Author: CSA Admin

Hello CSA members! We are excited to bring you several new items this week including sugar snap peas, radishes and a choice of some of our favorite culinary herbs. (Remember to check out the “In Your Share” section on the right side of the page for a full listing.)

In This Week’s Newsletter:

• Blog Updates
• Familiar Faces
• Peas, Glorious Peas
• More on Garlic Scape Pesto

Blog Updates

As you know, we at the farm are fairly new to the blogging thing (and maybe some of you are too) but we hope you find it as fun to read as it is for us to write! We will continue to post your weekly newsletter every Monday with farm updates and cooking suggestions throughout the CSA season. Mo and I will also try to post once or twice each week as we try new things in our own kitchens and get our hands dirty on the farm.

I want to point out that we have added a couple of new pages to the blog that we hope will be helpful to everyone. Make sure to check out our new “Storage and Cooking Guide” and “Resources” (COMING SOON) pages. These will both be found on the main menu bar at the top of the blog.

In the Storage and Cooking Guide, Mo will provide tips on keeping your veggies fresh as well as basic cooking instructions for each crop. This week, we will be adding tutorials on broccoli raab and sugar snap peas.

On our Resources page, folks from the farm will be sharing some of our go-to cookbooks, websites and blogs. Have a favorite cooking blog or cookbook that goes great with your CSA veggies? If you’d like to share you can email your ideas to me at csa@redwagonfarmboulder.com.

Both of these pages will be updated periodically, so make sure to check back as we add to them!

Familiar Faces

Now that it is the third week of CSA and my eighth week on the farm, I’m really enjoying seeing all of the familiar faces both at CSA pick-ups and out in the fields. At CSA, I’m just starting to get a handle on some names (only 320 to go!) and I hope to be able to match a name to every face eventually. In the meantime, bear with me everyone.

On the farm, it is really fun and satisfying to look back on crops I planted in April and weeded throughout May. Our baby onions and shallots, which we planted in the fields every day for my first few weeks, are looking strong and healthy at last. The rows of beets where we have spent hours weeding and thinning are almost big enough to harvest. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for beets!

Have a great week.
-Maddie

FROM THE FARM AND KITCHEN with Mo 

Peas, Glorious Peas

Happy Week #3 CSA’ers. There are a few crops I really look forward and snap peas are one of them! I took a few pictures this morning of the Teller Farm Crew harvesting for you today.

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Here is Anna picking peas for Monday CSA

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 Pretty peas

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Here are Eva, the new Madi, Javier and Mario harvesting Easter Egg radishes (aka huevo Pascua).

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More on Garlic Scape Pesto

Did you make the garlic scape pesto that was posted here last week?

I did.

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I made some deviled eggs using a basic recipe like this (http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/deviled_eggs/) then I added a few tablespoons of the garlic scape pesto and topped the stuffed egg with a little more pesto.

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I wanted to make pasta for dinner but I didn’t want it hot. I made a cold pasta salad with my pesto.

I find pesto often times to be too heavy. I took 3 tablespoons of pesto and added the juice of 2 limes and 2 tablespoons of olive oil together and made a dressing.

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I added that to 1/2 a box of cooked orzo pasta and some pea shoots and lettuce leftover from last weeks CSA share and the mint from this week’s CSA share.

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I mixed the dressing with the salad components and added a little goat cheese and pepper. I liked the lime juice with the pesto.

Have a great week. Let us know what you are cooking with your shares and if you try any of our ideas.

Until next time.
-Mo

Hello again CSA members, and welcome to week two. Check out the “In Your Share” list on the right side of the page to find out what scrumptious veggies we’re planning to bring you this week!

I’m beginning to catch the first tiny glimpses of summer on the farm through the forests of spring greens. Over the last couple of weeks we planted rows of summer squash and zucchini, cucumbers, and melons at the Teller Farm. With names like “Sugar Baby” and “Midnight Lightning,” I have high hopes for our little sun-lovers! We’ve also been transplanting other true summer crops like basil, eggplant and peppers from the greenhouse to the ground. As veteran CSA members will recall, spring is always heavy on the greens, but not to fear! There are reds, oranges, purples and yes…new and exciting greens on the horizon.

