Red Wagon Farm

Beet Tacos

Posted on September 14, 2020 by mo

(Post updated on 9/23/2025)

I like to roast beets and keep them handy in the refrigerator so they are ready for quick meals. I throw into salads or sandwiches…

Or tacos

A local restaurant features beet tacos and this is my attempt at recreating them at home. The menu description says “Griddled cotija cheese, roasted beets, pickled onions, cilantro aioli.” I looked online at a couple of beet taco recipes and liked the idea of garbanzo beans in a taco with beets. I didn’t use a recipe (does anyone for tacos?) but I did use the idea of adding garbanzo beans. Here are some photos of how I made these tacos.

I had the beets roasted and I had corn tortillas, Cotija cheese is easy to find in most any grocery store and really makes this taco. You can use feta or halloumi cheese, or anything you have. But the Cotija is a little salty and holds it shape and gets toasty brown when you cook it.

It took me longer to photograph these tacos than to make them. Once you have the beets cooked there is almost nothing to this delicious taco meal.

I started with some onions and garbanzo beans in a skillet.

When they were brown I added some diced beets and the Cotija cheese and browned all of that.

That’s it. I made the tacos and topped them with what I had. I had some corn salsa and crema Mexicana. Any salsa would do but the I would for sure use a tart spicy salsa.

This was so good. The sweetness of the beets and the salty browned cheese and tangy salsa and the earthy tortilla together were delicious, it tasted like a restaurant meal.

This isn’t a great photo and I couldn’t take any more because we ate them before I looked to see if I got a good picture. You’d think I would know better than that by now.

You should make these. And if you are taking photos don’t eat them all before you see if any of the photos are any good.

Have a great week. See you at pickup.

Posted in 2020, Beets, Recipes | Comments Off

Early Goodbye to Summer Crops

Posted on September 8, 2020 by mo

How are you doing? Wow. What a week-month-year 2020 has been.

A week ago Wyatt wrote how well summer crops were doing . I am sure he never dreamed a week later, we would have freezing temperatures and would be harvesting like crazy to save what we food we can, but that is exactly what has been happening at the farm this week.

We won’t know until the weather warms up what crops are lost or not, but almost certainly we will lose tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and the pepper plants. Some of the crops store better than others, so we will probably see some peppers in the next week or so. Peppers store well, tomatoes not so much.

If you follow Red Wagon on Instagram you’ll have seen all the melons harvested Monday.

We are doing the same with all the high summer vegetables, harvesting and trying to save and store what we can.

The good news is all the greens and root crops and brassicas will be fine in the snow and cold.

We will keep you updated how things are going at the Farm. Until then, enjoy the last of the high summer food.

See you at pickup.

Posted in 2020, Recipes | Comments Off

Cheesy Grilled Peppers

Posted on August 31, 2020 by mo

Grilled peppers are one of my favorite summer foods. I love love love grilled peppers of all kinds.

Poblano, Jalapenos, Jimmy Nardelo, Carmen, Bell and especially Shishitos. I have posted lots of Shishito recipes here.

This is as easy to make as it is delicious.

Just wash the peppers and cut them in half and clean out the seeds and membranes, except for Shishitos, leave them whole.

I like to toss the peppers in olive oil and sprinkle some salt on them before grilling.

Grill the peppers on both sides so they are pretty much done, then add the cheese. My favorite cheese for grilled peppers is Manchego, especially for sweet peppers like Carmen and Jimmy Nardelo.

It doesn’t take much cheese, in fact, don’t put too much on or it won’t melt properly.

That’s it. We had this for dinner with some grilled corn on the cob with lots leftover. Leftovers are great for breakfast with eggs (grilled pepper and egg tacos anyone?!).

Today it feels like Fall is around the corner. Enjoy the Summer’s bounty.

Have a great week. We’ll see you at pickup.

Posted in 2020, Peppers Sweet, Recipes | Comments Off

Late Summer Farm Update

Posted on August 31, 2020 by farmerwyatt

Dear CSA Members,

I wanted to say how much we appreciate all our members. Connecting with CSA members is often challenging but this year has been especially difficult with the virus lockdown. Normally a good number of members come to the farm for one of our 4 events but not this season. Not getting to interact with any CSA members is hard.

Despite not being able to personally connect, I think about the CSA almost constantly. Between making the CSA crop list and thinking about what needs to be planted so we won’t have weeks where we are short and checking the progress of crops to make sure they are growing well and will be harvestable I am always thinking about what the CSA needs and how to improve it.

For years I have been working on growing melons better. One of the things we noticed was the plants usually only made 2-4 melons per plant regardless of the size of the fruit. Different melons are bred to be different sizes. I decided that if we were only getting a few per plant that I might as well grow some of the large varieties since the production cost is the same. The first planting of melons is finishing, and the second planting of the larger variety is just starting. I think all 500-600 will ripen over the next 10 days! This evening I picked some seven-pound melons which are the largest we have grown. The heat and the variety have contributed to some great tasting large melons.

The peppers are out of control with 20 per plant on many of the plants. We are having a hard time keeping up with the picking. There are over 80,000 peppers to be picked!!! Some of the shishito peppers produce more than 50 per plant. Due to the heat, crops started early but might finish a little earlier than normal. This should be fine but was not something I expected and did not build into my crop plan.

Our first planting of corn was mostly eaten by red-winged blackbirds, so you did not get much. The second planting did not come up well and the third and fourth plantings are doing well. We should have some sweet corn again next week and then more in mid to late September.

I hope you are enjoying your shares. The crew have been doing a great job of getting shares picked and packed.

Thanks,
Wyatt

Posted in 2020, Farm, Newsletter | Comments Off

Roasted Kohlrabi

Posted on August 17, 2020 by mo

This is an fast and easy, “goes with anything” side dish. I had some onion dip I made last week and served with the roasted kohlrabi and it was delicious we had it with BBQ ribs.

They just look like potatoes when they are cooked don’t they?

They are kind of weird looking not cooked.

I have other recipes here you can have a look at, kohlrabi makes great slaws and stir fries. I’ll add this simple roasted kohlrabi recipe to the list.