We believe food is more than fuel - it really is fun. Making food fun opens up our palates to more food choices, decreases boredom resulting in healthier eating, and gives us opportunities for new activities and learning.
Examples we see around us are the 20+ raised vegetable garden plots in our own neighborhood development, as well as the abundance of food preparation, food gardening and urban gardening classes . During the growing season we see our neighbors with empty wagons and carts headed for the vegetable patches supported by our HOA. And then we see the families returning with their wagons and carts filled from their mini harvests and garden maintenance. Every once in while we find monster squash or tomatoes on our porch.
Recently I started to hear more about the “no waste kitchen” movement along with a trend for reinventing leftovers. Ironically one of the tips we share in the newsletter describes using leftovers and not letting food go to waste. You might checkout 16 Food Trends That Will Take 2016 by Storm . The article describes many trends including the "no waste kitchen" using "ugly" fruit!
Since Idyll Cravings sells Chutney in Farmer’s Markets and online we have seen a lot of fresh produce. We prefer to purchase our fruits and vegetables that are Colorado grown which means they are harvested in the season. In Colorado we will start to see greens in June and all the way in September. Beets, bell peppers (which we use in our chutneys,) broccoli, chili peppers and many other veggies come in about August.
The earliest fruit I know are cherries followed by apricots in July. The Colorado favorites are peaches, pears, plums and berries. If you are interested in knowing more about the Colorado Produce Calendar to guide your local purchases click here for a growers chart.
Publications like Hindustan Times and Salt both report the increasing trend towards the consumer focusing on vegetables. Some restaurants are actually featuring vegetables as the main course with meat as a side dish. Ancient grains like Quinoa, Millet and Amaranth are increasing in popularity and not just in the vegan and vegetarian sets. Several other trends are using spiralized veggies to cut down on knife chopping as well as eating more soups,
We are so grateful to live in a state that produces such a variety of great produce. We really can enjoy a farm to table experience in our own kitchen. We don’t necessary care if is trendy or pretty. We do care about up-to-date nutritional information, great ingredients and of course how we can use them with chutney!
Until next time eat well and
Stay Tasty.