Tacos, our Girls, & Tasting the Season: Veggie Share Week #6 – 7/16/25
Tacos, our Girls, & Tasting the Seasons
Tacos are my favorite food.
It might be because they are the central American version of a sandwich, and I’m gluten free. But even before my gut decided it could no longer tolerate gluten, I still loved tacos. In the hypothetical game where you get stuck on an island and only get one food to eat? I always choose tacos. Or if I have to pick just one food item, I pick tortilla chips. In real life, if I don’t have a lunch prepared, my go to is to crumble up tortilla chips in a bowl like it’s cereal and mix in home-canned farm salsa and top it with buttery black olives. We call this tortilla cereal at my house.
This winter I took my youngest to Oaxaca, Mexico. We had a blast eating all the different ways masa (think corn flour) is used as a base for yummy things. I fell so in love with having masa everyday, that when I came home I bought a tortilla press and have had fun trying all the different masa available in Mexican supermarkets around Madison. Homemade tortillas are a game changer. I’m still kind of a hack at making them (getting the heat right for the perfect tortilla on my stove takes some practice), but tacos are next level when the tortillas are fresh!
Yesterday after work, I took my kids to the pool. I’d thrown a chicken in the crockpot with some spices for easy tacos once we got home. The girls had so much fun deciding which toppings they wanted on the tacos. Fresh summer veggies provide so many choices! The girls settled on diced pearls, shredded romaine, and diced green peppers with a touch of sour cream. These tacos were rated Bandit (our fave taco place in Madison) level tacos, which is the ultimate 5-star review from my kids.
Their excitement around tacos was so sweet. You see, we eat tacos year round. On the farm we homestead raise pork and chicken for our family meal consumption. So slow cooked pork and chicken tacos are available for us to eat whether it’s hot or snowy. What changes is what goes on the taco.
Deep winter tacos are usually slow-cooked chicken tacos topped with cojita cheese and homemade kimchi (which I make minus the fish sauce for my kids). The kimchi is super healthy – fermented napa cabbage, carrots, radishes, and kohlrabi. Other winter taco favorites include pork tacos with shredded red cabbage, fresh beauty heart radish and sharp cheddar.
Spring tacos generally feature pickled radishes.
Bookend season tacos feature lentil, cauliflower, and parsley tacos.
When the first sweet onions are ready, we go fajita style.
August tacos feature sweet corn and tomatoes, while late summer tacos always include loads of carmen sweet red peppers.
My kids now range from 10-15 years old. It’s hard to articulate the immense pleasure it gives me as a parent to see them get excited about tacos and the different veggies we can dress them with. This has been a long time coming. We spent years in the trenches with our girls, making sure vegetables were eaten. Years. In. The. Trenches. And now, now it’s all paying off! My kids appreciate how fresh and delicious vegetables can be, and I can see it in what they get excited about and what they ask me to make.
I’m pretty sure that it’s through tacos that my girls are really beginning to understand the cycle and excitement of local eating. And this makes me so very happy.
Sincerely,
Farmer Cassie