A few reminders:

While I realize that today is Memorial Day and many people may have been traveling over the weekend, it is still very important that you come to your scheduled pick-up. It creates a lot of extra work for our staff (and our INCREDIBLE volunteers, Ru and Bob Wing) to transport and store your share if you miss your pick-up. That said, please read your pick-up reminder email carefully for instructions on where to pick up your share if you absolutely cannot make it.

Secondly, please please PLEASE don’t hesitate to ask questions or give feedback at pick-up! Myself and the rest of the Red Wagon staff have been taking home lots of green goodies as well and we likely all have some helpful storage and cooking tips up our sleeves. We know that it takes some practice to use up your share each week and we are here to help!

Finally, thank you to those who left comments on last week’s newsletter. I LOVE to hear from members about how you’ve been using and enjoying your shares! I hope you will use the blog to ask questions, share cooking tips or anything else that comes to mind each week. (Just click the “Leave a Comment” link at the very bottom of the post.)

Thank you all again for your wonderful support and enthusiasm. See you at pick-up!

-Maddie

FROM THE FARM AND KITCHEN with Mo 

Happy week #2 CSA’ers. I was at the 63rd Street Farm CSA pick-up last week with Sally and met some of you. We are so gosh darned excited to have a CSA pick-up at our farm this season. We lease private land at the Teller Farm so we have never been able to have a pick-up site on the farm before. To provide food to our close neighbors at the farm where we are producing food feels great! Many of you mentioned that you had been with Pachamama’s CSA and how happy you are to have a local CSA again. Others told me that they are neighbors and have been walking or driving by, watching us ‘grow’ and joined when they saw the sign on the fence. For whatever reason you joined, thank you so much neighbors!

Speaking of being excited… How about the strawberries you got last week?!(Monday pick-up will get some today.)  Surprise!!! We grew the strawberries at the 63rd St Farm. We planted them last May and weren’t really sure what to expect with yields or timing. This is our first stab at growing perennial fruit for the CSA or Market other than rhubarb. We have been really happy with what we are getting. Hope you are too!

In your shares this week you will get hakurei turnips. I like them best raw with a little salt (and beer). Some people go crazy for them pan roasted. Here is a recipe I like if you want to try them cooked.

(Slightly adapted from bon appetit)

• 1 bunch Hakurei turnips, greens reserved
• Olive oil or unsalted butter
• 2 Tablespoons sugar or honey
• Kosher salt

Preparation

Place turnips in a large skillet; add water to cover turnips halfway. Add butter, sugar and a large pinch of salt; bring to a boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is syrupy and turnips are tender, about 15 minutes. (If turnips are tender before liquid has reduced, use a slotted spoon to transfer turnips to a plate and reduce liquid until syrupy. Return turnips to pan and stir to coat well.) **This can be done up to 4 hours ahead of time. Let stand at room temperature. Rewarm before continuing.

Add turnip greens to skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until just wilted, 2-3 minutes. Season with salt.

You will have a choice this week of baby kale or spinach. If you haven’t tried kale salad yet you need to try it at least once this season. You can use baby kale or any bunched kale you get in your share this year. If you Google ‘massaged kale salad’ you will get a million recipes, but basically you put your washed kale in a bowl and put 2 tablespoons of oil, 2 tablespoons of either vinegar or lemon or lime juice, a smashed clove of garlic (leave garlic out of you want) and a good sprinkling of salt. Then you massage all of the ingredients together with your hands. Really work it in. It turns a beautiful bright green.  You can make this early in the morning or even the day before you want to eat it. Massaging takes the bitterness out of the kale, takes off the raw edge and changes the texture to be more like cooked kale. I made some to take to a party last night along with an Asian noodle salad I made with pea shoots.

I wasn’t thinking of the newsletter at the time, and on the way out the door snapped a quick (not very good) picture when it dawned on me I might talk about kale salad today. The kale salad is on the right. I just wanted to show how pretty the kale is. I used the pea shoots like sprouts in the Asian salad.

