tereshkova2001 writes:
This is not strictly a cooking question, but it's a food question. Do you have any tips for putting a menu together based on what's fresh at the market? I tend to wander farmers' markets going "ooh, tasty!" and end up with, e.g., a bunch of chard, some rhubarb, and a brick of raw-milk cheese. (If you have Seattle-specific favorite markets or ingredients, I'd love to hear them.)

cilande would also like to know about menu planning, but in a more general way:
Yeah, I know, the answer to a question is inversely proportional to the number of words that make up the question. :-)

Maybe I just don't know enough about food, but the Food Pairing web site isn't all that helpful for me. I need something a bit more basic I think... where I can type in "Moroccan Chicken" and have it return possible side dishes. Right now, I make Moroccan Chicken with a bland sauce transport device (basmati rice) and a side salad. It seems like there might be something else that would work better...

Menu planning can be very simple, or it can be very complicated. Let's try for simple, shall we?
Unfortunately, for menu planning to be simple often requires a lot of knowledge. For instance, because I've studied Moroccan cuisine a little, I can instantly say, "Oh, well, Moroccan chicken should be served with couscous and possibly some braised vegetables if they aren't already in the chicken dish. You may also want to add some dried fruits and, I dunno, pistachios to the couscous." But that doesn't help cilande's basic dilemma, which is that she doesn't have that kind of knowledge conveniently crammed into her skull by demanding chefs. (And the tyop of the day is "damnding" for "demanding" there. What color was Freud's slip, again?)
Well, let's turn for a moment to tereshkova's question, to see how it might work in practice.
If I, as a Seattlite, want to cook a particularly fresh, seasonal and local meal, then, with no planning whatsoever, I head out to one of Seattle's farmer's markets, or, of course, to the world famous Pike Place Market. In practice, like most people who live here, I rarely go to the Market, because it's full of damned tourists who stop in the middle of the way to do stupid things like take pictures of vegetables. (Please, if you come to our city -- and you should! -- and you go to the Market -- and you should! -- and you want to stop to look at something or take a picture, then be considerate and step out of the way of foot traffic.) But let's say, for the sake of argument, that I do go to Pike Place. If I walked into the Market at the main entrance (under the sign with the clock, and next to the pig), and stopped to watch the guys throwing fish, I would then turn right and walk down the length of the market. I'd pass a number of produce stands on my right, and I'd stop and look and smell, but I'd keep walking, because I know that just past the last of the produce stalls that are on my right, there's one on the left, tucked into the wall instead of backing onto canvas-covered spaces that open onto Pike Place itself. In front is at least one person with a paring knife, handing out samples to anyone who wants one. This is Sosio's, and this is where the cooks shop.
I would walk up, sample the fruit the guy with the paring knife is handing out (right now it's peaches, the only ones I'll eat that are grown in Washington), and then I'd ask, "So, what's good today?"
The folks who work at Sosio's know their stuff. They can tell you what's at the peak of its season, how to cook it, what farm it came from, and what it goes well with. This week, I might pick up morel mushrooms (foraged from forests on the Olympic Peninsula), with advice to saute them lightly in butter with a little kosher salt and perhaps some pink peppercorns; green garlic spears (properly known as garlic scapes, from a farm Snohomish), which can be sauteed, steamed or roasted and dressed with a little butter and lemon juice; some purple carrots (grown less than thirty miles away), which I love to cut into matchsticks, roast until they're golden brown and delicious and eat them like French fries; and some of those fantastic peaches to make a cobbler out of (I'm from Florida originally, and was spoiled by having peach tree in the yard; we had to wear our swim suits when we ate those peaches). All simple preparations, and I don't need to worry too much about whether they go together, because, much like the wine and cheese of a single region of France pair well together, most of the foods of a given season pair well together. Asparagus would be a more traditional choice with morels than the green garlic, but except for the hot-garlic flavor of the bulb at the top of the garlic stem, it's actually very much like asparagus, and garlic and morels do go well together. So I tend not to overthink that, but just buy what's good, and make sure that any seasoning I use works with everything.
