Red Wagon Farm

Why do our strawberries taste so good?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Amy

I have gotten a lot of feedback over the past week about our strawberries. Everybody says they are delicious and some people say they are the best they’ve had in years–or ever! What do we do that makes them taste so good?

strawberries

The work starts a few years in advance. We spend a lot of time reading seed catalogs and reading about strawberries that might do well in our area. The catalogs use all kinds of descriptive words to describe their berries. They will tell you things about a particular variety: “large fruit”, “good flavor”, “high yielding”, “firm fruit”, “disease resistant”, “early producing”, “beautiful red color”, “conical shaped”, “ideal for shipping”, and on and on. Think about the strawberries you see in the grocery store. They are all big with a bright red color and a perfect strawberry shape. These are the qualities that the grocery store wants to see in strawberries. They also wants something that ships well and has a long shelf life.

We only try strawberry plants that are described as having a good (or great!) flavor. That’s what matters, right?? A few years ago we ordered a few plants of a bunch of varieties to try. We then spent a couple of years growing them and evaluate them for taste, yield, disease resistance, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting about. We might find a variety that has an amazing flavor, but it is too prone to disease for us to grow on our farm.

After we’ve done all of this work, then we can buy our strawberry plants for real! We order thousands of plants and get them planted in the spring. Then we watch them grow for a whole year because strawberries hardly produce any fruit the first year. Finally, about 5 years after we started on our strawberry project, we have strawberries for you! We pick them when they are completely ripe and try to get them to you that same day. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have a shelf life and only last a few days because you probably won’t make it home before you’ve already eaten them all!

Wyatt and I were in Florida two winters ago. We came across a farm stand and got to talk to the farmer. His main crop was strawberries and I think he grew a few hundred acres of them. He said that he picked most of the strawberries while they were still green so he could sell them wholesale to be shipped all across the country (I have no idea how they ripen when they are picked green!) He had a few acres of strawberries set aside that he would let ripen all the way and then sell at his farm stand and other local markets. The strawberries were huge and red and beautiful! But the taste was so-so. It’s because he picked varieties that were huge, and red, and beautiful, and that would ship well and have a long shelf life. It wasn’t too important to his business how they actually taste.

This is one of the many benefits of growing your own fruits and veggies or buying them from a small, local farm. You can be more concerned with taste and freshness. It turns out that shelf life and appearance don’t matter that much when it comes to good food.

Enjoy your strawberries!

Posted in 2013, Farm | 2 Comments

Shirred Eggs with Spinach

Posted on June 17, 2013 by mo

I got this recipe idea from a friend of mine Kayann Short who is co-owner/farmer of Stonebridge Farm in Lyons Colorado. Stonebridge Farm is the second oldest CSA Farm in Colorado. I think they are going on their 20th year, maybe 21st. She posted this to her CSA memebers a few weeks ago. The original recipe came from ‘Eat Well, Eat Happy: 100 Ways to Enjoy the Healthy Foods You Love, by Charity Ferreira’.
Thanks Kayann!

The only change I made was using 1/2 and 1/2 instead of cream because that is what I had. Next time I think I would put a little parmesan cheese on top and use more spinach and 2 eggs and have it for dinner. The 1/2 and 1/2 (or cream if that is what you use). Makes sort of a sauce with the spinach. The spinach sort of melts and has a nice sweetness from the baking. This will be a quick go to dinner I think. You could also make this with any green, like kale or chard.
*notes

Shirred Eggs with Spinach and Paprika – serves 4

shirred eggs

Olive oil spray
1 1/3 cups baby spinach leaves, coarsely chopped (4 oz)
4 extra-large farm fresh eggs
2 T. heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Paprika, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat insides of four 6-oz ramekins generously with olive oil spray. Put about 1/3 cup spinach in each ramekin and crack an egg into each ramekin over the spinach. Drizzle 1/2 T. cream over each egg and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Bake until egg whites are firm and yolks are as runny or firm as desired, 10-14 minutes. Serve at once.
*Anticipate the dish to be very hot and set it on a tea towel or napkin when you serve it. If you are serving this to a kid I would put it right on a plate and not use the baking dish.
* The recipe doesn’t say, but I really chopped up my spinach and smooshed it into the baking dish to get as much in my 1/3 cup of spinach. If you don’t chop and smoosh you will obviously have less spinach!

Posted in 2013, Eggs, Recipes, Spinach | 5 Comments

Grilled Cheese and Kale Sandwich

Posted on June 17, 2013 by mo

I wrestled with myself whether to blog this or not. I mean, really? A grilled cheese sandwich?

