What’s in Season? Fall Fruit & Vegetable Shopping at Your Local Farmer’s Market

by Anne Kupillas.

Ah, harvest season! Nothing signals the start of fall like a pumpkin spice anything, really.  We all have autumn memories that involve food, whether it’s apple cider, baked sweet potatoes with marshmallows or roasted brussel sprouts, figs plucked fresh off the tree or persimmons around the holidays.

Shopping for seasonal produce is easy here in  SoCal, where our weather supports a variety of foods,  the growing season is long, and farms are plentiful.  But you can find delicious and healthy produce all over the country and around the world.

Local farmer’s markets offer fruits and vegetables that were often picked just hours before the market opens, and have traveled less than fruits and vegetables traveling through the conventional wholesale channel to the grocery stores. Talk about an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint!

The fruit offered at farmers' markets is sweeter —  tree-ripened fruits carry a higher sugar content versus truck/train or shelf-ripened items, and vegetables have more flavor, too.   There’s an abundance of organic options (ask your favorite farmers at their stands about the techniques they use, which produce is organic, and what’s most plentiful and at its peak of ripeness. 

The produce offered may not be as conventionally “good looking” as what you see on the shelf at the supermarket, but you can feel good knowing you’re participating in rescuing food that might have otherwise gone to waste.  

Eating with the seasons also makes financial sense. When produce is in season, there is an abundance—thus it’s available at a lower price.

What’s in Season:

• Winter Squash (Spaghetti Squash, Butternut Squash, Acorn Squash)

• Root Vegetables (Carrots, Beets, Parsnips)

• Potatoes

• Sweet Potatoes

• Kale

• Brussels Sprouts

• Broccoli

• Cauliflower

• Garlic

• Onions

• Figs

• Apples

• Eggplant

• Grapes

• Persimmons

• Pomegranates

• Pears

• Pumpkin

Fall bounty also makes for excellent still life subjects!

As healthy lifestyle expert Camille Styles says, “Luckily, autumn’s harvest includes a variety of healthy, nutrient-dense foods. Along with root vegetables and crisp fruits, warming herbs like ginger and cinnamon are loaded with antioxidants to boost your immune system (key as temps drop).”

Styles’ links offer some tempting recipes. Another source of new recipes? Ask your local farmers at the market.  Often, they’re happy to share their favorite family recipes, passed down through generations along with heirloom seeds.

Here’s a favorite dish of mine, which is healthy and full of nutrients, is vegetarian and utilizes seasonal fall produce. I hope you will enjoy shopping, cooking and eating it.

Creamy Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Serves 4 as a side dish

Ingredients

1 lb fresh local organic brussel sprouts

3 Tbsp virgin olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic

1 lemon

Salt & pepper

1 tbsp onion powder

Sriracha mayo, to taste

1/2 cup pistachio nuts, roasted & salted or unsalted (your preference)

1 avocado, mashed **avocados are still in season and plentiful during October in California

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

• Rinse, then trim the brown ends of the brussel sprouts and pull off any yellow outer leaves. Leave the stems. Cut larger sprouts in quarters, slice smaller ones in half vertically, down the center of the stem.

• Mix the sprouts in a bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper.

• Peel the garlic and slice cloves in two. Add to bowl.

• Spread the mixture out on a sheet pan and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until crisp on the outside and fork tender on the inside. Shake the pan from time to time to brown the sprouts & garlic evenly and until sugars are released and the veggies are carmelized but not burned. Some crispy outer leaves are ok (and add a yummy extra texture).

• Remove from oven & while cooling, peel and roughly mash your avocado.

• Add mashed avocado to a serving bowl with brussel sprouts, garlic and any remaining oil.

• Add the juice of one lemon, onion powder, and salt & pepper to taste.

• Roughly chop and add half of the pistachios, 1/4 cup. Mix well.

• Top with drizzled Sriracha mayo and the other 1/4 cup of whole pistachios. Serve warm as a main or hardy side dish.

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