That would take care of my sides, so I can now turn to the centerpiece of the dinner: the protein. I'm an omnivore, and for once I'm not going to talk much about vegetarian options, because what I'd do with that selection to get my protein in is probably just add whatever's handy, fu or tofu or some nice legumes. So, if I was in the Market and shopping for dinner, I'd take my purchases from Sosio's and continue on down the way, to City Fish Market (these are not the guys who throw fish). There, this week, they'd tell me that it's Copper River Salmon season just now, and damn, Copper River is some of the best fish I've tasted in my life. So I might shell out the $30 a pound it's running this year (there's a shortage), sear it with the skin on (they'd be happy to tell me how, only I wear my whites and checks to the market, so they'd assume I know), and I'd pick up some Holmquist Farms dry-roasted hazelnuts (found further down the market still) to chop up, heat briefly in the butter with the salmon, and spoon over the top of the fish.
If my bank account is a little thin, and that $30/lb is too much for me, I might stop at Uli's, instead, and pick up some freshly-made-on-the-premises lamb sausage. It's still early in summer, and the spring lambs are still young, tender and extremely tasty. Uli's, I think, usually suggests grilling their sausages (when they aren't offering a variety of recipes in which their sausages can be used), but sometimes I braise mine in red wine or beer.
Oh, look! It's a meal! Local, seasonal, fresh, and delicious. Also simple to cook. Simplicity is frequently a hallmark of the seasonality movement. Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse, and one of the founders of this movement, says, "What makes a good meal is not how fancy it is or how difficult and time consuming the preparations are, but how satisfying it is."¹ If you have a complicated recipe you know and love, or want to try, and you source your ingredients locally, that's one thing; but if you're simply planning your menu based on what's fresh and local, then this is a good method to try. Go to a place that has what you're looking for and knows a lot about it, ask them what's best and how best to prepare it. Collect a green vegetable, a starch, maybe something else for flavor and fun (like those morels), a protein, and something to make into dessert (those Holmquist hazelnuts, mixed with salted caramel, poured into a tart shell, and covered with bittersweet chocolate ganache, are freakin' fantastic, and if you don't believe me, head down to Stumbling Goat Bistro and try theirs; Chef Seth is fantastic at seasonal-and-local, and the site even lists their local purveyors). Prepare it all simply, and enjoy.
This isn't exactly the type of menu planning cilande was asking about, unfortunately. This is sort of adventurous and carefree menu planning, and I started with the sides when she wants to know how to figure out what goes with a main dish, especially an exotic one. (I mean, everybody in the US knows what to serve with pot roast, right? It's only the things we didn't grow up with that we don't know how to pair.)
Okay, let's take Moroccan chicken. I know what to serve it with, but how would someone else figure it out? The Internets to the rescue! I head on over to Wikipedia, search for "Moroccan cuisine," and get all kinds of interesting information. Scrolling down, I find that couscous (helpfully linked) is a main dish there. Couscous, I discover, is a type of pasta formed into little spheres. Fantastic, there's a starch! Instant couscous (much of what's available in the US) is quicker than rice to cook, too, so that's nice. Back at the Moroccan cuisine article, we see that tajine is also listed as a main dish. A tajine is a stew or braise, which would include most American recipes for Moroccan chicken. Hey, check it out, they usually include vegetables. So you could just drop some in the stew with the chicken, and you'd have your veg. If you must have a separate vegetable, well, the main Moroccan article tells us that salads are common there. It offers no recipes, but a quick Google search returns approximately 599,000 results, some of which look quite tasty.
And approximately 5 minutes worth of internet research has given us the knowledge we need to put together a meal based around Moroccan chicken.
For good measure, let's talk about meal planning for the week. Lots of people go shopping once a week, and don't want to do it again. I don't shop like this, but my brother does, and here's the advice I gave him.
