Breakfast. This morning. Out came a clean pot and in went organic polenta from the bulk bins for a new batch of porridge. Stir, stir, stir. Then to the garden to round up what have you. A couple scallions. A handful of young fava beans. Back in the hippie kitchen. Choppity- chop for the veggies and into the pot they went. Just a quick stir and then covering to let hot golden polenta turn the greens al dente.

Fry an egg. Grab a couple roasted chiles. Ultrafast. Healthy. Thrifty. Local/Seasonal. Me and Swish were ready to feast.

Oh–and that last fava that turned up in my pocket unchopped and uncooked. I just chomped that down au naturelle, tender and young freshly picked as it was…

In case you haven’t appreciate what a radical tune Jimmy Crack Corn is before, here are the lyrics:

When I was young I used to wait
On master and hand him his plate
Pass him the bottle when he got dry
And brush away the blue-tail fly

Chorus

Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care
My master’s gone away

When he would ride in the afternoon
I’d follow him with my hickory broom
The pony being rather shy
When bitten by the blue-tail fly

Chorus

One day he rode around the farm
Flies so numerous that they did swarm
One chanced to bite him on the thigh
The devil take the blue-tail fly

Chorus

Well the pony jumped, he start, he pitch
He threw my master in the ditch
He died and the jury wondered why
The verdict was the blue-tail fly

Chorus

Now he lies beneath the ‘simmon tree
His epitaph is there to see
Beneath this stone I’m forced to lie
The victim of the blue-tail fly

So here you go: a three-part vid you can sample if you’re inclined–plus a bonus clip of me shucking the blue corn I use in the lastavera and reminiscing about my time in Hopiland–as well as a clip from one of the Hopi social dances.

Cheers. Hope you find some simple, healthy, thrifty ideas that inspire you in your everyday kitchen.

Part 1: Lastavera Frittata–Jean’s blue apron on Beyond, skipping the onion, getting the right size pan, eggs from the hens next door, flash cooking, baskets of harvest tomatoes red and green

Part 2: Lastavera Frittata–ratio of vegs to eggs, tomatillos from their papery wraps to the skillet, green chiles and heat, cutting corn off the cob, beans-beanpaste-hummus, GMO.

Lastavera, Winding It Up–blue corn makes for interest, getting up close and personal with your food, the cook counts too, how Hopi cooks roast their green chile, celebrating kale, taking chances with the pan, and pulling it off!

Bonus Clip: Shucking Blue Corn and Talking About Hopi Cooks and Farmers

If you made it this far, here’s a special treat: the Hopi Butterfly Dance that the villages hold for the young people who are coming of age. Don’t the young women look beautiful in their headdresses? And the young men so very vigorous?

and one more–appropriately called The Corn Dance

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…

If you want to see me on camera whipping these lovelies up, just scroll on down.

The recipe for Rolled Ups is on page 38 of Cooking Beyond Measure, and you can find Thai Slaw on page 139.

As my mother used to say, “These are so good you could peddle it!”

Really, truly–I could live on these babies…

Here’s hopin’ you give them a whirl. Even picky husbands and pb&j kids like Thai Slaw Rolls.

Here in Portland, Oregon, it’s as if Mother Nature threw a switch and autumn commenced. I’m sure golden days are yet to come, but at the moment it’s brisk and cloudy. Gone are the fresh tomatoes and the lean, clean flavors that taste so great when it’s hot. Here are chiles and spices and everything that make fall and the holidays so enticing, so mysterious, so fragrant and alluring.

Pictured are the outrageously hot Thai chiles, fresh from the Asian grocery down the street. One of these babies minced together with garlic puts serious wow-appeal in everything from soup to warm salads.

Then, of course, there’s the whole nutmeg. It goes on my cereal daily, fresh off the petite rasp grater a friend gave me. Once you get a taste–and a yen for the arresting smell–of fresh spices, you’ll be hard put to settle for the preground stuff.

The green pods are cardamom, that potent spice favored by Scandinavians for cookies, breads, and fruit soups. I’ve found that it also is lovely for dipped pears and oranges–as well as almonds. In fact, I included a recipe note for cardamom almonds in Beyond Measure–basically tossing toasted almonds in melted butter and dusting them with peppery cardamom.

Cardamom pods are great to work with while you’re watching one of the presidential debates or the latest news on our fearsome economy. Before I settle in in front of the tube, I crack the outer husks on the cutting board with a rolling pin. Then it’s just a matter of picking the dark brown spice out.

