Do you need a vegan meal plan template that will inspire you to cook with seasonal winter produce? Help yourself!
If we only shopped at supermarkets, we’d never know there is such a thing as seasons. But, unless you live in California, a trip to the farmers’ market – if you are even so lucky to have such a thing in your area – in January provides a useful reality check. What is available for sale has to tolerate very cold temperatures (some really hardy greens) or, more likely, grow underground: beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas and sunchokes are common finds at winter markets. Cabbage is another winter-time favorite and a great source of vitamin C. Most of those veggies will have been harvested just before the first frost and remained carefully stored at the farm.
The Deep Freeze Days winter-time vegan meal planner features those robust veggies and invites you to embrace the comfort of pot pies, soups, and all manners of roasted vegetables. Mushrooms, which are often grown indoors year round, also suit seasonal dishes. However, we’re not going to turn our backs to preserved summer magic (canned tomatoes!) and of the global food trade (bananas!). If you have an herb garden on your windowsill, more power to you.
Time- and money-saving tips:
- Always start meal planning with a review of what you already have in the fridge. Make sure to include whatever produce you already have in the week’s meals, and use open jars of condiments as an inspiration to choose your flavor profiles.
- When using the oven on Sunday to cook a casserole, loaf or pot pie, roast some veggies for Monday’s bowl as well.
- Cook a double portion (or more!) of Tuesday’s bean stew and use the leftovers in burritos or atop pizza on Friday.
- Using seasonal produce will save a lot of money on your grocery bill. Not only asparagus doesn’t grow in the the North Hemisphere until at least March (and more like May above the 40th parallel), but asparagus that has traveled all the way from Chile or Peru is expensive. Why pay top dollars for a fatigued version of the fresh-harvested spring stem? Same goes for many well-traveled but sad veggies. Trucked strawberries also tend to be watery and tasteless. Chose frozen for smoothie and dessert berries. Some fruits are better-suited to winter travels, like bananas and oranges.
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