Measure Free Hippie Cook

In Cooking Beyond Measure I purposely call the Italian salad, caprese, this: Sweet Basil with Tomato and Mozzarella. That’s because I wanted to turn it from something exotic and perhaps strange to a salad everyone can enjoy. And right now with the tomato harvest starting to come in most places, there’s nothing better than this great “do.”

In the photograph above I used conventional mozzarella, unaware two years ago when I shot it, of the abuse factory farm cows are subjected to–ie not seeing the light of day for obscene time periods, basically turned into milk machines that stand with their 1500 pound girths on cemented barn floors as opposed to getting out to pasture daily where they can switch their tails and chew their cud.

Thus, exceptionally pleased am I to have discovered that the reputable people in the Organic Valley cooperative make a mozzarrella. It’s square not round, sorry to say. But it’s taste is all the sweeter since it helps connect the dots between our bioethics and our consumption habits. So if you haven’t connected with a local cheese maker who does mozzarella–or don’t make your own–know that Organic Valley has its products available nationally. The good stuff is ours for the asking–and for paying the extra price it costs dairy people to treat the mama cows well.

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Posted in Bioethics & Sustainability, Food Thoughts, Recipes, Salads, Seasons, Summer, Vegetarian | 2 Comments »

Plums and Pots and Purple Juice

There’s something elemental about a kettle of plums simmering on the stove. The pink foam percolates up around the burnished round fruits. Purple skins burst on ruby red flesh. Leaning in over the pot for a deep breath of harvest: sweet, sticky, dense, royal.

The neighbor around the corner can’t keep up with her plums so I went over and nabbed a couple baskets. Now they’re out there. In the kitchen cooking down in a big pot of mindfulness. Not sure just what will come of them yet. But it’s all fun. Actually, it’s all work. But it’s work I seem drawn to when harvest begins rolling around yet again. The gathering in of it all. The not letting food go to waste. The preserving for winter. It’s true. I’m smitten.

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Posted in Food Thoughts, Kitchen Tips, Preserving, Putting Up Food, Seasons, Summer | 6 Comments »

Grow Your Own Beauty with Table Grapes

You know, for me the measure free hippie kitchen and garden thing is mostly about beauty.  I love the poetry of it all, as I all but testify to in Beyond Measure and Hippie Kitchen–chuckle. The artistry of layering fat slices of tomatoes and fresh mozzarella together for a caprese. The glory of seeing grape vines turn my world green and cool and collected.

Here’s my driveway in the spring before the arbor I’ve been nursing along kicks in.

Then in early summer.

Finally in full on summer.

And then in all its glory before the end of the season comes.

And then, as Jackson Browne sang, When the spring ‘light comes streaming in, I’ll get up and do it again’ next year…

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Posted in Kitchen Garden Thoughts, Playing with Your Food | 5 Comments »

Hippie Primavera, Video on Flash Cooking

Flash cooking continues to attract people to my work. I’m glad because it’s the heart of what my measure free, seasonal, sustainable message is about.

So here you go.

In these vids I show how to

1. Turn the burner on high with a puddle of water.
2. Put your rustically chopped veggies in, in the order of which takes longest to cook Build your flavor using the sacred quartet: oil, vinegar, salt, pepper
3. Pair with protein and carbs
4. And bring on the goodies to make Plain Jane fare rock your socks!

It’s as simple as that, and the clean-up is too. Plus I talk about eating seasonally, thrift, health, and how delicious this food revolution really truly is. Hope you come along. We’re having a blast…

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Posted in Beans, Bioethics & Sustainability, Dinner, Equipment, Flash Cooking, Flavor, Food Thoughts, Fresh, Health and Wellness, Measurefree Cooking, Playing with Your Food, Scratch Cooking, Seasonal, The Cook Counts To, Thrift, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Video | 6 Comments »

Beans and Rice are Nice & Tidy–In a Loaf

Not much to say here other than enjoy this vid on mixing up a bean loaf. There’s even an afterthought on one of my favorites, spaghetti squash.

