Eating seasonally

We've been truly eating seasonally for 18 mths now. That's how long we have been receiving our weekly organic vegetable and fruit box packed full of fresh in-season produce. During that time I have not bought a single supermarket vegetable aside from supplementing what we use a lot of (potatoes and occasionally apples) - and then I stick with buying organic. This week is the first week we have decided to put the order on hold and try and see how far our vege garden gets us. I was finding the box was loaded with spinach, silverbeet, plums, potatoes - things we don't need yet were getting heaps of!

It hasn't been without challenge though!

A few things I've noted along the way...

We gorge ourselves on the new season produce until we can't eat anymore and the surplus is at risk of going to waste - interesting how the "value" of an item is reduced when it is no longer a scarcity or not regulated. Plums have been the focus here - in the first few weeks we ate and ate the plums all day - over the last week - no one has touched a single plum! Today I am making jam from the last 6-7 kgs before they go off. The birds are finally moving in on the tree from the top lot which we can't pick and they have all turned almost black from ripeness.

Fruit and vegetables the kids ate and enjoyed last season take a few days for them to get their taste for it again (probably because they don't remember eating them last year but I'm sure this will change as they get older).

I find myself wanting to find a use for every little morsel so there is no wastage. Even if it means freezing them so we can enjoy the produce out of season. Maybe this is more related to having grown it myself? I'm thinking of things like stems from silverbeet/chard and brocolli - maybe on lean weeks when the veges are looking a bit thin on the ground I could throw some of these (surely still nutrient packed?) off cuts from the freezer into things like soups or casseroles?

It was challenging in the beginning cooking based on the box that arrived. But it didn't take long to get my head around replacing or supplementing from available vegetables rather than trying to find an exact match for what I had. Kale and spinach have became good reliables for adding to almost any dish

But...the above point has made me a bit nervous about entertaining and inviting others over for dinner. What if they didn't like the look of our meals which do tend to look thrown together? I do need to get over this and branch out from my usual standbys that I feel OK about sharing with others.

What favourites do you cook for others?