local source. So I get organic yogurt, and I pick the yogurt that is produced as close to Illinois as I can.

And there are just some things I don't buy anymore. If a fruit (or vegetable) is ONLY grown outside of the continental United States, we don't buy it.

So with the food I buy, there really isn't a lot of variety. Like I said, basically, during the growing season, I buy one local/seasonal/organic vegetable and/or fruit each week. But with preserving food, and that year's garden, we are often able to have two or three choices per week. And I am able to do this AND stay on budget.

Postscript - I didn't address meat in this blog post. During the growing season, I honestly try to cut WAY back on our meat and eat mostly fruit and vegetables. During the late fall and winter, I buy organic beef and chicken. I buy sometimes from local sources, although I do sometimes buy it from the store. My goal is to have a chest freezer/upright freezer by next fall, and to get a quarter of a beef, some pork from a local pork farmer, and a large order of whole chickens from a local chicken farmer.

Buy Local, Buy Seasonally . . .

This is one thing that I've really tried to do for the past few years. I don't always do it (I would have to preserve enough food to live through November through April. A great goal, but I'm not there yet.) But I do try and buy as much as I can, especially once the growing season starts. And I am excited to say that Illinois finally has some crops that are available. I buy my local, seasonal food primarily at our local farmer's market, but I also buy some at Naturally Yours grocery store.

According to the Sustainable Table website, the following foods are available in early May in Illinois:

• Asparagus
• Cabbage
• Cherries
• Greens
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Peas
• Radishes
• Rhubarb
• Spinach
• Sprouts
• Squash
• Strawberries

Eating Seasonally

When I started on this journey of self-reliance, simple living, being frugal, etc., one of the first things that I focused on was trying to eat seasonally. In an ideal world, I would eat seasonally from food that I grew on my very own, but I'm not there yet. So the next best thing is try and eat things local that are growing in my area at that time.

I've got a chart in my document section that shows what foods are in season for Illinois, but I just found this GREAT website that allows you to pick your state, and the time of year (it's toward the bottom of the page.)

Here is a copy of the information that I found when I looked at Illinois for Late October.

What's Fresh
Illinois: Late October

• Apples
• Bell Pepper
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Corn
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Grapes
• Greens
• Herbs
• Horseradish
• Lettuce
• Okra
• Onions
• Peas
• Plums
• Potatoes
• Pumpkins
• Radishes
• Rhubarb
• Spinach
• Squash
• Sweet Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Turnips

(If you click on the links, it will take you to a recipe using that food.)

This makes it easier for me so that I can take a short list from this website when I go shopping. Because of course, you can buy any food at any time at the grocery store. Or at least most of the time. I do try and buy things from the local farmers market when I can or from the local health food store, but there are certainly times when I buy at a major grocery store and the foods I buy aren't necessarily local. But at least if they aren't local, I'm eating foods that are in season at that time.

More November Lists - In Season Foods and Provident Living

Sorry - I meant to do this last week, and it just totally slipped my mind and now all of a sudden, almost half the month is over.

My goal is to only buy fresh produce that is in season. Some months (like December through March) that gets trickier than others. Also, my kids like to eat bananas and they don't grow well here in Midwest, U.S.A, so there are certain exceptions. But like I said, it is the goal. Next year, I also hope to do more canning so we can eat local fruit and vegetables that were picked when they were in season. particularly during the winter monts. I meant to do canning this year, but didn't have the time or the $$. Another goal to put on my list . . . (Boy that list is getting long! LOL).

I also buy organic foods, but only if they have had high pesticide load. I will put an (O) to the right of a particular food if I buy it organically.

Also, keep in mind that this in-season list is only valid for Midwest U.S.A and your in-season foods may be different. I found this list through the local county extension office's website, so you may want to check with your local county extension to find out the in-season foods in your area.

November In-Season Foods

• Apples (O)
• Bell Peppers (O) (I don't actually buy these. My family does not like peppers, and I do NOT buy food if my family does like it. We have enough food that we do enjoy that I don't waste my money buying food just because it is in season.)
• Garlic
• Greens
• Horseradish
• Onions
• Peas
• Potatoes (O)
• Sweet Potatoes
• Pumpkins
• Spinach (O)
• Squash

Provident Living - November

• Literacy: Volunteer to read at a local school
• Education: Continue Reading plan
• Career Development: Conduct mock interviews
• Resource Management: Create a digital (document and photo) inventory
• Health and Physical Fitness: Learn about disease prevention
• Social and Emotional Health: Learn about communication
• Food Storage: Week 1 - salt, Week 2 - vitamins, Week 3 - chocolate chips, cocoa, vanilla, Week 4 - oatmeal