Red Wagon Farm

End-of-season thank you!

Posted on October 23, 2024 by Amy

Winter Squash harvest

It doesn’t feel like another farm season is coming to a close! It always goes by so fast! Yesterday I was at our CSA pickup in North Boulder. I saw many people that have been CSA members for 15+ years. I also met a brand new CSA member who just joined a few days ago and wanted to try our CSA for the very last pickup of the season. We have so much gratitude for all of these CSA members and everyone in between!

Farming is very hard. Growing vegetables is always challenging–weather, water, pests, and diseases, but it is so much more than that and it feels like it has gotten a lot harder in the last handful of years. The economics of farming, the chronic labor shortages and high turn-over rates, the rising cost of expenses, the time it takes to comply with an increasing number of regulations. Wyatt and I have had to work more and more each year and are stretched pretty thin.

Onion harvest

The thing that keeps us going is you! Our CSA members! We count on the consistency and stability of our CSA. Our members show up week after week and year after year. We’ve distributed our vegetables many different ways over the years: farmers’ markets, our farm store, to local restaurants, and more. While we value these opportunities and connections, they also have a lot of challenges. Our CSA is by far the thing that works best for us at Red Wagon.

We’ve also been working hard on building a great team at the farm. It’s still not easy but it feels like we’re finally getting somewhere this year. Many of you have seen Mo, Kai, and Brie at our CSA pickups. Javier has been with us in the field for many years and even brought a handful of his family members from Mexico this year to help with our labor shortage. We are really hoping they will return to work with us again next year! It has been a huge relief to know they will show up to work every day and do a great job. We also started our Working CSA Member program in 2021. It started as a desperate attempt to fill holes in our staff. We now have about 20 workshare members and half of them have been with us for multiple years. They are such a valuable part of our team!

I feel like I can never adequately express why our CSA members are so valuable to us–you might just have to take my word for it. But you really are the thing that keeps our farm going. We hope to keep feeding you for many years to come!

With gratitude,
Amy

Posted in 2024, Farm, Newsletter | 2 Comments

Roasted Green Chile Meatloaf

Posted on October 15, 2024 by mo

This is a fast, fun and delicious take on a traditional dish. You can use any ground meat or ground meat substitute to make this.

I got the original recipe here, my changes are in parentheses.

-1 ½ pound ground meat or meat substitute (I used ground turkey and turkey sausage)
– 1 whole finely chopped onion
– 1 cup finely roasted chopped green chile (I used 1 pound of roasted chopped poblanos)
– 2 eggs (I used one egg)
– ½ cup Italian bread crumbs
– 2 tablespoons of Filtered Honey (I used agave)
– 1 can Rotel with green chile (I didn’t use this)
– 1 finely chopped bell pepper (I didn’t use this)
– 1-8 oz. can of tomato sauce (I used salsa)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix together all ingredients in a large bowl until well incorporated.
3. Place mixed ingredients into a glass baking dish 9×13 (I used a loaf pan)
4. Bake for 45 minutes.
5. Top with ketchup to taste (optional) and bake for 15 more minutes. (I mixed salsa and brown sugar! Yum!)
6. Serve hot or cold!

Posted in 2024, Peppers Roasted, Recipes | Comments Off

Roasted Green Chile Tomatillo Pozole

Posted on October 15, 2024 by mo

This is a great meal using either roasted poblano or Anaheim chiles. Pozole is a traditional Mexican stew made with homily, red or green chiles, some sort of protein-traditionally pork but chicken or beans are easily substituted. Topping pozole with fresh ingredients like cabbage and radishes make this a festive meal great for holidays but easy enough for weeknight meals.

Homily is an ingredient you might not be familiar with. You can find dried or canned homily in the Mexican food section of any grocery store. I used dried homily (follow cooking directions on the package) canned is fine to use too.

I based this dish using this recipe, the original recipe is VERY detailed. I’ll post my modified/simplified version but do check out the original recipe if you want to take a deep dive into pozole.

Green Chile Tomatillo Pozole you can double or triple this. Leftovers are great.

4-5 cups stock, I used chicken but vegetable is fine
1 pound boneless chicken breasts, pork or 2 cans drained beans
1 pound tomatillos husks removed and washed (if you can’t find fresh tomatillos canned are fine, they are in the same isle as refried beans and enchilada sauce.)
1 large onion chopped
1 pound of roasted green chiles skins and seeds removed chopped
2 or three cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon each of cumin and oregano-salt and pepper!
2 or 3 cups of cooked homily, drained
garnishes like cabbage, avocado, radishes, lime, cilantro, onion slices

Cook the chicken, if using, in a large heavy-bottomed pot, bring the stock and spices to a boil. Add the chicken breasts, cover and simmer gently over low heat until tender and cooked through, about 25 minutes. Transfer the chicken breasts to a plate and shred and return the chicken back to the stock.

Make the green chile sauce. In a blender add tomatillos, onion, garlic, roasted chiles and garlic. Blend until smooth, scraping down sides if necessary.

Pour the green chile sauce into the chicken soup pot. Add the the hominy and bring to a gentle simmer over moderate heat. It will turn dark green and thicken up add water or more broth if it is too thick. Taste the soup. Season with salt, pepper and maybe a squeeze of lime.

Serve with whatever garnishes you like.