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Category: 2021

  • Spicy Salad Mix aka Braising Mix

    This mix of greens is my favorite bagged/cut green we grow.

    It has two names; Spicy Salad Mix and also Braising mix (same thing, different names). Both the names for some reason scare people from trying it. Folks think it is crazy spicy or it needs a fancy cooking method.

    If I were queen of Red Wagon I would banish the name Braising mix, I’m ok with calling it Spicy Salad mix. Right now the leaves are pretty small and great in salads. Soon they will get bigger and be a more sturdy green and I would call it a Hardy Greens mix when it gets bigger…but I’m not queen…so I’ll call it Spicy Salad mix.

    Let’s take a closer look at what we’ve got and I’ll throw out a couple ideas how to use it.

    This mix almost always has mizuna, tatsoi, kale and red or green mustard.

    Sometimes the mustard can pack some heat, much like arugula, but almost any salad dressing you apply or any small amount of heating the greens or cooking tames the heat quite a bit. There is always a little hum of heat, so I understand it might not be for everyone. But, if you like arugula, I would bet you will like this mix.

    My favorite thing to do with this mix is to put a generous handful of greens in a serving bowl.

    Then I put what ever hot dish we are having on top. The residual heat wilts the greens just a bit.

    Then you dig your fork through all the yummy layers and get a little of everything in each bite.

    The other thing I love love love is to really quickly wilt this mix with any alliums I have on hand with some oil and butter and mix some hard cheese and a squeeze of lemon and put that on top of whatever our main dish is.

    It looks like this;

    Cook some garlic or onions in oil and butter.

    Add your Spicy Salad mix.

    When it’s wilted top with a squeeze of lemon.

    You can stop there and you have a nice side dish. I like to top my main dish with this like so. You get a little of everything in each bite.

    I can’t think what this wouldn’t be delicious with. I hope you try it.

    Have a great week. See you at pickup.

    Mo

     

     

  • Rhubarb Crisp

    Rhubarb crisp might be the easiest most delicious dessert there is. I say dessert, but I love having it for breakfast with yogurt.

    There are almost 3 million rhubarb crisp recipes on the internet, the ones I looked at are almost all identical. Most include strawberries or apple. I like all rhubarb. You can add different fruit if you like and adjust the weight of the fruit the recipe calls for.

    Let’s make a crisp! Gather all your ingredients

    For the filling you’ll need;

    • 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of rhubarb (optional addition of strawberries or apples to total 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of fruit)
    • 1/2 cup sugar
    • 1 tablespoon cornstarch
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

    For the topping you’ll need;

    • 3/4 cup flour, any kind. I used whole wheat. You can use gluten free or all purpose or anything you have on hand.
    • 1/2 cup brown sugar
    • 2 tablespoons white sugar
    • pinch of salt
    • 6 tablespoons of butter cut very small
    • 3/4 cup rolled oats
    • 1/2 cup any nuts you like (optional)

    Preheat the oven to 350F

    Put all the filling ingredients in a bowl and mix and put all the topping ingredients in a separate bowl and mix with a pastry cutter or just use your hands. This picture is before I mixed the topping ingredients.

    I had an 8X8 square pan and this fit just fine. You might want to put your baking pan on a cookie sheet if you think it might bubble over.

    Put your filling in a baking dish then top with the oat mixture that is really well mixed. It should look like this.

    Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until it’s brown and bubbly.

    Yum. Enjoy.

    Mo

     

     

     

  • CSA Week 4

    Hello CSA Members!

    Another week of spring vegetables! The weather has been absolutely perfect for our radishes this year. Check out our Instagram page (@redwagonfarmco) to see how the warm crops are coming along. Our crew is slowly growing and the weather is warming up, so hopefully you’ll be seeing some new, summery crops soon.

    Here is what we *hope* to bring you for Week 4 of our CSA:

    REGULAR SHARE
    Radishes
    Asparagus
    Hakurei Turnips
    Bunched Greens CHOICE (Possibly Kale OR Chard OR Collard Greens)
    Bagged Greens CHOICE (Possibly Arugula OR Braising Mix)
    One Other Item

    LARGE SHARE ADDITIONS
    Lettuce
    CHOOSE TWO: Kale OR Chard OR Collard Greens
    Herb CHOICE (Possibly Garlic Scapes OR Squash Blossoms)
    CHOICE: Zucchini OR Napa Cabbage

    FRUIT SHARE
    None (Fruit share is scheduled to start in a few weeks!)

  • Bok Choy Stir Fry-Make Ahead Sauce

    I really got into Asian-ish cooking during the pandemic. I love how vegetable heavy it is and how adaptable the cuisine is to almost anything you have on hand.

