Menu Menu

Category Archive: Featured

  1. Kick off The New Year with A Simply Delicious Recipe!

    When you’re in a pinch for time but want to eat well, we’ve got a few tips for making a solid meal come together, centered around 2 bagged foods: our Taylor Farms Asiago Kale Chopped Salad Kit and Blue Ribbon Orchard Choice or Sun-Maid California Mission Dried Figs. Rather than think about dieting, all foods fit, and there is something about eating our greens and figs that makes us feel energized. As we head into 2020, we’re calling it a year of plenty and have ideas to make a delicious decade with fresh food you can make fast.

    Warm Kale Asiago Bowls with Dried Figs Image 4

    Rethink bagged salads

     The Asiago Kale Chopped Salad Kit, or any of our Chopped Kits,  can easily become the makings of a killer bowl, especially when you top with slices of mission dried figs for a little touch of sweetness.

     

    Shop your pantry

    Keeping a well stocked pantry means you don’t have to scramble last minute for takeout or delivery. Instead, here, we’re leaning on quinoa and a can of chickpeas to take our warm salad bowl to the next level!

     

    Spice it up 

    Frying some garlic before steaming the kale salad mix adds layered flavor. For the crunchy chickpeas, we’re keeping it easy with salt and pepper as the flavorings, but you could add other spices you have on hand (oregano and chile flakes would be good).

     

    Plan ahead

    If you’ve never wanted to be in your kitchen all day on Sunday, you don’t have to sacrifice an entire afternoon to do easy meal prep. The recipe below has you working on the different components while the others are cooking so you save time and are productive.

    Warm Kale Asiago Bowls with Dried Figs Image 3

    Warm Lemon Garlic Asiago Kale Bowls with Figs

    Ingredients

    For Salt + Pepper Chickpeas

    • 1 (12.5 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
    • 2 tablespoons canola oil
    • Coarse kosher or sea salt (about 1 teaspoon)
    • Ground black pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon)

    For Quinoa:

    • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
    • 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth

    For Lemon Garlic Kale with Figs: 

     

    Directions

    1. Make Chickpeas: Preheat oven to 400F. Place a piece of parchment paper in a half sheet pan. Rinse chickpeas and pat dry with paper towels or clean cloth towel. In a medium bowl, tumble chickpeas with oil, salt, and pepper until coated. Transfer to prepared half sheet pan jostling to evenly distribute them. Bake for 30 minutes.

    2. Meanwhile, Make Quinoa: Toast rinsed quinoa in a saucepan set over medium heat until aromatic and nutty, about 2-3 minutes. Pour in vegetable broth or water and crank heat to high until boiling. Once boiling, cover and turn heat down to simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and steam quinoa for 5 minutes before fluffing with a fork.

    3. Cook the Kale: Fry garlic in 1 teaspoon canola until golden over medium heat. Stir in the kale greens mix, frying lightly until coated. Then, pour on one packet of the lemon dressing and 1/2 cup water until cooked, about 3-4 minutes. Season to taste. Remove from the heat.

    4. From the Asiago Kale kit: Crush croutons in their bag. Mix them with the grated cheese in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 15 seconds to bind them.

    5. Assemble four bowls: Portion out 1/4 of each of these ingredients in four segments of the bowl: cooked kale greens, quinoa, chickpeas, and cheesy breadcrumbs. Tile 1/4 of the mission dried figs in the middle of the bowl. Right before serving drizzle each bowl with remaining lemon garlic dressing from bagged Asiago Kale kit. Squeeze fresh lemon juice over each bowl.

     

     

    Find our Chopped Salad Kits near you using our store locator.

  2. An Easy Way To Track Your Veggies

    Believe it or not, nearly nine out of ten Americans aren’t getting enough vegetables* – and they don’t even realize it! Here are Taylor Farms, we believe in making healthy fresh foods and veggies accessible to families across North America. This month, we’ve partnered with our friends at Dr. Praeger’s to help you live your best and healthiest life with the help from their Veggie Tracker . It is a free tool that helps users determine if you are eating the USDA’s recommended 3 cups a day – or how far you have to go – all while getting tips, recipes and motivation along the way!

     

    Veggie Tracker App Image

    All you have to do is simply log in, search for the veggies you ate that day and record the amount. The goal is to eat 3 cups a day and the site will show personalized progress on a daily and ongoing basis. The first 500 people to sign up will receive a swag bag full of goodies – see below!

    500 people to sign up will receive a swag bag full of goodies

     

    In addition to recording veggie consumption, the Veggie Tracker provides resources to make living a healthier, veggie-full life easy. Everyone who signs up will receive:

    • A free e-book packed with helpful resources to embrace the veggie life
    • Daily reminders and motivation to hit 3 cups a day
    • Private Facebook group access for advice and inspiration from a nutritionist and fellow Veggie Trackers
    • A seven-day meal plan to help users take the guesswork out of getting 3 cups a day

     

    Let’s get tracking!

