There’s also the weeds that choose to grow up through the same holes the chiles and beans were planted in. Those must be pulled by hand. Sometimes, the chiles and beans are able to shade out and outcompete the weeds, but a lot of the time, the weeds can take over, forming carpets and other tall plants around our crops.
I wouldn’t say that hand weeding 7 acres is an enjoyable task, but it is a necessary one. If we don’t continuously weed the chiles until harvest, the ground between the rows can get really slippery as it fills with purslane (one of the big weeds out here) and make harvest dangerous. And in the beans, there’s a noxious weed that grows tiny little berries that can easily get mixed in with the beans, something that we do not want.
In conventional operations, farmers would use herbicides to kill weeds like we have. But that’s not part of our growing system. We follow organic growing practices and never use herbicides on our farm. It might be more work to use the tractor to cultivate the weeds and pull the rest by hand, but it’s not a compromise we’re interested in making.
What We're Cooking
Here's the final 3 recipes that our recipe developer, Emily, made for us this summer.
First we have a Red Enchilada Sauce that can be made with any of our large whole dried chiles. I've made it with mostly Guajillo chiles and a few Yahualica chiles de árbol as well as a pure Espelette batch. This might be the recipe Emily re-tested the most in order to get the flavor right. Turns out, using the chile soaking liquid makes the sauce really bitter and you don't want to use it! Use this sauce to make a pan of enchiladas or use it as the base for the ...
Enchilada Bean Skillet! While the internet is filled with cheesy bean bakes or other sauce + beans + cheese recipes, I wanted something that was reminiscent of veggie enchiladas. Use our beans along with sautéed mushroom, onion, and zucchini to round it out into a hearty meal. Eat it with chips out of the skillet or spoon it into corn tortillas.
And finally there's the Sugar Rush Peach Beef Kofta. Kofta, spiced ground meat grilled or baked on skewers, appears across North Africa through the Middle East, each region with its own spice signature. This version has balanced sweetness from allspice and cinnamon plus the intense fruity heat of Sugar Rush Peach chile powder. To make this all-seasons friendly, press the mixture into a pan and score it before baking to give a skewered shape. But if you have a grill and don't want to heat up the kitchen, you can form the meat around skewers and grill them instead!
If you make any of these recipes, we'd love to hear what you think!
