Seasonal Produce

I've become increasingly oriented towards buying only produce that's in season. Going to the Farmer's Market for years had this effect on me. Before, I barely thought about it. Now, I am tuned into the seasons and I can hardly bring myself to buy things that I know are not fresh from a tree or a field. Of course, you have to take imports into account. Here in Central Texas that often means Mexico, and sometimes Central or South America.

This time of year, there is more tropical produce available here. Mangos are now fresh - maybe a little unripe still. I have been getting really fabulous and cheap honeydew melons lately. Citrus is now at its peak and you can get those yummy little clementine tangerines and ruby red grapefruit. I'm still buying the last of the honeycrisp apples, but only for a week or two longer. Apple season is about over. Pears are now past peak. Peaches, cherries and nectarines are long gone. Lettuces are getting better. In Texas, you can still get tomatoes and peppers from southern Texas and Mexico - pretty much all year long. The prices are creeping up a bit though.

The grocery store I shop at has those scales that print out a price tag. You put your bagged produce on the scale, punch in the produce code number for it, and out pops a scannable price tag. I've been using these for all my produce. It helps me to really pay attention to the cost of things and speeds up checkout. This has made me very aware of the fact that fruits cost much more than vegetables. Vegetables seem like an incredible bargain to me. I really don't remember what they cost in Virginia, so maybe they are cheaper here. Three servings of romaine, broccoli or green beans costs a dollar at most. Bell peppers, even red ones, are under a dollar - and very large.

My husband was just talking to me about how our food expenses have gone down lately. That isn't obvious to me, but maybe my shopping is more careful. It's a lot like doing my food diary. Recording what you eat and then looking at it and thinking about it makes you really aware of which foods seem worth the calories. Weighing the veggies and fruits and seeing what they cost has the same effect.

We've settled into a pretty steady routine of meal planning. We shop maybe twice a week, buying 3 or 4 kinds of meat or fish. We fill up the produce drawers at the same time. A big basket of fruit sits out on the counter and gets eaten methodically for snacks, desert, or breakfast. We make a dinner of some reasonably healthy protein source, plus 2 or 3 vegetable dishes and sometimes rice. Leftovers get eaten for lunch the next day, or we make a sandwich. Everyone fends for themselves for breakfast and lunch. Dinner is a pleasant sit down thing with civilized conversation (and no television or other distractions). This makes eating pleasant, easy and fairly inexpensive. The quality of the food is generally very high. Even when I make something that sounds bad for you, I usually come up with a healthier version. Like tonight, we had tamales with chili. But, it was homemade turkey chili with lots of added bell pepper and onion - a very low calorie, almost no fat version. And the single tamale (180 calories) was a chicken and tomatillo version. Lunch was 2 oz of roasted chicken breast with blackberries and a piece of whole grain bread. Breakfast was low sodium V-8. I had a snack of salsa and tortilla chips - but it was only an ounce of no salt chips and 6 oz of low salt salsa.