Photo by evelynishere

Food shopping can be intimidating, especially if cooking is new to you.

A common approach to this problem is to pick your recipes beforehand, make a list of what you need and then shop until everything from the list is in your basket. But being comfortable shopping without a list is a valuable skill worth adding to your healthstyle toolkit.

Lists can come in handy, especially when you’re planning a large meal or event where organization is essential. But at a farmers market, shopping lists aren’t nearly as useful.

You can never be 100% certain of what you’re going to find at the market each week. Sure there are things you can usually count on (I know I can find kale at my market year round), but having a long catalog of ingredients for a particular recipe is likely to be frustrating.

A shopping list you can’t fulfill will leave you scrambling, running around the market looking for absent ingredients or inferior substitutes. No fun. The last thing you want to do is turn the farmers market into a source of anxiety.

Still the best reason to avoid lists at the farmers market is that discovering new and interesting foods is what makes shopping there such a treat. It takes an open mind and curious eyes if you hope to find the next tree tomato.

So how do you free yourself from the shackles of shopping lists without ending up with a pile of random vegetables and no obvious meals?

When shopping at a farmers market, the best meal planning strategy combines both structure and flexibility. Start with an idea of what you want to accomplish, then let the season’s offerings nourish your spirit of adventure and round out your menus.

Meal Planning at the Farmers Market

Step 1. Quantify

Think about how many meals you want to get from your purchases (e.g. 4 dinners, 5 lunches), and be sure to have that many main course ideas (vegetables being the centerpiece) given that a few will probably repeat.

At this point it is okay to have one or two things in mind you know you want to make, but the rest of your meals should be inspired by wandering through the aisles and seeing what catches your eye.

Step 2. Visualize

As you discover which foods will be the focal points of your meals, start to think about how you might like them cooked (even if you don’t know how). Think about what other flavors usually taste good with what you’re buying–consider herbs (parsley, thyme, mint, cilantro, etc.), proteins (meats, fish, eggs, legumes) and side dishes.

If you can’t think of anything, try to remember how these foods have been served to you in a restaurant. If you still aren’t sure what other flavors would be a good choice, ask the vendor you are buying from. Farmers are usually pretty good at cooking the foods they grow.

Step 3. Consolidate

For all the different ideas you had for meals, think of those with common flavors. Look for similarities between the dishes and overlapping ingredients. For example, most dishes will need some kind of onion, garlic or both. The farmers market is also a great place to get herbs and spices.

Look around and see what is available, purchasing the ingredients that are the most versatile. Flavors that can be included in several different dishes also give you the flexibility to change up your meal plans in middle of the week if you are suddenly struck with inspiration.

Step 4. Collect

As your ideas solidify, be sure to collect all the elements you need. iPhone apps can be particularly helpful with this if you want to double check ingredient lists. Because most popular recipes are born from available seasonal ingredients, it is likely you will find everything you need while shopping at the farmers market. If not, you might need to pick up the rest of your ingredients at a regular grocery store–not the end of the world.

To make sure you don’t forget anything, think about each dish individually and deconstruct each of the elements in your mind. This will jog your memory if you forgot to grab a lemon or some garlic.

Step 5. Plan

It is good to have a rough idea of when you are going to eat each of the meals you visualized. Some vegetables hold up better than others over the course of a week in the refrigerator. Plan to eat the most delicate produce in the first day or two, and save the hearty kale and broccoli for later in the week. Here are some tips to keep produce fresh.

Conclusion

Creative shopping without lists takes some practice, but you don’t have to be a master chef or flavor expert to get it right. When cooking with delicious, seasonal ingredients you can’t go wrong with simplicity. Start with the basics and work your way up as you get more comfortable in the kitchen and at the market.

Do you use shopping lists?

Tags: Epicurious, Farmers Market, iPhone apps, local, Locavore, meal planning, shopping lists

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

I’m thrilled and delighted to see that so many of you have signed up for the Summer Tomato newsletter I announced last week. Newsletters will contain content that is not on this blog (and some other awesome bonuses in the coming months), so definitely sign up so you don’t miss out. There’s a sign up form in the sidebar.

As usual I found lots of great tips and information around the web this week. I especially like Marion Nestle’s two cents on whether recipes should include nutrition info. While I do like people to check to see how much salt and sugar they are really eating, I think nutrition info tends to make us more confused about what is healthy (hint: it’s vegetables).

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

I also invite you to submit your own best food and health articles for next week’s For The Love of Food, just drop me an email using the contact form. I am also accepting guest posts at Summer Tomato for any awesome healthstyle tips and recipes you’d like to share.

This post is an open thread. Share your thoughts, writing (links welcome!) and delicious healthy meals of the week in the comments below.