    I made a super easy Bok Choy and tofu dish with a super easy sauce.

    This is what I had, Bok choy, garlic, ginger, tofu and some sauce I premade. The recipe is below.

    I chopped it up.

    I cooked the tofu in some oil. After it was brown I moved it to a plate.

    Then I sautéed some garlic and ginger root and cooked the Bok Choy until it was just wilted.

    Now add 1/2 to 2/3 cup of sauce and let that thicken.

    Plate and serve can you see that yummy sauce? We ate this with rice.

    I like to make this batch of stir fry sauce and have it on hand for quick meals or to clean out the vegetable drawer. This sauce recipe makes about 3 or 4 meals and uses just a few ingredients you can find at most supermarkets. You just put everything into a jar and shake it.

    Stir Fry Sauce

    • 1 1/2 cups chicken stock (or vegetable or mushroom stock)
    • 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine or dry cooking sherry
    • 1 tablespoon brown sugar (or granulated sugar, maple syrup, agave)
    • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
    • 1/4 cup soy sauce (can sub gluten-free soy sauce or tamari)
    • 1 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (BBQ sauce works too)
    • 2 tablespoons oyster sauce (or vegetarian or gluten-free oyster sauce)
    • 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
    • 1/4 teaspoon salt
    • 4 tablespoons cornstarch

    Combine everything in a jar and shake it up. Store leftovers in the refrigerator to use later. This makes enough for at least 3 meals for 4 people.

    Store the extra in the refrigerator, it will keep for at least 2 weeks.

    Phew, this was a long post. If you stuck with me to the end, thank you!

    See you at pick up!

    Mo

  • CSA Week 3

    Hello CSA Members!

    Week 3 has some crops you’re probably familiar with from the first two weeks. Our warm season crops are starting to get bigger, but for now, continue to enjoy the fresh taste of leafy, tender spring vegetables.

    Green Garlic ready to go
    Green Garlic ready to go

    Here is what we *hope* to bring you for Week 3 of our CSA:

    REGULAR SHARE
    Green Garlic
    Radishes
    Hakurei Turnips
    Bok Choi
    Bunched Greens CHOICE: (Possibly Kale OR Chard OR Baby Kale)
    Arugula

    LARGE SHARE ADDITIONS
    Rhubarb
    Herb CHOICE

    FRUIT SHARE
    None (Fruit share is scheduled to start in a few weeks!)

  • Fried Beans with Sorrel and Green Garlic

    I love sorrel. I love sorrel with eggs. I love sorrel mixed in with any sautéed greens or added to a salad. It brings a bright flavor, more mild and more interesting than lemon.

    I followed this David Lebovitz recipe pretty much to the letter except I used green garlic instead of green onions. I’ll copy the recipe at the end of this post.

    What makes this dish special is frying the cooked beans. Frying them makes them crispy on the outside and creamy inside and just a little chewy and very satisfying. The sorrel brightens the dish and the green garlic rounds it out.

    This is all you need to make this; some beans (I cooked my beans, I’m sure you could use canned) a bunch of sorrel and I added pea shoots too, and some green garlic or onions and lemon.

    The recipe as written sounds a little complicated, but all you are really doing is frying the beans in oil and butter, the butter browns the beans so if you use only oil they won’t brown as much.

    Then sauté some greens and garlic or onions and mix them together and add a squeeze of lemon.  You really don’t need a recipe.

    We ate ours with an egg and some crushed almonds and feta and fresh mint.

    Have a great week. See you at pickup.

    Mo

    Fried Beans with Feta, Sorrel, and Sumac
    Four to six servings
    Adapted from Plenty (Ebury) by Yotam Ottolenghi

    Yotam’s original recipe says to soak the beans in a generous amount of water with 2 tablespoons of baking soda. Some bean purists scoff at using baking soda in the water, but for those who live in areas where the water is full of minerals (such as Paris), I add a large pinch to the cooking water, as the locals do. The beans should be cooked just until tender, but not cooked to mush. The cooking time for them will vary but don’t let the water
    foam up when you do! For the spring onions, I used cébette (which often goes by
    various names in France), which you can see pictured in the Herbed Ricotta Tart
    recipe. Scallions, green garlic, or a similar spring onion can be used. In the post, I
    mention some possible substitutions for the sumac and sorrel.