On your way to the store, ask yourself, your best friend, your significant other, your dog, or whoever's handy, "Hey, what sounds good for dinner this week?" Between you (or you and yourself), generate no more than 2-3 ideas. Seriously. Do not attempt to plan the entire week at this point. Instead, be flexible. Say your ideas are roasted chicken, slow cooked short ribs and something involving shrimp (really, the ideas can be that vague). Great! Roasted chicken is simple, and will provide leftovers for at least one more meal, and (if you're me and live alone) as many as four. Ribs are another great leftover food, plus if you've got a crock pot or slow cooker, they're extremely simple. And shrimp are a quick poach or saute dish, and can be made all kinds of different ways. Fantastic. Pick up those three proteins, plus something simple and versatile like a white fish filet or some ground beef or sausage (which you should freeze when you get home). You ought to keep a variety of starches in your pantry at home, like potatoes, rice, pasta, quinoa, couscous, lentils, or whatever strikes your fancy, so don't worry too much about those unless you want something specific. Check out the produce section, looking for items which can do double or triple duty. Let's see, the cabbage looks nice, and if I do German short ribs, I can either braise or saute it and have a nice side, plus cole slaw if I fry the shrimp or some fish. Zucchini can be grilled or sauteed, and is good on the side with either the shrimp or the chicken (plus you can buy a lot less of it at a time!). Asparagus can be roasted with the chicken, or cut up and sauteed with the shrimp... You get the idea. Whatever sounds good, but make sure you can either buy it in small quantities or that you can prepare it in enough different ways that you won't get sick of it. Stock up on your staples and your seasonings, and head home.
Okay, now let's see how that plays out, cooking for just me, and on two nights, a guest.
Shopping is on Sunday, and that's when I eat my impulse buys of the week, while I'm still excited about them. Monday is a morning shift for me, and I won't want to do much when I get home, so before I leave, I set my short ribs to cook in the slow cooker. When I get how, I take four or five fingerling potatoes, cut them in half, toss them in olive oil and salt, and shove them in a 450F oven for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, I saute a little of the cabbage (which I cleverly cut up small the night before) in butter (because I like it that way, dammit). Less than ten minutes worth of actual effort that evening, and I have dinner, plus leftovers, which I'll probably eat Thursday. Tuesday's another early morning, and I'm cranky. Boil some pasta, saute the shrimp, asparagus and zucchini in a little butter and garlic, add some white wine, toss it all together, and I have pasta primavera with shrimp. Perhaps 20 minutes worth of effort, but damn it's tasty, and with some of that white wine, I'm feeling better already. Wednesday's a lighter day for me (actually, I have it off, but I spend it running errands), so I can do something a little bit bigger, plus the Boy is coming over to watch the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles with me. Time to roast that chicken. Rub it with oil and a little garlic, stick it in the oven. 15 minutes before it's done, stick the asparagus (also oiled) in there, too. Cook up a little wild rice, and it's a meal. Thursday is leftover short ribs, by then they've aged nicely and I'm ready for them again, and after supper, I'll take the leftover chicken and turn it into tarragon chicken salad, for lunch or dinner over the next couple of days. Friday I have all manner of leftovers to graze from, and on Saturday, when I (most bizarrely for a cook) have the day off, I can either go out with the Boy or stay in, pull the mahi out of the freezer, dredge it in cornmeal and pan fry it, and serve it with the rest of the cabbage, which has now become cole slaw. And tomorrow I'll shop again.
So then, guidelines for planning-while-shopping:
Go in with a couple of ideas, but not so many that you feel overwhelmed and like you have to regiment your week.
Plan your proteins so that you have one that you can have basically ready when you get home, one that takes a while, and one that you can prepare in under thirty minutes. At least two of these should provide leftovers.
Pick up 1-2 extra proteins, things which are very versatile and also freeze well (in case you don't use them). If you already have a stash of several of these in the freezer, skip this bit.
Choose vegetables which you can either buy in small enough quantities to use up at one meal or that you can cook in different ways.
Keep your pantry stocked. It lends versatility.

There you go. Menu planning made simple.

And now, your humble Zombie Chef is off to bed, because her brains are tired.
Mmmm, braaaaaaains.