For The Love of Food

• Darya Pino: 10 Reasons To Never Eat Free Food <<Did I mention my Huffington Post piece this week was picked up by NPR? Woohoo!
• Should recipes include nutrition info? <<I love this article because it points out how inaccurate nutrition info really is. In my opinion, nutrition labels serve only to cloud your common sense. Few things with labels should be eaten anyway. (Food Politics)
• “Anti-Atkins” Low Protein Diet Extends Lifespan in Flies <<I haven’t read the real study yet (printed it!), but this is intriguing because the life-extending properties of calorie restricted diets is usually attributed to insulin signaling (the lack of). We’ll see what becomes of this. (NewsWise)
• Green Soup with Ginger Recipe <<To know me is to know that I love soup. This recipe is in my future. If you haven’t yet, definitely go check out Heidi Swanson’s blog 101 Cookbooks, my personal favorite recipe site. Heidi’s recipes are always amazing and awesomely healthy. She also happens to be one of the coolest people I met at BlogHer Food last week.
• Is vitamin D your best protection from swine flu? <<Speaking of getting sick, I found this article fascinating for a bit of info toward the bottom that vitamin D supplements are not as good as real sunlight. I’m not surprised, but I haven’t heard this before. I bet vitamin D from fatty fish is better for you too. (Nutrition Data)
• How to Choose the Fastest Line at the Market <<This article about how to pick the fastest line at the grocery store actually uses real data. I didn’t know such research existed. (Lifehacker)
• Probiotics: Looking Underneath the Yogurt Label <<Fantastic article by Tara Parker-Pope about the health claims made by yogurts and foods containing probiotics. Personally I don’t like talking about parts of food you can’t see without running a biochemical assay, but I know many people have questions about probiotics and this article is a great place to start. (New York Times)
• Krispy Kreme bacon cheddar cheeseburgers <<Is this not the grossest thing you’ve ever seen? Yarg. via @benhamill (ccaviness on Flickr)
• Dropbox for iPhone Makes a Great Kitchen Aid <<I love this iPhone app already (Dropbox is online document storage that syncs across all your computers), but had never thought to use it this way for recipes. Bye bye cookbooks and recipe binders. (Lifehacker)
• 9 Ways to Cook Lazily and Still Get Rave Reviews <<Simple and useful cooking tips from Dumb Little Man.

What are you reading?

Tags: calorie restriction, grocery store, iPhone apps, nutrition information, probiotics, recipe, vitamin D

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Thanks to all of you who humored me participated in last weekend’s completely childish melon caption contest!

The awesome commentor of the week award goes to Foodie Adventures!, because it really would take a jumbo melon to hit a head that big!

"Who wants to throw JUMBO produce at Kanye West?"

As usual there were a ton of great articles this week around the web. I can’t say enough good things about what Monica Reinagel is doing over at her Nutrition Data blog and podcast. Luckily I also learned this week that health podcasts can help you lose weight!

Check the links below to find some great ideas on how to preserve summer herbs, what to do with fresh shelling beans and some tricks to keeping your brain sharp.

Oh, and did you hear that a new study found organic produce is actually more nutritious? Share your thoughts in the comments.

I also encourage all of you to sign this petition against the Smart Choices food labeling program, which has been widely criticized as a slap in the face to both consumers and health experts. It’s easy and I had no trouble unsubscribing to their mailings after I got the first one.

I read many more wonderful articles than I post here each week. If you’d like to see more or just don’t want to wait until Friday, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@summertomato) or the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. For complete reading lists join me on the social bookmarking sites StumbleUpon and Delicious. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you there. (Note: If you want a follow back on Twitter introduce yourself with an @ message).

I also invite you to submit your own best food and health articles for next week’s For The Love of Food, just drop me an email using the contact form. I am also accepting guest posts at Summer Tomato for any awesome healthstyle tips and recipes you’d like to share.

This post is an open thread. Share your thoughts, writing (links welcome!) and delicious healthy meals of the week in the comments below.

For The Love of Food

• Are you an American? Then you’re probably not at low risk of heart disease <<Can you believe less than 8% of the US population qualifies as having “low risk” for heart disease? I’m sure glad I’m one of them, and I hope you are too! (Los Angeles Times)
• Genetics of obesity: Why we’re never going to find one diet that’s right for everyone <<It is getting harder and harder for me to choose which Nutrition Data blog posts to link to because they are all so amazingly good. You may as well just subscribe.
• Put in those ear buds and watch the scale numbers go down <<I’m not surprised at all by this news that listening to health podcasts can help people lose weight. I’ll be posting a list of my favorites soon. Please send me your suggestions!! (Los Angeles Times)
• 10 Easy Ways To Preserve Herbs <<With winter around the corner, you may want to plan ahead and start preserving all the wonderful summer herbs we can get these days at the farmers market. (Tipnut)
• Should You Trust an iPhone App That Says to Skip Buying Organic? <<Let’s just say that if you think you need an iPhone app‘s help, don’t bother with any of it because you have totally missed the point. (Tree Hugger)
• Organic is Healthier and More Nutritious <<Sure last month you heard different news about organic produce, but really this is nothing new. Food grown in better soil has more nutrients (and tastes better). Conventional food growers, however, will fight tooth and nail to convince you otherwise. (Foodmagazine)
• Fresh Shelling Bean Salad <<I have never really known what to do with the fresh shelling beans I often find at the farmers market. David Lebovitz is an inspiration with these recipes! (david lebovitz)
• Y Water is a Healthy Kid-Friendly Beverage <<B.S. of the week Have you ever seen anything so irresponsible?! (Oh wait). Putting vitamins in candy does not make it healthy! The sad part is that I was torn between this and two other obscenely horrible articles by Diets In Review. *Sigh*
• New food safety website from the USDA <<Amazingly the USDA has created a website to inform people about food safety issues. Too bad not everyone can shop at farmers markets and avoid these issues altogether. But at least we now have an official resource other than Bill Marler.
• 47 Ways to Fine Tune Your Brain <<Fun tips to keep your brain sharp! (Dumb Little Man)

