My guide to whats in season right now
Autumn is my favourite time of the year with so much amazing produce that adorn the shelves of our supermarkets and farm shops.
I try to visit my local farm shop regularly as I love to buy local and we have an option that we can pick our own too, which is super exciting!
It's heading to winter and Christmas, and I wanted to take this opportunity since I'm now writing blogs to share some really great seasonal recipes and showcase some of my favourite chefs that I follow.
I'm a chef myself and am in absolute awe of the hard work it takes to achieve what some of these iconic chefs have. I like to eat clean most of the time, so I will be giving you some clean recipes too from some of the wellness people that I love and follow also.
I really hope that I can inspire you to get in the kitchen and maybe get the family involved.
What is ‘eating seasonally’?
The concept of eating seasonally is really simple. It involves eating foods that are grown at the same time as you eat them within the country you are living in.
As most fruits and vegetables are being grown somewhere in the world at any one time, eating seasonally more specifically concerns eating produce that’s being grown right now. Locally. basic guidelines include eating cooling fruits and vegetables in the summer, balanced with warming fruits and vegetables in the winter.
Taking the subject back to our Palaeolithic roots though, seasonal food used to consist of what was grown within the reach. The gatherer collected wild fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds.
Meanwhile the hunter would source wild meat, and fish if near coastal waters or lakes. Seasonal produce, then, is what food is available to us, at that time, in the climate and terrain where we live.
When eating in accordance to the food that is in season in your region, you will be reaping the cyclical benefits needed for cleansing and healing during that period. For example, red grapes and blueberries, available in late summer and autumn, contain stilbenoid compounds that work with vitamin D to boost the immune system in preparation for the colder months ahead.
Spring foods, such as leafy greens, are nutrient dense, giving us the energy we need for the New Year. Moreover, they are packed with chlorophyll to detoxify the liver and purify the blood. Always useful after a New Year’s celebration.
The philosophy that ‘food is thy medicine’ goes back to Hippocrates. But that has been lost from much of Western medicine. Chinese medicine still believes in the power of seasonal food at helping us through the yearly cycles.
And practitioners still live according to the Five Elements, their season and corresponding pair of organs. These are: wood in spring (the Liver/Gallbadder), fire in summer (the Heart/Small Intestine), earth in late summer or the transition between seasons (the Spleen/Stomach), metal in autumn (the Lungs/Large Intestine) and water in winter (the Kidneys/Bladder). For more information on this subject click here to read more.
Why buy seasonal produce?
Eating within the season is very environmentally friendly! When you buy seasonal food, you help reduce the demand for out of season produce (which needs to be shipped/transported from other countries), and you're also supporting local farming. This means less refrigeration and less transportation minimizing carbon footprints.
Much of the food grown overseas has been produced in places with a more relaxed policy on pesticides, soil quality etc., which means you can't always be sure of the quality of what you're buying. Food grown and picked in season will taste far riper, fresher and sweeter.
As it's not being imported, it won't have had to endure the transportation time or being picked ahead of its ripeness! When there is a large harvest of in-season produce, the cost of said produce will go down!
I love buying bulk boxes and freezing what I don't use for later. It's also more likely to be produced locally if it's in season, pushing the cost down. Eating seasonal foods makes you more likely to get the full nutritional benefits too.
Seasonal food will often appear much brighter and plump than the non-seasonal range. We are provided with hardy winter vegetables for warm, wholesome foods such as soups and stews in the winter. In the summer, stone fruits provide extra beta-carotenes and other carotenoids to protect us against sun damage. Isn't nature nice!
Check the list below for what foods are in season right now, and aim to buy more of the below foods when shopping at your nearest greengrocers, supermarket or farmer's market. I love a good farmer's market as it means your produce will be coming from local growers, making it more environmentally friendly!
Why not choose a few of your favourite ingredients from the seasonal food list below and then google or use Pinterest to find a fantastic seasonal recipe? I love discovering new recipes this way!
What fruit and veg are in season right now?
Apples, Blackberries, Elderberries, Lettuce, Marrow, Mushrooms (field), Pears, Plums, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Rocket, Sloe berries, Squash, Sweetcorn, Watercress, Bay Leaves, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celeriac, Curly Kale, Fennel, Leeks, Parsnips, Quince, Red Cabbage, Swede, Turnips, chestnuts, pomegranate, passion fruit, almonds, brazil nuts, hazelnuts rosemary, sage, walnuts.
I've included recipes from my favourite chefs, nutritionists and foodies. Many are my own recipes, so I hope that you will love them as much I did creating them.
