Hello CSA Members!
We will have a delicious mix of veggies this week, perfect for holiday meals- garlic, carrots, potatoes, greens, and winter squash of course. Just a note- if you are a Biweekly A or Weekly member, we will be having pick-up on Tuesday, 11/25 next week in advance of Thanksgiving. See you at pick-up!
Here is what we hope to bring you during Week 5:
1 – Garlic
2 – Carrots
3 – Potatoes
4 – Roasted Chilies
5 – Lettuce
6 – Kale or Chard or Collards
7 – Winter squash
I am a recent convert to cooking beets in a pressure cooker. For years I exclusively roasted beets or stewed or braised them.
I learned that cooking them in a pressure cooker or instant pot is so quick and the beets are tender and super easy to peel. The slight flavor boost you get from roasting is easily mitigated by dressing the beets in a beautiful dressing or sauce.
Beets in an Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker.
You’ll need some beets, scrubbed clean and roughly the same size. If not the same size cut them into similar sizes. You’ll need a cup of water to add the to pot and if your pressure cooker or instant pot has a steam rack use that. If it doesn’t it’s fine. Just put the beets in the pot in the water.
Add a cup of water and the rack if using and the beets. If you have more beets add them, it won’t change the cooking time. I only had 4 medium sized beets.
Seal the pot and cook all beet sizes on high pressure
* Very small (1 1/2” to 1 3/4” diameter) – 15 min
* Small (2” diameter) – 20 min
* Medium (2 1/4” diameter) – 25 min
* Medium-Large (2 1/2” diameter) – 30 min
When the time is up I like to allow the pressure to release naturally. I have never had my beets over cook to be too soft from allowing for a natural pressure release. I have had to cook them more because I released the pressure after a few minutes off the stove and they were still firm. So, I like to do a natural release.
Here is a photo of them cooked. It’s hard to see ‘cooked’ lol.
Here they are peeled. You can see how the skin slid off and they almost look like peaches.
This is the big reason I like using the pressure cooker, it’s so easy and fast and the beets are done to perfection.
Your beets are ready for using or you can store them until you need them covered in the refrigerator for a week.
Hello CSA Members!
It’s been a great first few weeks of Winter CSA. This week we’ll have more greens for you- lettuce, arugula, chard, and collards. We’ll also have winter radishes again! Slice them thin to put on a salad or sandwich, or try pickling or roasting them. They’re perfect for adding some extra crunch and color to a dish.
Here is what we hope to bring you during Week 4:
1 – Dill or Other herbs or White onions
2 – Roasted Chilies or Radishes or Hakurei Turnips
3 – Potatoes or Celeriac
4 – Lettuce
5 – Arugula
6 – Chard or Collards
7 – Beets or Honeynut squash
A CSA member (Hi Nancy!) sent me a recipe from an old vegetarian cookbook. It sounded elegant, simple and delicious so I had to try to make it! It is basically sauteed greens tossed in a sauce of brown butter, currents (I used raisins) and nuts. 
Greens with Brown Butter, Raisins and Nuts Adapted from Field of Greens by Annie Somerville.
To make the brown butter put the butter in a deep sauce pan, deep so it doesn’t splatter everywhere and just heat it until it’s brown. Stand at the stove and watch it. If you walk away it might burn, the browning happens pretty fast. It goes from this…
….to this in a couple minutes. It doesn’t look that brown in the photo but you can smell the toasty nutty butter. Stop before it gets too dark or it might taste burnt.
Chop your greens and cover your raisins with some hot water, just a little water, you want to plump them just a little you don’t want them mushy, and chop your nuts too.
Get a big pan and heat your olive oil and add the greens.
Let the greens cook a little bit until they wilt then add most of the brown butter, raisins (I added the soaking water, but you can drain it if you want) and nuts and toss until the greens are wilted/cooked to your liking, taste it for doneness and if it needs salt and pepper or more of the brown butter and mix it up really well.
This fork is loaded with a perfect bite, some greens with nice taste texture from the nuts and sweet chewy from the raisins and the brown butter is elegant in the background. Yum.
I had some roasted cauliflower so I added that to the finished dish and it was soooo good. I think any vegetable would be great prepared with the brown butter and raisins and nuts as a dressing.
Hello CSA Members!
The past few weeks have been filled with big harvests of storage crops from the field- celeriac, turnips, radishes, and beets. They are processed and then put into the walk-in cooler for storage. It’s a lot of work! But it ensures we’ll have plenty of food to pull from for the next few months. And all of our bunching greens- kale, chard, and collards- are protected under row cover in hoophouses out in the field.
New this week: we’ll have fresh dill, radishes, roasted chilies, arugula, and collards again. See you at pick-up!
Here is what we hope to bring you during Week 3:
1 – Dill or Parsley or Winter Radishes
2 – Carrots or Hakurei Turnips
3 – Roasted Chilies
4 – Cauliflower
5 – Apples
6 – Spinach or Arugula or Lettuce
7 – Collards
This is Wyatt’s go-to coleslaw. It a really nice balanced-tangy, punchy, barely sweet dressing.
You only need 6 ingredients, that I bet you have at hand.