What stories moved you this week?

Tags: B.S. of the week, brain, food safety, heart disease, herbs, iPhone apps, Nutrtion Data, organic, podcasts, recipe

Healthy eating can sometimes seem like a daunting task. You know you should be eating local, seasonal ingredients and lots of vegetables, but how do you know what to get? Once you have it, how do you cook it?

Enter iPhone. I can confidently say that my iPhone has made my life more convenient than any single electronic device since my first laptop. Sure plain cell phones are great, but honestly text messages annoy me more than they improve my quality of life.

An iPhone offers so much more than calls and texts, especially when you delve into the world of applications or “apps.” Apps are third party software programs that can be downloaded to your phone to perform specific (usually awesome) functions. Apps are what set iPhone apart from all other phones. Today I’m going to tell you about two apps in particular–Locavore and Epicurious–that can be used together to help you decide what to do for dinner.

Locavore ($3) is an app that finds all the farmers markets near you along with the produce in season in your area. It does this according to your physical location on earth using the built in iPhone GPS. Isn’t that brilliant? (Yes, I’m totally jealous that I didn’t make this app myself.)

I get questions every week about how to find a good farmers market in a given area. Honestly I had never had an answer much better than “Google it.” With Locavore’s “Markets” feature, you get a list of farmers markets in your area ranked by their distance to you. If you click on the market you want to visit it gives you all the essential information, such as what time of year it runs and its hours of operation. Locavore also allows you to browse by region (U.S. only) or specific food to find seasonal availability.

The farmers market information used by Locavore is from a website called Local Harvest. Even if you do not have an iPhone Local Harvest is a fantastic resource for finding farms, markets and CSAs near you. When you have located the market you would like to go to be sure to check near the bottom of the information paragraph for the last time the site was updated. In my experience farmers are not particularly tech savvy and often forget to update their websites. I always recommend calling before you go, just to confirm the market still exists and hasn’t changed its hours.

In the Locavore app, once you have found your market you can check the “In Season” feature. This will give you a list of items that are supposed to be in season in your area (information gathered from the Natural Resources Defense Council website).

Unfortunately, the list is more an approximation of reality than a true market browse through. I’ve been following my own market on Locavore since I first downloaded the app several weeks ago, and I’d say it is about 90% accurate. Definitely I have seen the list include some items that are not available and I would not expect to be available this time of year in my area (e.g. boysenberries). Also, my market is large and specialized enough that there are always unique finds that the NRDC does not know about.

You can, however, get an idea of items that should be easy to find. To avoid hunting down ingredients that may not be available, be sure to check the pie graph icons to the left of each item. These represent the number of months left until that specific vegetable or fruit goes out of season (again, this is approximate and depends substantially on the weather). If there is less than one month left, you probably shouldn’t plan your entire meal around that one ingredient since there is a good chance it won’t be there. If the pie is full (green), that means you can find the item year round in your area. In general, the Locavore produce list is fairly thorough and accurate and can be used to create a seasonal dinner menu.

One of the coolest features of Locavore is its connection to the recipe website Epicurious. If you find a seasonal ingredient you would like to try but need ideas on how to prepare it, simply click the item and a page will open to show you all the states it is available along with the its Wikipedia listing (in case you aren’t sure exactly what it is) and a link to Epicurious. If you follow the Epicurious link it takes you to a list of recipes using your ingredient. Click the dish that sounds the most delicious and get a complete recipe and shopping list. Use this to make sure you get all the ingredients you need at the market.

Conveniently Epicurious has its own app (free) if you already know the ingredient you want to use and do not need to find a farmers market. You can search by meal, event or specific ingredient, and create shopping lists for your favorite recipes. As you can imagine, I’m particularly fond of the “Healthy Lunches” option. Another bonus is the Epicurious app contains the entire contents of the Big Yellow Cookbook by Gourmet.

Overall Locavore and Epicurious are both fantastic apps for anyone interested in cooking local, seasonal meals. Together they are a powerful resource for finding ingredients and cooking the best seasonal meals possible.

Have you used either the Locavore or Epicurious iPhone apps?

Tags: Epicurious, iPhone apps, Locavore, review, technology