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Posted in Beans, Measurefree Cooking, Thrift, Vegan, Vegetarian, Whole Grains | 1 Comment »

On Cleanup and Storage

If you have a copy of Hippie Kitchen you’ll know that I one of the ways I like to eat fava beans is with Tripped Out Peanut Sauce (page 56).

But generating measure free recipe ideas to inspire creative cooking is only part of what my work is about. That’s because, as our mothers and fathers always told us, we’re not done until we’ve cleaned up.

Indeed, it seems that the prospect of cleanup is often what stops us from cooking. We don’t like the mess, or the idea of storing things away in all their little cartons. Here’s what I have to say about that. It’s straight from page 58 in Hippie Kitchen (where if you do have a copy, you might find the sections just below on getting sauced and herbed rather fun).

So make it easy on yourself. After all, the cook counts too.

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Posted in Equipment, Food Thoughts, Kitchen Tips, The Cook Counts To | 2 Comments »

Fava Bean Season is Upon Us

If you have Hippie Kitchen you’ll see this picture on page 52. I choose to show off the fava beans in their pods rather than the actual dish because they have been so maligned. Typical instructions in American cookbooks are to do not pass go and double peel the beans–first shucking them from their long pods and then resting each individual bean from its own casing.

As you can see, when fava beans are fresh picked young and tender, they are beautifully ready to go straight from the pods. No second peeling needed at all. I discovered this simply by working with fava beans from my own garden, and then was gratified to see Italian and Spanish cooks echoing my experience in their books.

With the double peel debate settled, then what to do with fava beans? First is to think of them like a fresh bean. Once you do that you can rock and roll just like I do in Hippie Kitchen. The official recipe is called Fava Bean Sass, a dish made by flash cooking the favas then tossing them with spicy peanut sauce that includes diced apple and shredded carrot to sweeten things. So simple. So delicious. So thrifty–especially if you planted favas in February and are now about ready to harvest them.

The main thing that makes a measure free hippie kitchen work, though, is getting on a roll with things. So once I’ve got a new vegetable or recipe idea in tow, I play-play. If you try this I think you’ll find that eating with the seasons–as in fava beans for days on end while they are the happening thing–does not get boring.

The second round with favas I suggest on page 54 of Hippie Kitchen is incorporating them into a grain salad with leftover millet, radishes, and raisins. A little dressing and you have a balanced spring primavera in one bowl.

Fun, you say, but there’s more favas coming through the door daily. No problem, flash cook them as always with spring onions and green garlic. Spoon the works into warm corn tortillas and top with blue cheese. Then name this Fava Bean Heaven.

———-I hope I’ve piqued your interest in these early summer beans. They are great since along with the peas they are among the first food to grace our gardens and appear in the markets. And if you aren’t growing them just yet and do have to buy favas that need double peeling, don’t give up. Once they are flash cooked, they pop right out of their casings whether the cook does it all ahead or people do it themselves–together at the table while they slow down to relish the harvest whether it’s in a hash, warm salad, or pizza pie.

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Posted in Beans, Flash Cooking, Getting on a Roll, Lunches, Recipes, Salads, Scratch Cooking, Seasonal, Sides, Spring, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Add a Comment »

Little Aunties Pie Class, A Photo and Video Essay

Our Cooking with the Little Aunties Class turned out to have little uncles and big aunties as well as younger girls. That was fine by me because great people cluster around the Stevenson Community Library up the Columbia from Portland on the Washington side of the river.

Yes, indeed. A good twenty fledgling and not so fledgling pie makers took home creations to bake–and all organic too from the apples to the butter to the 100 percent whole wheat pastry flour used for the crust. Thank you Friends of the Library for helping to make it all possible.

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Little Aunties (and  a Little Pardner) ushered into the world of homemade pie making by the Big Aunties of the family.

