Cooking Lessons from Home

At Cooking Lessons From Home.com  we let the seasons determine your meal plans. Our meal plans are not "canned" menu's that we purchase and then pass off to you, we are real people with families just like you who care about what our families eat so we strongly believe in buying seasonally.

Seasonal is the way I learned how to cook, it's a natural way of life, not a new concept,  where we plan your meal plans based on what's available that week across the United States. We do our homework, we research when produce is at its peak of taste and nutrition and then we base our recipes around them. Everybody in history before the 1900s has eaten seasonally. It's more like going backwards to figure out what's right. I would love families to think about food and where it comes from and appreciate and give thanks to the farmers who still provide our families with organic produce.

What's important to me is keeping it seasonal and local; the more connected to the food I am, the more inspired I am.

Creating seasonal dishes,  just means that when strawberries or asparagus or corn are in season, you use them. All foods have a season. As leaves change and I smell the first fire in a fireplace, I think about squash and pumpkin. Like a kid getting excited around Christmas, in August I get excited about tomatoes.

Try not to come up with the perfect recipe, then force the ingredients into that recipe. In other words, let what's fresh and available determine your meals — don't decide to make a peach cobbler in January when peaches aren't in season.

Many areas of the country are known for certain foods grown at certain times, but generally, fresh vegetables and fruits are associated with a particular season:

Spring: Early fresh vegetables include asparagus, radishes, delicate leafy greens like mache and arugula, fiddleheads (a type of edible fern), ramps (a mild, soft onion), mushrooms, strawberries, and peas — first the shoots and flowers, then pea pods, and full-grown peas.

Summer: The produce bounty includes "stone fruit" (peaches, apricots, and nectarines), cherries, raspberries, blueberries, beets, zucchini, summer squash, string beans, cucumbers, carrots, blackberries, Brussels sprouts, eggplant, corn, okra, melons, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes.

Fall: This is the season for apples, pears, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and mustard greens — heartier produce that won't die if there's a cool night.

Winter: Now is the time for root vegetables, including turnips, winter squash, celery root, parsnips, sweet potatoes, carrots, and rutabagas.