Frugal Food #6: Eat in Season

You've heard it before.  It's the new mantra, along with Eat Local.  It's always cheaper to buy stuff that's in season (especially when it's really, really, in season and everyone just wants to get rid of it rather than can it, freeze it, or feed it to the livestock!).  If you have a garden, then you must eat it when it's in season.  Sometimes the season gives you quite a smorgasbord, sometimes it just gives you way too much of one thing.

 

We've been 'enjoying' summer squash for a few weeks now.  I know all the zucchini jokes, but really, for some reason zucchini just won't grow at this little place here.  But summer squash does.  Planted in the same garden.  At the same time.  In the same row, even!!  I've had exactly two green zucchini this season.  We've had about a dozen summer squash, and there are currently nine more on the counter that I need to come up with a creative recipe to use them in, plus another eight or so in the garden growing overnight to the size of billy clubs.  I plant the summer squash just in case the zucchini poop out on me again (as they have 7 out of 8 years here).  They are pretty much the same, just yellow.

We are rather sick of summer squash.  But it's abundant, and, since we started it from a $1-something packet of seeds, at this point each squash is costing just pennies.  With another month to go before we hit the 'average first frost' date, I'm predicting our squash will be costing negative numbers before the season is over.  There aren't a whole lot of recipes for preserving summer squash (other than shredding and freezing in 3-cup quantities for 'zucchini' bread all winter long), so it's kind of an eat-it-now thing.

Which means creative cooking.  What can I do with those abundant yellow soft-skinned veggies?  There's:

• sauteed summer squash (sprinkle it with some Lawry's and saute in olive oil or butter)
• fried summer squash (batter with egg and crushed crackers and fry until browned)
• squash boats
• grilled summer squash
• diced squash thrown in spaghetti sauce, soup, stew, etc
• shredded squash used in zucchini bread/muffin/cake/cookie recipes
• if you have chickens, they will love to eat the ones you are totally sick of, and it will save on chicken feed!

Other things that are in season can be canned, frozen, or dehydrated and stored for eating all year.  For me right now, that would be peaches, pears, corn, tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers ('stored' as dill pickles, YUM!).

Right now, in Michigan, it's the peak of gardening.  Melons are coming ripe, the corn is on, the tomatoes are turning red every day, there is a huge variety of fresh eating.  Even if you don't have a garden of your own, you can most likely find a farmers market or a roadside stand with someone's extra veggies for sale (or maybe even free, if you like zucchini or their yellow cousins!).  Get some.  Eat some.  Preserve some.