July's stars on your table – Spotlight on zucchini, kale, and curly kale

A map that shows you the zucchini season

We've already written about the importance of seasonality in an earlier article, but it's not always easy to determine in stores which fruit or vegetable is currently in season. A great help for this could be the first Europe-wide map published by the European Food Information Council (EUFIC) in March, which shows individual fruits and vegetables according to their seasonality. Based on data from European nations, the map contains more than two hundred fruits and vegetables, which can be filtered by country, season, and even by month. Additionally, the map also shows the climatic zone of the given area. EUFIC also points out that consuming local products is only part of developing a sustainable diet – increasing the proportion of plants in your diet is particularly important, as these foods have a much smaller ecological footprint than animal-based products.

Fruits and vegetables in season in July

In July, there are plenty of delicious vegetables and fruits in season, giving us thousands of options to choose from if we want to cook something tasty.

Sour cherries and sweet cherries: Although we wrote about sour cherries and sweet cherries in our June article, thanks to the unusual weather we can still enjoy them in July.

Raspberries: Another favorite red fruit, raspberries, reaches its peak in this month. On the Here's the Season website, you can also order raspberries picked that very day. They're picked in the raspberry field in the morning and delivered to your door by afternoon.

Cantaloupe: Cantaloupe ripens a bit earlier than watermelon, so in July you can find fresh, sweet Hungarian cantaloupe almost everywhere.

July is the month of vegetables – you can choose from more than thirty vegetables that didn't have to cross borders to reach your table.

Zucchini and eggplant: Zucchini and eggplant have become one of the most hyped vegetables of recent years. Now you can even use them as pasta substitutes – you can make zucchini spaghetti or eggplant lasagna.

Cooking squash: Cooking squash is a vegetable from America, often used in vegetarian dishes because of its high organic salt content. If you can't use the entire amount you've purchased, grate it and put it straight in the freezer. Nothing goes to waste this way.

Curly kale: Curly kale is a quickly processed vegetable that, thanks to its tenderness, doesn't require too much cooking or cleaning.

Caldo Verde, the Portuguese favorite soup

Ingredients:

• 1 cooking onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• meat/vegetable broth
• 4 new potatoes
• 1 medium curly kale
• 1 chorizo sausage
• salt
• pepper
• sourdough bread for serving

Preparation:

Chop the cooking onion finely, then braise it in a little oil. Add the minced garlic as well, then pour in the broth. This can be vegetable or meat broth, since we're preparing a meat dish. Add the cleaned, diced new potatoes to the cooking liquid, salt, pepper, then after a good boil add the curly kale cut into strips and the sliced sausage. The Portuguese use chorizo sausage, but if you can't find it, domestic cooking or smoked sausage works just as well. It needs about 10-15 more minutes of cooking and it's ready to serve with fresh sourdough bread. Bon appétit!

If you don't have time but are craving a little soup, choose our menu Munches, where soup comes with the food rescue package!

Kale vegetable side dish that doesn't resemble school cafeteria food at all

Ingredients:

• 1 cooking onion
• 3-5 medium curly kale
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 300g potato
• oil
• salt
• pepper
• caraway seeds
• milk (can be alternative)

Preparation:

After thoroughly washing the new potatoes, if needed you can scrape off the skin, but if not necessary, cut them into smaller pieces or cubes and put them in salted cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, chop a medium cooking onion finely, braise it in a little oil. Then cut 3-5 medium curly kale into strips and add to the onion. You need salt, pepper, minced garlic, and caraway seeds for seasoning. When it starts to brown, pour 3-5 spoonfuls of the potato cooking liquid into it, and braise until the kale is still a bit crunchy. The potato needs about 10 minutes of cooking, strain it, but don't pour out the cooking liquid yet. Put the potatoes in the pan as well, mix thoroughly, then add enough cooking liquid to cover. Those with lactose intolerance or vegans thicken it with rice flour and rice milk.