Measure Free Hippie Cook » Iris the Cat

The Green and The Gold–Plus Jimmy Crack Corn

Jean Johnson — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:53:07 +0000

It started when Linda stayed in my 2 room b&b over the weekend. I made Polenta Waffles that are always a hit. Linda went on to the next leg of her vacation, but as so often happens, I’m on a roll. That’s how it happens when you’re a basically lazy, thrifty cook.

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

Measurefree: Pie in the Sky or the Cat’s Meow?

Jean Johnson — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 20:41:11 +0000

A facebook friend who owns both Hippie Kitchen and Beyond Measure was teasing me about my “sorta cookbooks.” And it’s true that I’ll often explain that the measure free cooking series is more kitchen companion than typical paint-by-number recipe books. That said, I contend that translating the art of cooking by explaining it–rather than reducing it to the equivalent of a small chemistry experiment–is entirely legitimate–and empowering in a revolutionary manner.

Think about it. Before we got measuring cups and formulaic cookbooks a century ago in the 1890s, cooking was a art. And just ask any artist–it’s the creativity they love. The decision making power. The joy of producing something that conveys a glimpse of who they are and what they can offer to the world.

Yes, yes. I know. You’re thinking all that pie-in-sky talk is fine for starving artists, but when the family wants dinner, there’s no time for nonsense.

Rhubarb Pie

I’m hip. But I submit that measure free cooking is a fast track to first rate, ultrafast, easy-healthy-thrifty-delish food. More, and here’s the key: it’s fun because you get to be boss. Indeed, I think one of the reasons we all grab more product and take out food than our health and wealth can afford is that we’ve got it in our heads that cooking is a tedious, even boring exercise in following rote directions.

In a measure free kitchen, you leave behind your low status of technician–one who merely carries out the ideas that others have conjured up. Instead you get to be boss. You get to be the one who makes the decisions. Surely in our over-regulated lives from the alarm to the traffic lights to the time clock, in the privacy of our own kitchens we deserve that much…

Intrigued? If so, poke around the site and see if any of the samples I’ve shared from the books seem do-able to you. We’ve also tucked in vids of me rocking & rolling here and there to help the cause. As you do you’ll find a whole new kitchen world opening up before your eyes. Not a gourmet one. Not a silly one. Just a down to earth kitchen scene that women around the world have known for centuries. Indeed, no need to go to Tuscany to have a sexy food life…just spend some authentic time your very own kitchen!

Make Homemade Bread and Skip the Therapist Couch

Jean Johnson — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:15:19 +0000

You wouldn’t think a post on homemade bread would include former husbands and cat, but what can I say. It all comes down in three-part harmony. So here you be–a three-part vid on me making it, a focaccia recipe and photos straight from the pages of Hippie Kitchen. Don’t know what else I could do to lure you into this elemental and thrifty world. Here’s hopin’.

Tangled Up Focaccia, (Hippie Kitchen, page 152)

One thing that helped me get a life with focaccia is discovering that the indentations in these round flat discs of bread are not from first rolling the dough out and then poking it with your fingers, but in never picking up the rolling pin in the first place. Indeed, in my hippie mind focaccia is a big, thick tortilla that you round up all nice and then flatten and pat and press into place—without tearing your lovely dough, of course. Besides that, since it’s a flat critter, you don’t have to worry that it won’t get done in the middle like loaves of bread. More, it’s done in twenty minutes. Focaccia is right on—and really nothing more than a thick pizza crust without the rim and
toppings.

Recipe Note

Mix whole wheat flour with salt and make a well in the middle. Pour in a puddle of warm water and sprinkle your yeast in to dissolve. (Use a teaspoon of yeast for each cup of flour.) Add pink hummus, olive oil, uncooked millet, and more water. Mix first with a spoon and then your clean hands until you’ve got a nice ball of dough you can knead for a few minutes on a floured board.

Let the dough rise in the bowl you stirred it in until an indentation made with your finger doesn’t spring back. Then gently press it down and either go for a second rise or straight to the shaping. Flatten out into a thick round and let rise on an oiled baking tray. Paint with more olive oil. Once it’s risen again for a bit and is pretty and puffy, slide it into in a
medium oven—and let the smell of freshly baked yeasted dough fill your winter moment.

Details

~On how much flour, I usually work with about three cups to a tablespoon (or packet if you don’t buy it bulk) of yeast. That will make a nice sized focaccia as well as a pizza crust, something that comes to life simply by rolling out the dough as thin a you like and duding it up with your goodies. Depending on the size pans you use, you might also find you have a small ball of dough leftover for a calzone, those great pizza turnovers. Yum. Just layer your cheese and veggies onto half of this little dandy and then fold the dough over, sealing the edges by pressing them tight.

~One trick when you’re working with a whole grain dough like this is to press or roll it out as far as it will easily go and then let rest five minutes. When you return to finish up, you’ll find it soft and pliable enough to go the distance.

~Also if you’re going to make pizza and don’t want the fun of crunchy millet in your crust, leave it out. It’s the same with the pink hummus, but I hope you give at least a small spoonful in your dough a try. You wouldn’t need to risk too much your first go round. You wouldn’t need to be too hard core. You can use your own common hippie kitchen sense.

~The thing is that beans are good food. What’s the harm in letting pink hummus bring both some of the liquid you need to the dough as well as a decent hit of protein? Seems right on to moi, especially when you put some first rate Crazy Diamond Garlic Butter (page 178) on a warm wedge of focaccia. Then again, my former husband would certainly take issue.

