Fruits and vegetables are available all year, but you may notice the quantity, quality and prices decline and flow throughout the seasons.
Choosing fruits and vegetables in season is a sure-fire way to enjoy the freshest produce at the cheapest prices.
Before you stop at the grocery store or swing by the farmer’s market, check out what is in this time of year.
Eating fruit and vegetables when they are in season is a great idea for many reasons. Firstly, produce is cheapest when it is at its most abundant.
If you are working on a tight budget, eating seasonally can dramatically reduce your grocery bill. Secondly, fruit and vegetables contain the greatest number of nutrients when they are allowed to ripen naturally.
Garlic
Garlic, a staple of nearly every cuisine around the world, can always be found in grocery stores.
Still, if you want local, fresh garlic from the farmer's market or your garden, summer is your season in most parts of the country.
We should not have to tell you how to use garlic, but if you want to let this aromatic shine, roast it in the oven and spread the golden cloves on fresh, crusty bread. You can also make a punchy creamy garlic salad dressing, toasted garlic, or garlic butter.
Cauliflower
Talk about a comeback vegetable! Cauliflower is taking the culinary world by storm and popping up in everything from pizza crust to fried rice.
This versatile vegetable can be used to make pesto, added to mashed potatoes for a lighter dish, turned into savoury waffles, or used to replace rice in classic casseroles.
Cucumbers
While cucumbers can be purchased at other times of the year, they are the cheapest in summer.
Cucumbers are great eaten fresh and chopped in a Greek salad, in a watermelon and cucumber salad, or in a tomato, or cucumber salsa.
Cooling and refreshing cucumbers can be added to smoothies or turned into sorbets. Pickling cucumbers are also a great way to make them last longer and keep them crunchy.
Stone fruits
Stone fruits are those with a hard inner seed similar to a stone, such as cherries, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, and pluots. These fruits make for great additions to summer salads or can even stand alone as simple, grilled desserts.
Blueberries
Blueberries are chock full of fibre, vitamin C, vitamin K, manganese, and potassium and are among the foods you should eat every day. They are fantastic to eat on their own or on top of yoghurt, but they are also delightful when baked into banana bread, scones or muffins.
Corn
Do you prefer eating corn on the cob? Or maybe you cut it off to throw into salads and pasta? Regardless, there is nothing like the real deal. Corn is high in fibre, vitamin C, folate, and thiamine, so treat yourself to seconds.
Bell peppers
Bell peppers are an excellent source of vitamins A and C and a good source of vitamins E and Vitamin B6. Store bell peppers unwashed in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator for up to four to five days. They are great for snacking, stuffing, and a wide variety of dishes.
Here is a quick recipe to make the most of summer and cook up a fresh, tasty, seasonal meal for your family that is bursting with both flavour and nutrition.
Mokgadi Itsweng’s nectarine and sorghum salad
Makes: 4 – 6
Ingredients
1 cup sorghum grain (soaked for at least 2 hours) or 1 cup pearl barley
200g rainbow baby carrots, washed
200g broccoli tender stems
1 tbsp olive oil
4 nectarines, pitted and cut into halves
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp coriander, chopped
2 tbsp mint, chopped
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
50g sunflower seeds, toasted
Dressing
½ cup orange juice
½ cup lemon juice
60ml olive oil
½ tsp cumin
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp garlic, crushed
1 tsp ginger, grated
Method
Preheat oven to 200ºC
Cook sorghum in 4 cups of water for 90 minutes at medium heat until the sorghum is soft but still chewy. If the water dries out before the sorghum is cooked, add an extra 2 cups of hot water.
Drain the grain and allow it to cool.
Place the carrots and broccoli on a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil and grill for 15 minutes, turning halfway through.
While the vegetables are grilling, heat a griddle pan until smoking. Brush the nectarine halves with a little oil and grill the nectarines on the flat side for 2 minutes, until nicely caramelised, but still firm. Remove from heat and allow to cool before serving.
Make the dressing by mixing all the dressing ingredients in a blender and setting them aside.
To serve, mix the drained sorghum, herbs, and half the dressing.
On a platter, layer the dressed and herbed sorghum with the grilled veg and nectarines.
Drizzle the remainder of the dressing over the salad and top with roasted sunflower seeds.