Spring Produce Without a Meal Plan

Spring produce in Australia is good right now, and a lot of it is cheap. Asparagus, radishes, spring onions, snow peas, new potatoes. The greengrocer is full of things that need almost nothing done to them.

That matters if planning is the part that stops you. You do not need a meal plan to shop well in spring. You need a few single items that are good enough to eat three different ways, so the deciding can wait until you are standing in the kitchen with a real amount of energy in your body.

Buy items, not recipes

A meal plan asks you on Sunday to predict what you will want on Thursday. That is a hard ask for a brain that does not know yet what Thursday will feel like. Then Thursday arrives, the plan does not match your energy, and the ingredients sit in the crisper looking like a failed commitment.

Buying single items sidesteps all of that. One bunch of asparagus is not a plan. It is an ingredient with options, and options do not expire the way plans do.

What is good and cheap right now

Rough spring prices, and what each one actually asks of you:

• Asparagus — often around $3 to $4 a bunch. Two minutes of cooking, or none.
• Radishes — cheap, sold in bunches, and need no cooking at all.
• Spring onions — about $2 a bunch, and they keep over a week standing in a glass of water.
• Snow peas and sugar snaps — eat from the bag. Prep is a rinse.
• New potatoes — small and thin-skinned, so no peeling.
• Lemons — in season and inexpensive. One lemon makes a lot of plain food taste finished.
• Strawberries — coming down in price. Zero prep, and they count as food.

The three-ways rule

Before something goes in the trolley, check it passes this: can you eat it raw, can you cook it in one pan, and can you add it to something you already eat? An item with all three will not sit there going off while you wait to feel capable.

Asparagus, three ways

• Raw: snap off the woody ends, slice the spears thin on an angle, squeeze lemon over, salt. Ninety seconds, and it is a side dish.
• One pan: whole spears into a hot frying pan with a little oil. Four minutes, turning once. Salt. Eat standing up if that is where you are.
• Added to something: chop into short lengths and drop into instant noodles, scrambled eggs, or a tin of soup for the last two minutes.

Same bunch, three energy levels. You choose at the point of eating rather than three days ahead of it.

The others, quickly

• Radishes: halve them, dip in butter, add salt. Or slice into anything that wants crunch.
• Spring onions: snip raw over rice, eggs or toast. Or cook them whole in a pan until soft and sweet.
• New potatoes: boil whole for fifteen minutes, eat with butter. Squash and fry the leftovers tomorrow.
• Snow peas: eat cold from the fridge, or tip into any hot thing at the end.

If you get home and cannot face any of it

Then it keeps, and that is the other reason to buy items rather than a plan. Nothing here is halfway through a recipe. Nothing is wasted by you having a hard day.

Radishes, spring onions and lemons hold for over a week. Asparagus and snow peas want using within a few days. So if you already know it is a low week, buy one of those, not both.

A small spring shop

If you want a starting point instead of a plan: one bunch of asparagus, one bunch of spring onions, a lemon, a bag of snow peas and a punnet of strawberries. Somewhere around $15. Every item on that list can be eaten raw, which means the worst case is that you eat it raw, and that is still dinner.

Nothing on the list is waiting on a decision from you. It is waiting on hunger, which turns up on its own.

Less deciding, more eating.

Related reading: “A Plate of Snacks Is a Dinner” and “Cooking Sitting Down”.