    1 pound (450g) large dried white beans
    optional: pinch of baking soda
    8 spring onions or scallions sliced lengthwise into 3-inch (7 cm) batons
    1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
    7 ounces (200g) sorrel, cut into 1-inch (2 cm) ribbons, plus a little extra for garnish,
    cut in very thin strips
    1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more for seasoning
    1 1/2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
    5 ounces (150g) feta cheese
    2 teaspoons sumac
    handful of fresh herbs such as chervil, dill, mint, or flat-leaf parsley
    For frying the beans:
    1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
    4 tablespoons (60g) butter (see Note)

    1. Rinse the beans and sort to remove any foreign objects.
    2. Put in a large pot, cover with plenty of water, and let stand overnight.
    3. The next day, add a pinch of baking soda to the water (if you live in a hard water
    area), and simmer the beans until just tender. The cooking time may be as little as
    30 minutes, or over an hour, depending on the beans. Add additional water if
    necessary.
    4. Once cooked, drain well and toss them in a bit of olive oil, which will prevent the
    skin of the beans from flaking, and bit of salt.

  • CSA Week 2

    Hello CSA Members!

    Thanks for such a great first week! We’re hoping to bring you even more spring-time goodies in week two.

    recipes_rhubarb

    Here is what we *hope* to bring you for Week 2 of our CSA:

    REGULAR SHARE
    Green Garlic
    Hakurei Turnips
    Greens CHOICE (Possibly Braising Mix OR Red Russian Kale OR Arugula)
    Bok Choi
    Herb CHOICE (Possibly Sorrel OR Pea Shoots OR Radishes)
    One Other CHOICE (Possibly Rhubarb OR Green Onion)

    LARGE SHARE ADDITIONS
    Kale
    Rhubarb AND Green Onion

    FRUIT SHARE
    None (Fruit share is scheduled to start in a few weeks!)

  • Difficult Start to the Farm Season

    I thought 2020 was a tough year at the farm but so far 2021 has been much more difficult here! Between the very cold, wet spring and a nationwide labor shortage, we have had a hard time during our busy spring planting season. We are short staffed and only have about 75% of the crew that we need. And the farm crew has only been working 2-3 days per week because of all the rain.

    Fortunately, Wyatt and the farm crew were able to get a lot of the cool season crops planted in March and early April. But many of those crops are several weeks behind because it’s been so cold and cloudy. They put in thousands of lettuce plants that should be ready now but won’t be ready for a few more weeks. The same is true for bok choi, napa cabbage, turnips, radishes, chard, kale, and collards. We have a lot of spinach planted, but spinach is sensitive to being over-watered and many of our spinach plants have turned yellow.

    muddy fields

    The very wet spring will have an impact in July and we might be low on crops to harvest then. We plant a lot of crops in late April and early May that are usually ready in July. It is too hot for greens like lettuce and spinach in July so we count on other crops that can take the summer heat. Wyatt says we had 2,000 cabbage plants and 3,000 broccoli and cauliflower plants in our greenhouse that we had to put in the compost pile. Our fields have to be dry enough to prepare the soil and plant the transplants. We couldn’t do that with all the rain and mud. By mid-May all the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower starts in our greenhouse had gotten too big for their pots and were unusable. If we were to start new plants in our greenhouse now, they wouldn’t be ready until August.

    Tomatoes in the greenhouse

    There is some good news for the crops in our fields, though. We use greenhouses and caterpillar tunnels to get some summer crops started early. We have over 1,000 tomato plants that are already flowering and should give us tomatoes sometime in July. We also have 400 zucchini plants in the tunnels that are already flowering. And we were able to get in a planting of green beans and two plantings of sweet corn that will be ready mid-summer. 

    On Monday I thought I might have to also report that our farm was flattened by a hail storm! Fortunately, we did not get any hail (only a ton of rain) at our farm on 63rd Street. We did get some hail at our farm on Valmont Road and the plants suffered some damage, but Wyatt thinks it’s not enough damage to kill the plants and that they will mostly recover.

    Wow that feels like a lot! This is why we count so much on you, our CSA members! I know that we will almost certainly be able to pull out of this and have a good summer with plenty of crops to harvest. In 18 seasons of farming we’ve always made it through weather disasters–including the 2013 flood. Thank you so much and we look forward to seeing all of you in the next few weeks as our CSA pickups get started!

    Amy

  • CSA Week 1

    Hello CSA Members!

    The CSA season has started! We’re excited to be bringing you some fresh veggies for the next 23 weeks. This week we have a bunch of fresh greens and a few other items for you. Don’t forget to bring your bags!

    picking pea shoots
    Harvesting Pea Shoots!

    Here is what we *hope* to bring you for Week 1 of our CSA:

    REGULAR SHARE
    Arugula
    Green Onions
    Easter Egg Radishes
    Greens CHOICE
    Herb CHOICE (Possibly Sorrel OR Pea Shoots)

    LARGE SHARE ADDITIONS
    Rhubarb
    Kale

    FRUIT SHARE
    None (Fruit share is scheduled to start in a few weeks!)