Hello friendly readers. I'm more experienced with writing educational pieces and articles, but I've decided (thanks also to a boulstering instagam vote, thank you for that.) to start a little journey (I'm undecided on the word 'journey', it doesn't fit right) to trying to cook seasonal meals for myself.
A forward into my usual diet: To be honest, when I meal plan, I look for ingredients that can be used in many meals, and things that are a good price. Second, I eat a lot of Indian inspired food, being British-Indian myself, so I had, to be honest, not a great idea of what was seasonal to the UK, or more locally produced. Hence why my first go to was Vegsoc.org for their seasonal calendar, and BBC Good Food's seasonal calendar.
I ended up with the following list (from BBC Good Food):
In season January.
- [ ] Apple
- [ ] Banana
- [ ] Beef
- [ ] Beetroot
- [ ] Bramley apple
- [ ] Brussels sprouts
- [ ] Cabbage
- [ ] Cauliflower
- [ ] Celeriac
- [ ] Celery
- [ ] Chicken
- [ ] Clementine
- [ ] Kale
- [ ] Lamb
- [ ] Leek
- [ ] Lemon
- [ ] Onion
- [ ] Orange
- [ ] Pak choi
- [ ] Parsnip
- [ ] Pear
- [ ] Pomegranate
- [ ] Pork
- [ ] Spring onion
- [ ] Sweet potato
- [ ] Turnip.
Which allowed me to construct my first shopping list. The original idea was to get chicken, leaks, cabbage and milk to make a small stew, and then also some chicken and leak pie (if you're the instagram user who suggested that to me too, great minds think alike!), but alas, my local Aldi didn't have the right type of lettuce, and so after spending far too long hauling a heavy basket up and down the aisle, I decided instead to go with mince, and make Indian style cooked mince.
What I did end up getting were:
-[]Milk
-[]Jam (for porridge)
-[] Red onions
-[]Mince
-[]Bananas (loose, I'm not about that plastic packaging hehe)
-[]Cheese
-[]Oranges
-[]Tomatoes (which were the only out of season food, but I genuinely can't work out how to make meat pasta without tomatoes)
-[] and Tissues...but that was more an 'I need them' thing than seasonal.
for any budget conscious also students, this came to a total of £11.78, I like a good bargain too.
It was after walking home with pride, and an aching shoulder for my bag, that I realised (after being asked by a friend) that foods in season globally, and foods in season in the UK are not the same, and in fact bananas were not the right choice. Rest assured I won't contribute to food waste, but I was bitter about having made that mistake.
So, I guess the next thing is what I actually eat out of all of this...
Well to disclaim, I'm alright with a usual for my breakfast and lunch, which usually consist of simple porridge, with some jam, or chocolate spread in; and then lunch is a sandwhich, fruit, and maybe a snack like a biscuit or breakfast bar. So the fruit went mostly towards my lunches (even the bananas, since I'd already purchased them), and it was my dinner that took on a more...experimental shall we say approach.
The highlights: food.
Indian style mince:
This consisted of onions, with mince added, and then some spices, served with some naan breads (or roti's, whichever you prefer. I already have the atta flour for these, so this didn't factor into seasonal purchasing)
Espeically good with this meal, is that you can use whatever you have leftover for lunch the next day. I used the leftover mince, and a bit of cheese to make a toastie for my lunch, then added my fruit to the side.
here's a photo of the toastie in question, and yes I know it's not great, but I forgot I'd need photos for this so...I'd already eaten it all before I remembered to make it look nicer. (Nobody judge the chunky onions, they were very strong and I was cutting them through tears).
(It was at this point, at 15:50 on day 2 as I wrote this out, I realised I had no idea what to make for my dinner...I then decided to wait till the end of the week to write up, and promptly forgot what order I ate my meals in.)
Spaghetti/Pasta Bolognaise:
Simple, student friendly, and nearly seasonal, I cooked a few variations of pasta/spaghetti bolognaise this week. (Tomatoes are not in season unfortunately, but as I cannot work out how to make bolognaise without them, I had to accept a small defeat for this). The base recipe remains my usual (diced onion +tomato + ketchup +seasoning for the sauce), but I changed it up between meals, adding some mince to make a meatier sauce, or baking to make a pasta bake too.
Onion Parantha:
Now this is an old favourite of mine, that I love making whatever the season, but is espeically great for this journey because its single fresh ingredient is onion, which is in season. The rest of the ingredients are spices, atta (chapati flour) and water, which you can buy once and keep in your cupboard for months on end.
This recipe involves dicing onions, adding garam masala, chilli powder, ajwain (carrom seeds according to Google Translate) and shaking. You roll out a circle of atta (dough made from the flour + water) and add your onions on top (add your salt now) , folding the dough to encompass, so it's almost like a closed purse with the onions in. Roll this out again to about half a centimeter thick (or till the onions nearly burst), and fry with a bit of oil. Enjoy with butter or yoghurt!
Here's the finished result, and if you'd like to see how you get there, check out my reel on my Instagram (@mischief.weavers, it's a reel dated 23.01.2023) or the reel WILD Magazine posted on Instagram (@Wildmag.uk, dated 23.01.2023) where I document exactly how I make it and what it should look like!
So there are the 3 (or 5 depending how you differentiate types of spaghetti...) dishes that kept me going this first week of eating seasonal. Rest assured, I definitely need to branch out more, because I'll go mad on only pasta and onion parantha (as much as I love them, making the dough gets tiring), so I'll sign off for this week, and head into a new week, with some new ideas (chicken pad thai anyone?) and hopefully, a more prepared shopping list!
Till next time,
Your neighbourhood Mischief Weaver,
Ani. :)
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