So I made it and took a bite an thought. Yeah, this is probably worth sharing.

grilled cheese and kale

Kale, spinach, or chard crammed onto a sandwich is very satisfying. You can use any combination of greens and add an infinite variation of any other filling. The only ‘trick’ is how to keep it from falling apart without using TONS of cheese on both sides of the bread. You need some sort of ‘food glue’.

butter the inside

For this sandwich I sautéed kale and onions and put some cheese on a piece of very lightly buttered bread. The cheese on the bottom will melt and hold your filling to that side of the sandwich. For the top side I put a little smear of sour cream to act as the glue for the filling. You could use cream cheese, avocado, or hummus. Use your imagination.
Chard, apple, and cream cheese is good. I am all about easy light dinners and this is a favorite served with some tomato sauce on the side for dipping.

super sandwich

Thanks for looking. Leave a comment if you try this.

Posted in 2013, Kale, Recipes | 1 Comment

Sugar Snap Peas with Mint

Posted on June 10, 2013 by mo

The Red Wagon Farm Crew picking your CSA snap peas this morning.

picking peas

Snap peas and mint are one of my favorite flavor combinations. The snap pea season is very short. I try to make this super simple dish at least two or three times while the snap peas are on. This dish is a great example of the flavors being more than a sum of their parts. The mint melts onto the garlic scapes and lightens their flavor and brings out the sweetness of the snap peas.

snap peas and mint

2 teaspoons olive oil
3/4 pound sugar snap peas, trimmed
2 tablespoons of garlic scapes or green onion
pinch of salt and pepper
2 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
Directions:
1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sugar snap peas, garlic scapes or green onion. Season with salt and pepper. Stir-fry for 4 minutes try to get a little bit of a sear on the peas, then remove from heat and stir in the mint leaves.

Trimmed snap peas.

trimmed snap peas

Posted in 2013, Herbs, Peas, Recipes | Comments Off

Garlic Scape White Bean Spread and Dip

Posted on June 10, 2013 by mo

sandwich Hmmmmm garlic scapes. We had green garlic a week or so ago. This week we are getting garlic scapes. This garlic was planted last fall and has been growing all winter. Garlic scapes are the stalk of hard neck garlic maturing and trying to procreate. Sort of like a plant going to seed. We take the scape off the garlic plant for two reasons.

First, it makes the garlic bulb grow bigger. The plant sends its energy into growing the bulb because it doesn’t have to procreate. Second, because the scape is delicious, we get a second crop off of one plant. OK, maybe three reasons. The third to make garlic scape pesto. Check our recipe archive to make that.

This is what the scape looks like growing in the field.
Scapes

See the curly top? That’s the scape. This is what you will get in your CSA share.

Scapes

Almost all of the stalk is tender and packs a nice garlic ‘punch’ that isn’t too over powering. Use it like you would green onions in salads and dips like this one. Scapes are great with eggs or sautéed with any greens. You get a great garlic flavor without the heat of garlic.
The bulb and very top of the plant are a little tough. Use about this much of your scape.

Scapes

I used this recipe from the New York times to make a sandwich spread. You could use it to dip vegetables in or crackers too.

White Bean and Garlic Scapes Dip
Time: 15 minutes
1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste

1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling.

1. In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée.

2. With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tablespoons water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired.

3. Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with more salt.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups.

Posted in 2013, Garlic, Recipes | Comments Off

Grilled Vegetable Lasagna

Posted on June 3, 2013 by mo

One of the challenges of being in a CSA is using the combination of vegetables you are given in a certain week. You need to think outside of the ‘recipe box’ to use what you are given and not shop for certain ingredients. This dish is an example of what you can make out of any combination of vegetables from your share.

This was very simple. It took me less than 5 minutes to put together. You could use any combination of the vegetables, add different cheeses, use more or less sauce or add tomatoes, anything you want.

Here where I started.
I had some grilled kale and walking onions. I chopped them up a little.
kale and onions

I gathered what I had on hand to make lasagna.

eggs and ricotta

Mixed the eggs with the ricotta.

add vegetables

And started layering the ingredients.

smooshing

You have to smoosh the layers down before adding more or the lasagna falls apart when you cut it.

lasagna

I only had one jar of tomato sauce and I thought the lasagna would be a little dry. So if your lasagna looks like this you might want to add a little liquid like more tomato sauce or broth, or even water. Those oven ready lasagna noodle suck up a lot of liquid.

lasagna