A few miles from my house on the corner of a busy street filled with rundown strip malls and auto body shops sits my culinary north star: the taco bus. It is parked at the back of a small, potholed lot. A portable carport plastered with mariachi posters leans against the side and serves as a patio. Inside, the seats have been removed and low stainless steel counters and short stools line the foggy windows. At the back, a lone chef warms small white corn tortillas on a hot griddle before carefully topping them with carnitas, a squirt of hot salsa and finely chopped white onion. Each order comes with a grilled jalapeno, thinly sliced radish, and a choice of three salsas.

It is heaven.

Vegetarian pickings are slim at the taco bus, so I dreamed up these tacos for Jon. Small cubes of homegrown butternut squash and onions are dusted with chile powder, cumin, and coriander and roasted until they are sweet and caramelized. Warm corn tortillas and black beans, stewed with tomatoes and roasted jalapenos from the garden, form the foundation of the tacos. A topping of cojita cheese and lime add in salty and sour notes. They are the perfect warm up for a chilly night and my favorite way to use the vegetables I stocked away in the freezer earlier this fall.

Butternut Squash Tacos with Spicy Black Beans
Butternut squash has a tendency to go all mushy when roasted, because the squash cubes steam when they are crowded into a pan. I’ve found that scattering the squash in a thin layer across the bottom of a rimmed baking sheet helps the pieces develop crunchy, caramelized bits. Because this recipe calls for so much squash, I divide it between two pans and rotate them in the oven halfway through the roasting process.

You’ll need:
½ of a medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes (about 5 cups)
½ cup white onion, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons cumin
1 ½ teaspoons coriander
2 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped (or 1 15-ounce can fire roasted, diced tomatoes)
2 15-ounce cans black beans
2 jalapenos
1 serrano chile (if you like spicy beans)
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
12 small corn tortillas
½ cup crumbled cojita cheese (or feta)
Lime wedges

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high. Place the jalapenos and serrano (if using) into the pan and cook until the skins are charred and blistered in spots. Remove the pan from the heat and set the peppers aside.

In a large bowl, toss the squash and onions together with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Sprinkle the cumin, coriander, 2 teaspoons of the chile powder, and 1 teaspoon salt over the squash and onions and toss until well coated. Divide the vegetables between two rimmed baking sheets and spread them out in a thin layer, so each piece has a bit of room between it and its neighbors. Place into the oven and roast for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the edges of the squash and onions begin to brown. Rotate the pans and give the vegetables a quick stir halfway through.

Meanwhile, peel, stem and seed the chiles before chopping them finely. Then, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two before pouring in the tomatoes. Allow the tomatoes and garlic to bubble briskly for five to ten minutes, or until the tomatoes reduce down to a loose sauce. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the chile powder over the tomatoes and then stir in the chiles and the beans with their liquid. Cook the beans over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring carefully so you do not smoosh them. When the beans reach your preferred consistency, remove them from the heat, stir in the cilantro, and adjust the seasonings.

To assemble the tacos, spread a few spoonfuls of strained beans (I use a slotted spoon) onto a warm tortilla. Place a mound of roasted squash and onions on top of the beans. Shower the tacos with crumbled cojita cheese, chopped cilantro, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Yummy Vegetarian Tacos

The squash before they became tacos!

My hands are just now beginning to recover from the intensive gardening season. In summer, no amount of scrubbing removes the soil from the creases in my fingertips. I have to remind myself to check my nails before I leave the house. The edges of my fingers feel like fine grit sandpaper. Well meaning friends give me gardener salves, and creams, and scrubs. But none of them work because I hate to wear gloves. So my hands stay soil stained and rough for a good eight months of the year.

When I rub knobby beet seeds between my fingers, or snuggle seedlings into the soil, or pet the soft leaves of my ‘Bergaarten’ sage, I want to feel it. Gardening is a tactile experience and gloves just get in the way.

But lately I’ve noticed that my hands are getting old before their time. The skin is getting crepe-y and sun splotched. I think I’ve even spotted some nascent wrinkles. So I’ve decided to try out wearing gloves. At least some of the time.

West County Gardener sent me a pair or their new Landscape Gloves that are made with a fabric that comes from recycled plastic bottles. What I hate most about gloves is that they feel restricting, but these had plenty of wiggle room in the fingers and an adjustable Velcro tab at the wrist. The palms have a nice, but not bulky, bit of padding and the fingers are reinforced with a sticky material, which made it easier to keep a handle on my tools when I was out in the rain. Best of all, the gloves are my current favorite color, orange. All in all, they did what West County promised. They kept my hands clean, comfy, and even warm while I did some heavy-duty fall gardening. I might even wear them again.

My only bone to pick with West County is not with the gloves. It is with their press kit. The gloves arrived at my door in a cardboard box that was printed with this message: Every pair of West County Gloves made from our new recycled materials removes one 8 oz plastic water bottle from landfill. I opened up the box and found brown paper packing material, a pair of gloves, a CD with PR info, and a water bottle filled with little plastic bits, plastic fibers, and a sample of the fabric. I know the bottle was included to help illustrate that the gloves are made from recycled bottles, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the point?

My advise to West County is to keep up the good work using recycled materials, but ditch the current press kit. Sending the gloves and PR CD in a recyclable envelope would have been just as effective, and a lot less wasteful.

Patience is an overrated virtue in my book. That’s why I tend to grow a lot of instant gratification crops that are ready to eat in a matter of weeks, like baby greens, radishes, cilantro, and arugula. So what did I find myself doing on Monday? Planting garlic.

It won’t be ready until June.

Garlic comes in red, purple, brown, white and silver skinned varieties. Its flavor ranges from subtle and sweet to clear-you-nose hot. Some garlic varieties are better for baking, others are well suited for roasting, stir frying, or even pickling. But the only garlic bulbs you’ll find at the grocery store are big, white, and boring. So I decided to try being patient and grow my own.

Rather than choose just one variety, I set all moderation aside and ordered six. I am growing hardneck types (the bulbs literally grow clustered around a hard, central core or “neck”) because they produce a bonus flower bud in spring called a scape. These curvaceous buds have a subtle garlic flavor and a lovely tender texture…and they are ready in April or May. Hurrah!

Here’s what I’m growing:

‘Ukranian Red’. It’s strongly flavored cloves come wrapped in brownish skins streaked with red and purple. So lovely.
‘Chesnok Red’. Known for retaining its hot flavor, even when cooked. This quality makes it a good candidate for baking. I’m already plotting to make ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic studded foccacia.
‘Musik’. Love that name. Plus, this puppy stores for up to a year. It’s truly a keeper.
‘German White’. Classic big white bulbs belie this garlic’s distinctive spicy flavor.
‘German Extra Hardy’. These cloves have an extra high sugar content, which makes them well suited for roasting.
‘Methechi’. This garlic an has intense, hot flavor. It matures late, but I’ve been assured it’s worth the wait.

I ordered garlic from my friend Dan, a garlic enthusiast turned amateur garlic entrepreneur. Before I planted the cloves, I watched the garlic planting slide show on OrganicGardening.com.