Category Archives: MindyRiveraFarms

MindyRiveraFarms: Season 3, this time it’s serious.

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Mindy planted our little mobile garden for her third season. This year she was a little more aggressive (b-e aggressive) with her planting and she’s even experimenting with alternative growing methods…..HYDROPONICS (Keanu Reeves says, “Woah”.)

Here are a few photos showing the future bounty and friends of my cooking extravaganza.

Sorrel

Lemon Verbena

Sage box in the front (business) and the oregano/marjoram box in the rear (party).

Tabor thyme, that’s what thyme it is.

Flat leaf parsley.  Oh, I can use this to garnish plates like I work in a hotel restaurant from the 1970′s!

Tarragon!  It’s from season 2.

Arugula.  Every time I say the word arugula I think about the sound that old car horns used to make.  Arrrrrrruuuuuuuuuugula.  Don’t really know why…..

Peas.  There are a few more plants outside but lets take you inside to see what else is going on.

Tomatoes waiting to go outside…..

Hydroponic micro greens.  Oh yes.

Eric

MindyRiveraFarms: Starting to see sprouts in 2 days…….

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Having that lamp pointed on these starts is a genius idea…….good job Mindy!  We waiting around a week or two to get to this point last year and now we can see those results in two days….crazy.

Eric

MindyRiveraFarms: Season 3- 24/7

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It’s around 12:30AM right now. I just got home and the fun is not going to stop any time soon.   Mindy just planted her third season of plants for me and this year is going to be very special.  I would like to use micro greens in my dishes a lot more but we ran into some problems….I was using them faster than we could grow them and I didn’t have time to use them.   After brainstorming a bit Mindy and I decided to go into a full grow operation.  We did a little research and for less than $30 we have a 24/7 micro green grow operation.

Funny thing about doing our research is that we ended up at Home Depot and we asked some guy if they carried “grow lamps” and he looked at us a little weird……. I said, “no no no, not for that……for plants/starters/micro greens”.  I think I confused him even more. Anyway, he pointed us in the right direction and here we are. I’ll be documenting the progress of this year’s gardening adventures.   Dude, we’re so urban and we’re like farming…..time to buy a Subaru, grow a beard and start listening to the Decemberists.

 

Eric

Coming Soon……………….

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The focus is on micro greens this year.  A lot of it will be strictly indoor growing and we’ve purchased a few lamps and things to make it happen.  This is a gigantic next step in what the future will look like for the Rivera’s.

Eric

MindyRiveraFarms: Paprika and Competing Family Farms!

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Mindy grew some paprika for me and here it is! I’m going to dehydrate it, smoke it, and make it into a powder to be used for future projects…..I’m so excited!

Mindy’s dad is in town and he brought up some peppers, tomatoes, and some squash from their garden.   GARDEN FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!! Not really, this is just proof that I married well. :)

Look at those peppers! WOW! Now what to do with them?!?!?  You’ll see :)

Check out these tomatoes! Mindy’s mom canned some for me too. I don’t know if she realizes this but she did a tomato concasse before she canned them!

I’m happy that my family is supportive of my culinary habit.  FOOD, I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eric

Epic Burger

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Start with Painted Hills Sirloin then cube it up.

Mix it together with some cubed up pork back fat.

Then grind it together.

Combine that with:

  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Parsley, minced
  • Bread crumbs…made some from Tall Grass Bakery Bread
  • Egg
  • Walla Walla Sweet, minced
  • Green Onion (MRF)

Then form them into patties.

Make 2 sauces…..one that takes forever……. I have about 5 days into this one.  Veal Glace de Viande with molasses/ghost chili starter.

and an avocado puree….you’ll see it in the final picture.

Render some bacon…..start forming the brioche dough and cook it off….finish with a roasted garlic oil that I made earlier.

Cook the patties in the bacon fat on high heat to sear each side then spoon bacon fat over each patty….I added 4 sprigs of rosemary and 5 garlic cloves to the bacon fat so it would add more flavor……epic. When the burgers are about 50% done then throw the entire pan in the oven to finish……

Beer batter some Walla Walla Sweet Onions in a Rainier Beer Batter then fry them off.  I’m so used to using the fryer at work……..piece of crap Fry Daddy wasn’t cutting it so I had to resort to plan B.   It worked.

Give them some vegetables too……at least one healthy thing.   Lots of vegetables from MindyRiveraFarms and a persillade I made with herbs from the garden as well.  Saute of vegetables with persillade and pumpkin seeds.

Ready to go!

Cheese is Beecher’s Flagship……..

Epic burger by Eric