Even as the temperature drops and snowflakes fall throughout the Greater Toronto Area, a handful of vegetables are only now coming into season. Vegetables such as pumpkins, butternut squash, mushrooms, beets, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and celeriac only come in season during November, when most other vegetables have already been harvested. If you are a restaurant chef looking for inspiration for your winter menu this year, you can consider using these hardy winter vegetables in a number of ways. Pumpkins, for instance, can be made into delicious soups, breads, casseroles, pies, and even smoothies. Sweet potatoes can be made into hashbrowns or combined with black beans into a taco or a soup. Beets can be puréed, roasted, or turned into a soup as well. While many varieties of mushrooms are grown indoors (making them available all year long), some wild mushroom varieties, like the porcini mushrooms, only sprout in late fall. For those who have never tried them before – porcini mushrooms taste terrific when sautéed with butter! And even though brussels sprouts is not everyone’s favourite vegetable…an experienced chef will know to roast them with just the right amounts of garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice to keep the pickiest of customers happy.
If you are a restaurant, caterer or grocer in the GTA and you are stocking up on these seasonal fruits and vegetables, please make sure you are also planning for their cold storage. At Coolmate Rentals, we specialize in providing businesses in the food and beverages industry with rental mobile coolers, freezers, and combo cooler and freezer units that range from 6’ to 16’ in size. Our refrigeration rentals are available whenever you need temporary cold storage space, or when your existing refrigeration system is being repair or replaced. Our event fridge rental rates are reasonable (ask us about our 3-day weekend rate!), and our walk-in units are clean and professional looking inside and out. Contact us today to learn more about our units or book a trailer for your business for the winter season.