Two of the featured chefs are Jamie Oliver, who we all know and love. Not only is he innovative, has excellent ethics, and supports British farming and public health, but he embodies pure passion and love for what he does, which oozes out of him. He made it cool for men to start cooking at home and started a revolution.
I love his bish bash bosh approach too. He even has his beautiful kiddies making little video clips on Instagram; they are so cute. And I have a massive professional crush on Yotem Ottilenghi. If you haven't heard of him, go and check his recipes out. He is an Israeli- English chef, food writer and restaurateur.
He cooks middle eastern style food, but with a twist. His food is so elegant and stylish, using authentic spices, natural ingredients and creativity. I included Deliciously Ella and Amelia Freerer recipes as I'm a huge fan of their careers.
I love changing people’s lives through nutrition and the passion for helping people by inspiring articles to great natural recipes much like these women do. Again if you haven't heard of them, please visit their website to find out how much impact and buzz they create with their ethos and food recipes.
To find out the best fruit and vegetable boxes to buy in the UK, look at this article.
What meat is in season right now?
Beef, duck, goose, grouse, guinea fowl, hare, lamb, mallard, partridge, pheasant, rabbit, turkey, venison, wood pigeon
Please try to buy organic and grass-fed meat over factory farming which is the modern practice of raising animals for food in extreme confinement, to maximize profits. In addition to intense confinement, abuses usually associated with factory farming include massive doses of hormones and antibiotics, battery cages, debeaking, tail docking, gestation crates, and veal crates.
The animals spend their entire lives in these miserable conditions until they are slaughtered. Their suffering is unimaginable. To learn more about why organic meat is better for you to read this. I've included recipes from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall; I love his uncompromising commitment to seasonal, ethically produced food and his concern for the environment. And his enthusiasm for creating such simple and wholesome, hearty food.
I have used BBC good food for years for recipe inspiration as I know these recipes work. I've tried recipes from many different websites. However, some recipes don't work; they haven't calculated the ingredients correctly or have not tested them.
So you end up wasting money on a dish you can’t eat, so be reassured that the BBC good food recipes are accurate and work every time. If you buy the magazine in November, you get a free seasonal food calendar.
I've been buying it for over 20 years ( yes, it's hard to believe I'm that old). Waitrose does a similar monthly food magazine, but in December, so it's a member, you get the magazine for a free super bonus! So I have two, one in the kitchen and one in my hallway at home. They are really inspiring and are packed with some great seasonal information.
What fish is in season right now?
Clams, cod, coley, crab, dab, Dover sole, gurnard, haddock, halibut, hake, lemon sole, lobster, mackerel, monkfish, mussels, oysters, plaice, pollack, red mullet, sea bass (wild), sea bream, skate, squid, turbot, winkles
Try to buy wild and organic fish where possible, just like the factory-farmed meat. Fish is also factory farmed. Nearly half of all fish consumed worldwide each year are raised on land- or ocean-based aquafarms.
Farmed fish spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy enclosures, and many suffer from parasitic infections, diseases, and debilitating injuries. On aquafarms, high-volume systems control food, light (on indoor farms), and growth stimulation. Genetic engineering is used to accelerate growth, and hormones may be injected into fish to change their reproductive behaviour. In some countries, fish farmers also add antibiotics to the fish's food or water, and residues of these drugs have been found in fish sold for human consumption.
So please be wise as to what you are purchasing. Find out more about this here. I've included recipes from Waitrose, Rick Stein, who in my opinion, is THE CHEF for seafood and fish. Leith’ fish bible is an excellent book. Its been around for a while, but it has some great recipes, take a look here.
Further resources
I hope that I've inspired you to try some of these recipes. Some other food blogs that I think you might love and that I am inspired by are DR Rupy Aujla, an NHS medical doctor who, since learning more about nutritional medicine, started the Doctor's Kitchen in 2015 as a way of teaching everybody how they can cook their way to health, and to showcase the beauty of food and medicinal effects of eating and living well.
We need more doctors with this much passion for feeding your body high vibrational foods, and I absolutely love the traction his enthusiasm has caused and all the fantastic work that has stemmed from his healthy recipes.
Download this seasonal calendar for more information on seasonal food. To find out how chefs like to cook with seasonal produce, click here. This is a great website, too, with lots of recipes that are healthy.
The BBC good food seasonal section is really great, I love these recipes as I think they are straightforward and are easy to put together for those new to cooking, and the recipes are totally unpretentious.
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