Kitchen Tips

Plums and Pots and Purple Juice

10 August 2010 by Jean Johnson
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 ...

Hippie Primavera, Video on Flash Cooking

16 June 2010 by Jean Johnson
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 Turn the burner on high with a puddle of water. Put your rustically chopped veggies in, ...

On Cleanup and Storage

7 June 2010 by Jean Johnson
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. ...

Fava Bean Season is Upon Us

30 May 2010 by Jean Johnson
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 ...

Thrift + Creativity = Empowerment + Joy

7 May 2010 by Jean Johnson
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 ...

On Vinegar and Wine

by Jean Johnson
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 ...

Flash Cooking’s Where It’s At

14 April 2010 by Jean Johnson
Flash cooking is the heart of my kitchen scene. It nets me plenty of fresh seasonal vegetables in short order--warm salad style. I've talked about it many times here on the blog, but people resonate with the idea so, that we did a video. It's a 6 minute clip from ...

Homemade Beans

8 April 2010 by Jean Johnson
It's so easy to get on a roll when you've got some homemade beans waiting in the fridge. Talk about ultrafast. All you do is flash cook some seasonal vegs into a warm salad, dress with oil and vinegar, add the beans for protein, season with salt and red chile ...

Red Quinoa Tabbouleh

25 March 2010 by Jean Johnson
Grow Your Own, the third book in the measurefree kitchen companion trilogy is underway. Here's one from the Leafing Out in Spring chapter. One secret of this take on tabbouleh is making it the way they do in the Levant--where as my friend Rula Awaad-Rafferty observes, “it’s about the green, ...

Cast Iron Skillets and Great Scratch Cooks

19 March 2010 by Jean Johnson
Facebook friends, Laura and Emily, commented on my cast iron skillet, so thought it time to share this entry from the pages of Cooking Beyond Measure. Cooking Beyond Measure, p. 72. On Roasting Vegetables— Vegetables roast marvelously well from low to high temperatures. On highs around 450 F, colors are preserved but ...