The Minimalist Foodie Challenge: Spring

Welcome to the Minimalist Foodie Challenge Spring edition! If you’ve just found me, you can read more about our year-long challenge here.

We survived the Winter edition, woo-hoo! I’ll do a wrap-up of these past few months and get it onto the site soon, but it’s spring (almost!) and that’s something to celebrate. Asparagus! Snap peas! Berries! And so much more. I’ve put together some some inspiration boards for spring recipes on my pinterest page, so go take and peek and then get planning.

Let’s dive in, shall we? Below you’ll find my 50 food ingredients and 5 beverage selections for April, May, and June as well as some notes about foods I’m looking forward to experimenting with.

The Ingredients:  Minimalist Foodie Challenge Spring 2017 (April – June)

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Notes and Goals

Cheese. I’m super excited this quarter to experiment with making cheese. Yep, making cheese at home. A few weeks ago I made paneer and I was reminded of just how easy and delicious it is to make simple cheeses at home. I picked up a cheese-making book from the library and next up I’m going to experiment with ricotta and fresh mozzarella. Look for a “cheese week” in the near future.

Local Farms. (Fingers crossed) I’m pursuing a few opportunities for photo stories with some of our favorite local farms and my favorite recipes using their produce, meats and/or dairy products.

Specificity. You’ll see “berries and cherries” in my ingredient list. Local berry and cherry season tends to be short around here and generally I can only source these items for a few weeks at a time (and even then I need to be first in line at the farmer’s market because those little pints of goodness go FAST!). I’m lumping them all into one line item because, well…I can.

Gardening. We seriously cleaned the yard this past weekend and got ready to start spending a lot more time outdoors. I neglected our little garden patch last year because I was hugely pregnant and it just wasn’t happening, but there’s no way I’m missing out this season. Anything I (or you) grow is fair game. Follow me on Instagram for garden updates!

Wild Card. I was horrible with using my wild card the majority of the winter season. Spring should make that easier and I’m looking forward to those precious few weeks that I can get ramps, fiddle head ferns, garlic scapes and other seasonal goodies.