The Little Uncles came too.

And we even did a video!

We call this one: Pie St. Helens.

And the Big Aunties sure weren’t going to miss out the action even.

Thanks all you nice people at Stevenson. Linda and Eldie and me loved coming up to make pies with you. If you get on line to see the pictures let us know how your pies turned out–and especially, if like me, you find pie tastes even better the second day. All best, Jean

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Posted in Family, Friends, & Love, Food Thoughts, Measure Free News, Pie, Playing with Your Food, Video | 9 Comments »

Thrift + Creativity = Empowerment + Joy

I’m including these Astonishing Muffins in Grow Your Own, accompaniment as they are to Laurel & Carol’s Astonishing Spinach Salad.

I don’t have the recipe written up just yet, but I did dutifully put dried apricots in along with walnuts. Just the kind of muffin people would think is fun alongside the salad.

But, after behaving so well momentarily, I went back to my usual approach to cooking. I was on a muffins roll, but I certainly didn’t mess with the muffin tins again, pain in the neck that they are–both in fussing around with the knife to get each muffin out (and no I don’t want to use those paper cup thingies) and in washing the tins.

So it was back to cast iron as usual. My small pan since it was just me for breakfast. And yes, the center wasn’t quite done because of the size of the pan. And yes, I ate it anyway. And yes, it tasted as good as those chocolate lava cakes that came to be all the rage in precisely the same fashion: someone underbaked the cake and said, “This gooey part is the best!”

The vehicle shift was just the tip of the iceberg of course. The apricots and walnuts were gone. In their stead were two green apples, meat from half an acorn squash, and poppy seeds.

Which brings me to the real gist of this post: using your great big winter squashes. So many ways here besides freshly baked. Baked winter squashes whether acorns or spaghettis or butternut go into everything and anything: quick breads, warm salads with wintergreens and raisins, and pudding like custards or pies. Then again think sauces or gravies and get creative. Smash some of your winter squash into a roux of butter and flour, and whisk in milk. You’ll have a rather interesting brew for your broccoli.

I was reading in Rick Bayless’s work the other day and he noted how exceptionally creative Mexican cooks are. I snorted because in my mind he missed the point. It’s not Mexican cooks per se, it’s impoverished cooks. As in necessity breeds invention.

I know it’s been this way for me, divorced as I am from the land of crinkly packages in part because it’s too expensive. Without all those goodies around, I have to cook from scratch. Have to make use of things in the refrig like great big winter squashes. And in the process I discover over and again all kinds of delightful ways to spin food.

It’s like the difference between being a spectator at a sport and the actual players. The former sits and consumes and gets dull. The latter is up and active and engaged. She plays a vital roll in what comes down. She feels good. She’s empowered.

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Posted in Breads and Such, Breakfasts, Food Thoughts, Getting on a Roll, Lunches, Thrift, Winter | Add a Comment »

On Vinegar and Wine

Help me out here. Standard oenophile wisdom is that using vinegar when you’re drinking wine is a no-no. Thus, I assume that’s why Laurel and Carol called for lemon juice in their Astonishing Salad.

The gist of their idea is to soak dried apricots in warm wine and lemon juice, toss the plumped fruit with torn spinach leaves along with paper thin apple slices and walnut, and whisk oil into the wine brew for a dressing.

As I observe in my post on this salad, I had no lemons on hand the other day when I did the salad. Initially I thought I’d just skip the sour, but after a taste I realized the punch was missing. So I grabbed for the vinegar and splashed it about liberally right over the leaves. A brief toss and another taste. Delicious.

So what am I missing here? I am simply hopelessly pedestrian? Chuckle. Or did it work because I wasn’t actually drinking the wine, just using it in a dressing?

(Thanks to Chemistryland.com for this slide that showed up in the public domain.)

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Posted in Kitchen Tips | 5 Comments »