Once your tv-watching for the evening has come to a conclusion, a quick whirl in the coffee bean grinder nets you fresh, fragrant cardamom that will stay lovely throughout the holidays. Also cardamom’s bold smell is a great antidote for whatever you saw on the tube that didn’t set quite right. Free aroma-therapy and all that jazz.

Those who have a copy of Beyond Measure will recognize Celeste from the back cover. Indeed, she’s become a bit of a mascot and will most likely ensconce her lovely self on Hippie Kitchen’s (forthcoming 2009) back cover as well. While we’re not sure if this shot will make the final cut, she did want to pose her green, froggy self with the salsa doings.

As well she should, since she bellies up so nicely to the gypsy, Serrano, Anaheim, and jalapeño peppers I used for this salsa. Beyond that, the salsa is just onion, garlic, lime, and lotsa red plumpers. Cilantro is always called for in the formal recipes, but I didn’t have any around. Also, between me and thee, I didn’t even have limes on my first go round (we go through a batch every few days right now with harvest bringing on the peppers and tomatoes) and used a few shakes of regular old cider vinegar. Celeste thought it was cool–and it was close enough for the guys I go with.

Linda’s my new pal. She knows about computers and business and such. So what could I do when she arrived once again to help the cause, but offer a munch.

It was mainly leftovers that took me 15 minutes to pull together. Mahi mahi (because when I talked to Gary last week that was what he was making) and crook neck squash from the grill that I’d done the night before, lettuces from the garden, and warmed corn tortillas into which to fold the fish along with some blue cheese.

The usual suspects were there: fish sauce and red chile into the warmed mahi mahi, olive oil worked onto the lettuces with my hands, fresh cracked pepper, pinches of coarse salt.

Linda ate with the same relish I do. She loved my simple, affordable measurefree food. She can come to dinner at mi casa any time.

Speaking of the living being easy, you might notice the braids of garlic in the photo. I spent a joyful evening a couple weeks ago harvesting. It’s a first for me to grow a year’s supply of garlic and the feeling of provisioning the larder is quite nice. My braids ain’t half bad either for a newbie, don’t you think?

It’s mid-October but the kitchen garden still giveth. Today there was broccoli, roasting ears, a couple small lonesome zucchinis, and a cartload of Anaheim chiles. Seemed like dinner to me.

All it took was a douse of water (which in truth was some cinnamon tea left in the teapot) in my cast iron wok with the burner on high. The broccoli stems when in first of course, since they need the most tempering by fire. Then the chopped up zuch, corn cut off the cob, the broccoli florets, a lingering tomato from my garden, a chopped chile with the seeds tossed in the compost, and a nice dollop of lima beans from a pot of leftovers in the fridge.

I didn’t do much seasoning on this one. Just a tad of salt, letting the chiles have their day. With a grating of Monterrey jack cheese over the top, this dinner had the Southwest written all over it and was good to go.

Usually on warm salad stir flash cooked things like this, I use onion and garlic not to mention spices and various other tricks to make the flavors of the food sing. But I’ve been on the fast track and too busy to fuss much in the kitchen.

That’s precisely what measure free recipes is about. To share how easy this kind of food is to pull together, and how immensely forgiving and amenable to creative license it is. Indeed, I spent years with the task of peeling and dicing the onion just so stopping me from carrying on in the kitchen. The peeling was sticky and the dicing was hard to do. All that plus the tears, and there you have it: a perfect reason to grab something in a crinkly package.

You get the idea, certainly. Onions-schmunions. If you aren’t in the mood to deal with them or any of the other critters in the usual litany, leave those babies out or skip that step and cruise on. Get this great farm-to-table food going any way you can. If your experience is anything like mine has been, you will feel the light in your eyes right way.

Breaking into the garlic to separate out the first crescent of a clove. . . The feel of the papery thin husks that if held to the light momentarily reveal nature’s handiwork.

Then there’s giving the single cloves a sharp staccato press with the flat side of the chef’s knife. And hearing that satisfying crunch when the husks loosen their hold on the glistening ivory meat within. And lifting the clove close to inhale its unmistakable, irresistible pungency.

Babba Ram Dass may have urged us to ‘be here now’ way back when, but it’s good old garlic that keeps coming back around again and again and again.