One tip with the pea shoots. I wash them with my lettuce, spin them and just store them in the fridge together. I like to run some scissors through the pea shoots to make them easier to eat raw. If you sauté them I would leave them whole.

Last week Amy gave you a recipe for broccoli raab. My husband isn’t a big fan of raab, or kale for that matter. He doesn’t like the bitterness. I hear that feedback from some CSA’ers, too. If you like the bitter bite of brassica’s just sautéing works for you. If you want to remove the bitterness and bring out the nutty taste, try blanching the greens. I took some pictures of me preparing the greens and using the scapes you will get in your share this week.

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Here are the scapes chopped with the raab washed and ready to blanch in the background.

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Blanching the raab and sautéing the scapes while the raab blanches. See how green it gets?

For two of us about ½ a bunch of raab and ½ the scapes is enough. I add half of the scapes to the pan and put half in a container for later.

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Use the rest in an omelet or add to pasta or grains for a quick dinner.

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I hope you try some of these ideas. Leave a comment or question if you like, and have a great week.
Mo

Posted by: Maddie

Happy first week of CSA! For your first share of the season, we hope to bring you Hakurei turnips, green garlic, walking onions, bok choi OR broccoli raab, braising mix OR baby kale, and spinach OR arugula. NOTE: Your share items will be posted each week in the “In Your Share” box on the upper right hand side of this page. Don’t forget to bring your own bags to CSA!

I’d like to start our newsletter this week with a short personal introduction. My name is Maddie Monty and I am Red Wagon’s new CSA Manager this season. Because I’m new to Red Wagon, and fairly new to farming, I’ve been thinking a lot about all of the amazing learning opportunities that our CSA provides – both for me and for all of you. Although you may not have used some of the vegetables included in your share each week, I invite you to seize the opportunity to add some new ingredients to your kitchen repertoire and begin to understand what grows when in our part of the world. I hope to provide all of you with some helpful tips and know that I will be learning a great deal right along with you.

I’ve been working on the farm for a little over a month now, and already I’ve learned an incredible amount. On my first day I learned that trimming the roots of spindly baby onions won’t, in fact, kill them. Over the last few weeks I’ve found that although I feel as wilted as our young beets after 8 hours of weeding or thinning, I too come back strong the next morning. Finally, I have learned (and been reminded repeatedly by Wyatt) how different farming is from gardening, and that plants are a lot tougher than I would have thought.

So, please don’t hesitate to email, call, or find me at pick-up with any questions, concerns or praise for our wonderful veggies throughout the season. I look forward to meeting and getting to know you all. See you at pick-up!

-Maddie

And now a short note from Amy, co-owner of Red Wagon:

I am always filled with gratitude when we start our CSA season. I feel honored that you have chosen us to feed you and your family for the season. It is a responsibility that we do not take lightly! It is a challenge to make sure we have a good mix of veggies for you each week and Wyatt is always thinking weeks and months ahead to make sure we have food for you. We also try to have the best quality and best tasting vegetables for you.

Our CSA members are the foundation of our farm. Your payment early in the year allows us to pay for things like seeds and labor to get the season rolling. You are also a “guaranteed customer” and we know we can count on that income because we have already sold what we are growing to you. Not so with markets–they can be fickle!!

So thank you, honored CSA members. Thank you for helping our farm thrive. We could not do it without you. We are looking forward to a season of good eating with you!

-Amy

A Recipe from Amy:

Sauteed Broccoli Raab

• Cut broccoli raab into large chunks, including stems.
• In a cold pan, start with a lot of olive oil and some sliced garlic.
• Turn on medium-high heat until garlic starts to brown.
• Add broccoli raab until it starts to spit and pop.
• Add salt and chile flakes and stir around to wilt the greens.
• Finish with lemon juice.
• Serve as a side dish of wilted greens or add pasta and Parmesan.

FROM THE FARM AND KITCHEN with Mo

Welcome and welcome back Red Wagon CSA’ers. I am Mo McKenna, third year farm employee at Red Wagon. This year, in addition to farm work, I’ll be writing about goings on at the Farm and about the vegetables you are getting in your CSA share. I’ll share recipes and suggestions on basic preparations, and ideas for some of the vegetables you receive each week.