Wyatt’s Favorite Coleslaw
Shred some of your cabbage as thin as humanly possible and cut some of the cabbage in small bite size pieces, I like the contrast. You can use a food processor and make it all the same size of course, but I always just use a knife and cut different sizes. You’ll need at least 8 cups of shredded cabbage/vegetables for this much dressing.
In a bowl mix together the mayo, vinegar, mustard, maple syrup, celery seed and a little salt and pepper. Taste it before you add it to the cabbage and make sure it tastes balanced. It should be tangy and just a little sweet and you should barely taste the mustard and celery seeds. If you want to taste more of anything add it now. It’s easier to get it right before you add it to the cabbage. Grab a piece of cabbage and dip it in the dressing to see if you are happy with the sweet-tangy-creamy-punchy dressing goal.
Mix it all up when you are happy with the dressing and add any other vegetables if you want to now.
Serve it right away or keep it covered in the refrigerator for about a week. It will collapse a little and need to be mixed to refresh it but, honestly I like it as much if not more after a few days ‘marinating’ in the refrigerator.
Hello CSA Members!
One of the best parts of Winter CSA is the beautiful greens we have each week. The cooler weather really brings out their sweetness and flavor, which is such a treat! This week we’ll have more greens, squash, and spinach. New this week: savoy cabbage and potatoes. See you at pick-up!
Here is what we hope to bring you during Week 2:
1 – Onions
2 – Carrots
3 – Potatoes
4 – Savoy Cabbage
5 – Spinach
6 – Kale or Collards
7 – Acorn Squash
Fast and easy, 6 ingredient soup. No roasting anything, just dump-simmer-blend-eat.
What’s not to love?. You cut up your vegetables and add-in whatever liquids you like, simmer for about 30 minutes, blend it and dinner is ready!
You can add roasted vegetables like leeks and make cauliflower leek soup or serve it with grilled cheese ‘croutons’ or leftover rotisserie chicken for a hearty meal. I chopped up some roasted green chilies and added cheese for a really delicious souper (haha) easy meal.
Cauliflower Soup slightly adapted from a recipe by Recipe Tin Eats.
Put everything in a pot and bring it to a simmer for about 30 minutes (that round thing at the top of the photo is frozen chicken stock and some milk splashed on it…just reference for what you are looking at) 
When the potatoes and cauliflower are soft enough to mash use and immersion blender or just a potato masher and blend the soup. This photo is before I blended it when the vegetables were all done.
Taste the soup and add salt and pepper and if it is too thick add more milk or just water and anything else you want to make it your own creation. I doubt it will be too thin. If it is just simmer it a little longer.
Hello CSA Members!
The Winter CSA is here. We have more carrots this week, onions and turnips again, and spinach! We’re excited to keep bringing you veggies for the next couple of months. See you at pick-up.
Here is what we hope to bring you during Week 1:
1 – Onions
2 – Carrots
3 – Hakurei Turnips
4 – Cauliflower
5 – Spinach
6 – Kale or Chard or Collards
7 – Honeynut Squash
To be honest, I am normally burned out by this time of year. There are so many ups and downs throughout the season. The hail storm in July was a big loss for the farm. We (mostly Wyatt) have been struggling with big irrigation problems for the past two years. I’m exhausted from working the last 4 months at our farm store with only 2 or 3 days off. There have been some large unexpected expenses and this is the time of year when I sit down to the unnerving task of figuring out if we made enough money to cover our expenses. And there are more and more headwinds for small farms and small businesses in general. You would think it would be easier to run a farm after doing it for 22 seasons but it feels like it’s only gotten harder.
All of the struggles can overshadow the many bright spots. We had a great crew again this year and I am so thankful for our workers from Tapias de Santa Cruz, Mexico. Growing our cucumbers in our screened-in greenhouse successfully protected them from the cucumber beetles that have been decimating our crops for a number of years. Our caterpillar tunnels protected the plants inside them (mostly tomatoes) from hail and we’ll likely continue to grow more crops in tunnels. I had a lot of fun working on our u-pick flowers with Mo and we’re already making plans for improvements next year. I’ve learned that high school boys make good, reliable farm store employees and I’ve had fun working with my nephew and his 10th grade friends at our store.
The biggest thing that lifts me out of my end-of-season burnout is going to the last week of our CSA pickups. I went to the pickup at Nevei Kodesh last night and my attitude was completely turned around in about 15 minutes. People talk about all of the great food they’ve made over the summer and tell us that the CSA pickup is the highlight of their week and they tell us how much they will miss us over the winter. I get to see how much the kids love the food and I feel like we’re helping to teach them to be good vegetable eaters!
My job feels like a public service to me and I am proud of the work that we do at Red Wagon. Our CSA members are our partners in making this wonderful thing happen–local food and family farms. You have my sincerest gratitude.
Amy
RED WAGON FARM STORE
at Thomas Open Space
1640 W Baseline Rd, Lafayette
*CLOSED for the season*
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Pick up locations:
Nevei Kodesh
1925 Glenwood Dr, Boulder
Red Wagon Farm Store
1640 W Baseline Rd, Lafayette
Martin Park
Fordham Ct & S 36th St, Boulder
Red Wagon Farm
7694 N 63rd St, Longmont
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