What to eat in the autumn: 10 healthy seasonal products
After a stormy and busy summer with parties and chaotic food, it is important to remember about your health and try to come to a balanced regimen. To obtain all the necessary substances, including vitamins, seasonal fruits and vegetables are perfect: just collected from trees and shrubs, they give maximum taste and benefit, and the prices for them are now just reasonable. So that in the supermarket and the market did not run up, we made a list of ten seasonal products that you should pay attention to in the fall.
do not be discouraged: in this fruit is a sea of pectin, which works as a gelling agent, which means long live jam, jelly and marmalade.
Jam can be cooked the simplest - from quince, sugar and lemon zest, or with an oriental slant, adding cardamom. Jelly and marmalade can also be very diverse: you can try jelly with quince and rosemary, or marmalade from quince, honey and nutmeg. We'll have to work hard, but in December you will remember with tenderness the time spent on evaporation of honey.
Fennel
Fennel is shaped like a heart - and this is real happiness for the autumn menu: it is very fragrant and will be able to return the summer to the traditionally "autumn" dishes, which often lack fresh greens. At the same time, there is a lot of protein in fennel and it will add to any food what can be called a not very beautiful word "pressure" - so vegetarians and vegans should pay special attention to it.
In addition to stews and soups, fennel can be eaten fresh and added to salads. Another fennel perfectly complements cocktails, for example, this one, on the basis of gin.
Beet
Beetroot is associated with dishes familiar from childhood, such as borscht and vinaigrette, usually marinated or boiled. Honestly, it’s pretty boring, and it severely limits the beet’s abilities - after all, it is used by almost all of the top fifty restaurants in the world, and certainly not for borscht or vinaigrette. At home, we do not recommend repeating Michelin-scale dishes, although we do not prohibit them, but offer several other interesting hikes to beets.
Marinated beets, for example, fry well on the grill and serve as a side dish to steaks and steaks. Beetroot juice or mashed potatoes also perfectly play the role of food coloring, and with them you can even make the famous Red Velvet cake.
go to the nearest area to collect mushrooms yourself. Pre-advised to read a couple of reference books on the collection, so as not to collect a basket of toadstools. Remember that with the slightest doubt, it is better not to take mushrooms - and that among them are conditionally poisonous, which are dangerous, for example, in combination with alcohol.
Freshly harvested mushrooms can be prepared in a mass of ways: for example, pickle or simply fry with buckwheat porridge, and dry some for the winter - later you can cook risotto.
Swede
Rutabaga is a real transforming vegetable that appeared from the crossing of cabbage and turnip, and it can also be used in hundreds of different and unusual ways. In addition to the traditional turnip soup, you can make a casserole, pancake or Scandinavian stew. If you want to go the traditional way and cook the soup, then in addition to the standard hodgepodge of root vegetables, you can try this recipe for vegan soup from turnips and turnips.
Perhaps the coolest use of swede remains in history: from the Middle Ages until the eighteenth century, children in the British Isles used swede during Halloween - there were no pumpkins in Europe yet, and it was necessary to cut scary faces from something. This fall you can have a theme party on Halloween.
Elder
Elderberry is often associated with summer carelessness: it is either the elder soda from IKEA, or the gin garden cocktail based on elderberry syrup, which is so good to drink on hot evenings. In fact, the elder fruits from August-September and can be called a summer plant with a stretch. Like all berries, elder should be eaten fresh or turned into jam or jam. If you are not friends with sweets, then boldly throw elderberry in the pickle for cucumbers - there they definitely will not interfere.
Do not pour out the elderberry juice after cooking jams and pickles - you can add it to the elderberry syrup (this is definitely in the same IKEA) or liqueur and use it in hot tea or something more hot. For example, in an elderberry martini.
difficult - tell me if you succeed.
It doesn't matter if you buy parsnips on the market or grow them - be careful: you cannot eat anything other than the root itself. Its leaves and shoots for humans can be toxic.
Chicory
Chicory is another transformer on our list, but, unlike swede, its peculiarity lies not in form, but in application: chicory is made from both drinks and food. Everybody had to try chicory root at least once in life, especially at school - it is from this that they make a drink that is replaced with coffee for children and teenagers.
But the tip of chicory is known as one of the popular types of lettuce and an excellent side dish. One of the simplest and at the same time impressive chicory options is a side dish of baked ham salad. Chicory can be eaten fresh, but its leaves have a rather noticeable bitterness, so in salads it is better to supplement it with something sweet like oranges.
Cranberry
In the film industry, cranberry syrup is replaced with blood - cheaply and angrily. In principle, this fact alone may be enough to fall in love with this sour berry, but we do not give up so quickly: the cranberries are too good to be wasted on wounds.
In Russia, they traditionally make moistened cranberries: in a closed container with water, it can be kept fresh for up to a year - and if you like only fresh berries, then this option is fine for you. Those for whom fresh cranberries seem too acidic, will be more benign options - for example, sweet cranberry juice and cranberry pie. If it's not desserts that are closer to you, but meat, then cranberries will come in handy here: they make an excellent sauce for baked meat, which is eaten in America for Thanksgiving Day, and we can eat almost every day.
The easiest and most traditional ways to use pumpkin is to make a sweet American pie, or simply dry the seeds and decorate baked goods with them, add them to salads, or simply eat them. In addition to these simple and slightly annoying pumpkin dishes this fall, you can cook sweet rice porridge in Korean or Ukrainian versions, cook pumpkin syrup or fry tempura from its inflorescences.
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