We have changed our format to an active blog rather than a static weekly newsletter. We hope you will leave questions or comments so we can all share and learn what each other are doing in the kitchen with our weekly offerings.

Here we go. Week #1

Farming is always a challenge. Year to year we never know what Mother Nature will throw at us. This year we already have been handed a double whammy. 1. A really warm spring. 2. Drought.

The warm spring weather means that the cool weather crops will be ending much sooner than what is ‘normal’. Cut greens will be ending sooner than we would like, garlic is already starting to scape (more on what that means later). Peas, beets, and carrots look like they will be earlier than most years. Just when we think we have crop timing figured out, we humbly learn we don’t. We do have lots of food in the ground and our fingers crossed.

Let’s talk a little about the drought. I won’t go into huge detail here. You can Google ‘water drought situation in Colorado’ if you want to know more. I’ll just say that because of the low snow pack in the mountains the water available to farmers on the front range is minimal or nonexistent, depending on the ditch you draw from, for late season this year. Wyatt is VERY worried about this. You may have seen the note on the website. Wyatt was on the phone for days, literally, and up nights worrying about this. He has found and bought some shares of late season water for the 63rd Street farm, so that is good news, and is still working on finding late season water for the Teller farm. This means he is changing the crop plans, moving equipment and reassigning employees to different farms. I have worked for several different farmers in Boulder County and I can tell you with confidence; you are in the best hands possible as CSA members with Wyatt as your farmer. If there is any way for him to secure water to provide food for the CSA, he will do it. We’ll keep you posted on what is going on.

Probably the most frequently asked question we get at CSA and at the Farmer’s Market is, “Do I need to wash the vegetables”?

Yes.

Any food you get from any farm or market, you need to wash before eating it. We take very good care of all the food we harvest to keep it at its best possible freshness. We use water to do this, we don’t wash it for consumption. You need to wash it before eating it.
I like to wash and spin my lettuce, spinach, or arugula and leave it in the salad spinner in the refrigerator. It will stay fresh for at least a week this way and ready to use. Most everything else I wash before eating it or cooking it.

This week you are getting lots of greens. The basic preparation for any of them is the same. Heat some olive oil in a pan, add some garlic or onions if you like, then chuck some washed greens in the hot pan and toss it until it is just wilted and bright green and eat. We’ll talk more in the weeks to come in more detail and variations on this. Until then, just get to know your sautéing skills with your braising mix, bok choi, broccoli raab or baby kale.

We get lots of questions too about green garlic vs. garlic heads vs. garlic scapes. I took some pictures Saturday at the farm to try to show you what is what. I am new to this blogging thing and camera work so bear with me.

This is garlic we planted last fall that will become the large heads of garlic you are used to using. It is planted much farther apart to give it room to grow nice big heads. Both green garlic and garlic heads are planted with a single clove, we just distance it and harvest it at different times.

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See the plant tops that are curling? Those are called scapes. The plant is trying to procreate and go to seed but we won’t let it. We will remove the scape for two reasons. It is delicious, and if we remove it the garlic head will grow bigger.

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The photo to the left shows both clean green garlic (in the foreground) and chopped walking onions (in the background). I wanted to show how much of the plant I use. I use about the same amount of each, but I forgot to take a picture before I chopped up the onions. Oops!

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You can use either the green garlic or walking onions raw. They are pretty strong raw, but will still taste good. You can also use them just like you would garlic or onions in cooking.

Hope you enjoy your first CSA offerings. We are excited for the new season. Thanks for your support, we couldn’t do this without it!

Until next week,
Mo

Welcome to Red Wagon’s new blog site! This is where we will be posting our weekly CSA Newsletters this year including photos and updates from the farm, recipes and more.

Mark your calendars! CSA pick-ups will begin on Monday, May 21st. (Remember you can always check the “In Your Share” box in the upper right hand corner or visit our Facebook page to see what we’re planning to offer each week.) In the meantime we have been keeping very busy on the farm transplanting our heat-loving crops and harvesting a wonderful variety of early-season goodies for the Farmers’ Market.

See everyone at pick-up!
-Maddie