     

     

     

  3. Coach Michael Groves of Monterey High School Receives the Golden Whistle Award

    Team Taylor wants to congratulate Coach Michael Groves from Monterey High School for being awarded KSBW’s Golden Whistle Award. He started his coaching career as a favor and is now on his 39th season.  During his time, he has been able to win over 700 games, 18 league titles, 3 CCS Championships, has had multiple athletes sent to D1 programs and few have even gone to play professionally.

    Coach Michael Groves Group Photo

    Coach Groves was nominated for being the spirit of baseball in the Monterey community.  Although he works full-time, he finds time to raise funds for the program,which is a zero budget program. During his time, he has raised over a million dollar to help low-income athletes and to upgrade Solicito Ball Park. It’s no wonder locals refer to baseball as “Grover Ball”.

    Team Taylor wants to congratulate Coach Michael Groves from Monterey High School for being awarded KSBW’s Golden Whistle Award.

    Many of his student-athletes appreciate that he has instilled a team first mentality. Coach Groves has taught his team that it is not about personal stats, but about what you can do to help the team. He leads by example by working with colleges to advance his student’s baseball careers and is always reaching out to his team to ensure their emotional health. He is most recognized for a CCS game with his former student Frank Solicito, who the MHS’s field is named after.

     

    “When Frank Solicito Jr. was dying of leukemia as a Senior on the MHS baseball team, Coach Groves visited him in the hospital frequently. During his last CCS game, he took off his jersey for Frankie to come off the bench and pitch the last inning. This game would be Frankie’s last time in a MHS uniform and he got to do what he loved to do..pitching!”

     

    Congratulations Coach Groves! You’re an inspiration to us all!

  4. Bringing It Home: Fanoe Ranch

    In a recent episode of Bringing It Home, Laura McIntosh heads to Salinas, California, home of Taylor Farms, to meet the farmers behind leafy greens. One farmer whose family has been making it work for over 100 years is Nick Fanoe. Laura learns more about their rich family history and about what it truly means to be a sustainable farmer. Laura brings two starred Michelin chef Val Cantu from California’s restaurant in San Francisco to the farm. Together they create vibrant dishes.

     

    The Fanoe family has farming roots that stem back five generations to 1870, when the family first immigrated from Denmark to begin farming fresh vegetables in the Salinas Valley. As a 5th generation farmer, Nick Fanoe carries on his family’s farming heritage and way of life. Nick and his team of twenty employees grow high quality lettuce, spinach and broccoli for customers on a scenic 700+ acre ranch nestled in the foothills of Salinas Valley. Fanoe Ranch has grown from humble beginnings as a simple pasture to a nimble family operation that produces over a million pounds of fresh vegetables weekly, something his ancestors never could have imagined possible. Nick has proficiently sustained his family ranch, which has been in production for over 100 years, though his knowledge gained from living and working the land his whole life.

    Bringing It Home: Fanoe Ranch Image

    Bringing It Home is the cooking, travel, lifestyle series with Laura McIntosh, the James Beard and Emmy Nominated Host, that’s not only the first of its kind in “farm to table” programming but also a lifestyle travelogue series with interesting and entertaining segments on cooking, culture and being a true locavore. Each episode of Bringing it Home takes viewers across America with regular stops in Louisiana, California, Boston, Chicago, Florida and more introducing viewers to local chefs, local farmers, and local fun. Laura McIntosh presents Bringing it Home to explore the beauty behind the food, the innovation from chefs, the motivation of farmers and the personalities behind all things fresh. Laura McIntosh wants to take you on a flavor filled journey through the hearts and minds of farmers, chefs and the communities that bring us closer to home. On Bringing It Home, Laura McIntosh is our personal guide speaking with each viewer individually about what’s amazing and important about people, farming, eating, cooking, growing, traveling and living. No matter where we are in the world, the one thing that brings us together is food.

     

  5. Technology and Automation – Changing How We Eat

    Automation is the next big thing and we’re totally on board with it! Taylor Farms has been implementing robotics and innovative technology over the past decade to help our crews with repetitive and labor intensive jobs — like packing boxes and harvesting veggies — and make way for them to unlock their potential in higher skilled jobs. In particular, our automated romaine harvester is changing the way we work at Taylor Farms.

    Most recently, Taylor Farms was featured in a WIRED video production — Robots & Us: How Food-Bots Are Changing How We Eat.  Watch the feature now:

     


    Taylor Farms’ automated romaine harvester uses a water jet knives to cleanly cut the heads in the field, eliminating the need for harvest employees to cut romaine by hand. Instead of working bent over in the field, crews comfortably ride on the harvester inspecting each head, ensuring only the highest quality lettuce is transported from the field to the plant. The automated harvester has shown improved quality and field yields over the traditional romaine harvester.

    Taylor Farms’ Automated Romaine Harvester

    “I think we’re always moving down that automation track,” says Mark Borman, President, Taylor Farms California. “There’s a science around agriculture, but there’s a bit of an art to it, as well. But I think in terms of getting rid of the hardest parts of the jobs, I see that continuing to flow.