AFTER A HEAVY AND SATURED SUMMER with parties and chaotic meals, it is important to remember your health and try to come to a balanced regimen. To get all the necessary substances, including vitamins, seasonal fruits and vegetables are excellent: freshly harvested from trees and bushes, they provide maximum taste and benefit, and their prices are now just moderate. To keep your eyes on the supermarket and the market, we have compiled a list of ten seasonal products to look out for in the fall.
Quince
Since September, quince appears in supermarkets, and we have a chance to try something new. While quince is usually too hard to eat raw, if you come across a flavorful fruit, watch out for it – it’s sweet enough to be eaten fresh. If you did not find that very fragrant quince, but found only an ordinary one, then
don’t be discouraged: this fruit contains a lot of pectin, which works as a gelling agent, which means – long live jam, jelly and marmalade.
You can cook the simplest jam – from quince, sugar and lemon zest , or with an oriental bias , adding cardamom. Jelly and marmalade can also be very diverse: you can try jelly with quince and rosemary or marmalade of quince, honey and nutmeg. You will have to work hard, but in December you will fondly remember the time spent on the evaporation of honey.
Fennel
Fennel resembles a heart in shape – and this is real happiness for the autumn menu: it is very fragrant and will be able to return summer to traditionally “autumn” dishes, which often lack fresh herbs. At the same time, fennel is high in protein and will add to any food what can be called a not very nice word “greediness” – so that special attention should be paid to vegetarians and vegans.
In addition to stews and soups, fennel can be eaten fresh and added to salads . Fennel also perfectly complements cocktails, for example this one based on gin.
Beet
Beets are associated with familiar childhood dishes like borscht and vinaigrette, usually pickled or boiled. To be honest, this is quite boring, and it greatly limits the possibilities of beets – after all, almost all restaurants from the list of the 50 best in the world use them, and certainly not for borscht or vinaigrette . At home, we do not recommend repeating Michelin-scale dishes, although we do not prohibit them, but we offer several other interesting trips to the beets.
Marinated beets , for example, can be grilled well and served as a side dish with steaks and steaks. Beet juice or puree is perfectly fulfill the role of a food dye, and with them you can even cook the famous cake ” Red Velvet “.
Mushrooms
Champignons can be bought in the supermarket all year round, but it is in the fall that the season begins for a host of other mushrooms – for example, oyster mushrooms, boletus and mushrooms. In addition to the nutritional value, mushrooms can also offer quite a sports one: right now you can gather a group of friends, take a thermos with tea and rubber boots and
go to the nearest area to pick mushrooms on your own. We advise you to read a couple of collection guides beforehand so as not to collect a basket of toadstools. Remember that in case of the slightest doubt, it is better not to take mushrooms – and that among them there are conditionally poisonous ones, which are dangerous, for example, in combination with alcohol.
Freshly picked mushrooms can be prepared in a variety of ways: for example, marinate or just fry with buckwheat porridge , and dry some of them for the winter – later you can make risotto from them.
Swede
Rutabaga is a real transforming vegetable that emerged from the crossing of cabbage and turnip, and it can also be used in hundreds of different and unusual ways. In addition to the traditional rutabaga soup, you can also make casseroles , potato pancakes or Scandinavian stews . If you want to go the traditional way and cook soup, then in addition to the standard prefabricated root vegetable hodgepodge, you can try this recipe for vegan rutabaga and turnip soup .
Perhaps the coolest use of rutabaga remained in history: from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, children in the British Isles used rutabagas during Halloween – there was no pumpkin in Europe yet, and it was necessary to cut scary faces out of something. Throw in a Halloween themed party this fall.
Elder
Elderberry is often associated with summer carelessness: it is either the elderberry soda from IKEA, or the gin garden cocktail based on elderberry syrup, which is so good to drink on hot evenings. In fact, elderberry bears fruit since August-September and can hardly be called a summer plant. Like all berries, elderberries need to be eaten fresh or made into jam or jam . If you are not friends with sweets, then feel free to throw the elderberries into the cucumber marinade – there they definitely will not interfere.
Do not pour out the elderberry juice remaining after making jams and pickles – you can add it to elderberry syrup (there is exactly this in the same IKEA) or liqueur and use it in hot tea or something more strong. For example, in an elderberry martini .
Parsnip
This root vegetable with a poetic name has a long shelf life – and it is also an ideal ingredient for soups (for example, for this spicy and warming one ) and an excellent side dish for baked meat. Parsnips go surprisingly well with sweet flavors, and they themselves are sweet and can be baked with honey . True, make a dessert with him
difficult – tell us if you succeed.
It doesn’t matter if you buy parsnips on the market or grow them – be careful: you cannot eat anything in parsnips besides the root crop itself. Its leaves and shoots can be toxic to humans.
Chicory
Chicory is another transformer on our list, but, unlike rutabagas, its peculiarity lies not in its form, but in its application: both drinks and food are made from chicory. Everyone has tried chicory root at least once in their life, especially at school – it is from it that they make a drink that replaces coffee for children and adolescents.
But the chicory top is known as one of the most popular types of salad and an excellent side dish. One of the simplest yet most impressive chicory options is a baked ham salad garnish . Chicory can be eaten fresh, but its leaves have a rather noticeable bitterness, so in salads it is better to supplement it with something sweet, like oranges .