On Former Husbands—

McKee, my ex, loves his pizza. He and I consumed our share through the years, snugged into a booth over a pitcher of beer at Alpine Pizza, a joint that’s become institution on Leroux Street in Flagstaff. Yet, MacSpee—as I have taken to calling him most recently—has been so co-opted by the white dough clan that it would take a leap across the Grand Canyon for him to first run some whole wheat rapids never mind scaling the heights of pink hummus and millet. Too bad the turkey always had such little faith in my hippie cooking. Then again, I guess I wasn’t the best either. Here’s how I got a clue on that score.

It was a few years ago when I was in Northern Arizona and stopped out to see him. Some of the old gang happened by, and we were shooting the breeze when McKee tosses out this remark about how in 1969 a year after we were married, I announced we were becoming vegetarians.

“What?” I thought, stunned at his implication that I issued some sort of edict. “He wasn’t into that? He never said a word.”

I guess at some level I thought that since he mainly controlled our lives outside the kitchen—and yes dear, in your unassuming way, your hiking boots were planted firmly in the patriarchy—our food decisions were pretty much mine. Also I think I might have concluded that turning vegetarian was such a cool move, that he was as into it as I was.
Besides, as I noted, this then-husband of mine didn’t give me an inkling that he wasn’t a happy hippie veggie. Sigh. Sometimes I don’t know why I’ve stayed friends with him all these years. Maybe it’s because just when I think I’ve had it, he sends me a letter like the one I got this past May.

It starts with him saying how he was just sitting around spacing out, reading a little nineteenth century history, and listening to
Bob Dylan. Turns out that “Tangled Up in Blue” was on—the piece Dylan wrote in 1974 that came out on Blood on the Tracks.

“A line from Dylan’s song reminds me of you,” McKee penned in his old familiar backhand. “‘We always did feel the same. We just saw it from a different point of view. ’”

On Pink Hummus—

Hummus made of smashed garbanzo beans and tahini (sesame seed butter) is traditional from the Middle East. But what happened in my hippie kitchen is that I only had pinto beans cooked up and also wanted a lean version of hummus.

What to do but toss the pintos the blender with enough water to rock & roll. Salt, vinegar, and I was there. Pink hummus for crackers, to thicken soups and sauces, as a dip for carrots and apples—and to add to brownie batter.

On Yeast Dough—

Take this section seriously and you could save some real dough. That’s because yeast dough, whether you turn it into loaves, flat focaccia, or pizza pie, is just an affordable mix of flour, water, salt, and yeast—way cheaper than bakery bread. Besides, it’s serious play-play.

Play-play on how long you knead it, if in fact you do at all. Play-play on whether you add sugar to the yeast or pink hummus or little crunchy bits of millet or use oil in the dough and for painting the tops. Play-play on how long to let it rise, including overnight if you decide to stir some up on a winter evening before going to bed. Even playing around on whether or not to oil the bowl in which you let the dough rise.

The only critical thing with yeast dough is that the water needs to be baby bottle warm so it can dissolve the yeast but not kill it like hot water will. So test your water with a drop on the inside of your wrist. That way you can make sure your yeasty microorganisms will be able to feed on the natural sugars in the flour and release lots of carbon dioxide to make the dough rise.

What Really Happened—

Someone polished off the last of the pink hummus so I whizzed up some garbanzo beans thawed from a tub I’d frozen the week before (page 74). No tahini around either, so I called it good and named the beanpaste blonde hummus.

Also, I painted the pizza with oil but left the focaccia plain. The former was soft; the latter was crusty.

On the millet it was a different story, since there was a bag from the bulk bins up in the cupboard. But when I poured a handful into the bowl, I realized I’d nabbed the quinoa, not the millet.

The quinoa wasn’t quite as crunchy as the millet after the bread was baked, but its seedy nature (technically quinoa is seed not a grain) was uptown and had a pleasing visual
presence. Cool when serendipitous mistakes take you in directions you might otherwise not have gone.

Also cool when you make focaccia in the spring, split a wedge for the toaster, layer on ultra thin slices of caramelized goat cheese from Norway (gjetost) and a few local berries, grate on fresh nutmeg, and pour a cup of very dark espresso from just-ground beans.

Cat in the Cheese

Jean Johnson — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:52:08 +0000

I’m doing the photos for Cooking Beyond Measure, of course, and while I was getting my camera gear ready for this shot, my cat Iris, was quick on the draw. I won’t print this one in the cookbook, but you can say you saw it here first.

The dish is an ending for dinner. Just Brie and toasted coconut. Your call on whether you want to tote some ripe fruit out to go with or not. If you do, you’ll definitely have an innocent sweet for dessert.

Brie and Coconut (Cooking Beyond Measure, page 192)

So simple and elegant, yet this white on tan ending doesn’t need to be pretentious.

Recipe Note

Serve a wedge of room temperature Brie on a bed of toasted unsweetened coconut.

Details

~Unsweetened coconut is available in bulk bins at whole foods stores and many mainstream grocers.

~Toast coconut on medium heat in a heavy pan. A few minutes of careful stirring will net fragrant, tawny shreds that are so seductive people won’t miss the sugar we’ve come to associate with shredded coconut.

~An ending like this is easy to manage away from the table, so it’s nice to move into the living room around the coffee table like my cousins in Tertnes, Norway—the Askeland family—do.