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…

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.

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 chopping the onion to chowing down.

So Mark Bittman’s recent NYT piece on Mexican markets was a nice reminder of my own cruise-arama. Here he’s talking about how Mexican women get fresh veggies on the table pronto–but he apparently hasn’t got the flash cooking thing wired yet.

“Equally interesting to me was the huge variety of pre-chopped, mixed vegetables, carrots mixed with squash and cabbage, or nopales (cactus leaves) with peas, red peppers, mushrooms, and onions, or simply corn and squash. Bags and bags of these, and trays and trays of them, to be bought by the kilo, taken home, and quickly cooked for tortillas or stews or simply, for want of a better term, stir-fries.”

It’s true that when I first started working with the concept I too called this method of cooking stir-fries–hippie stir fries to be exact. That’s because it uses the Asian stir fry idea but without the oil or Asian veggies or flavors. Still stir fries didn’t quite capture it and my friend Laura couldn’t get behind the phrase. All a good thing, since eventually the term flash cooking came along. Here’s what I write in Hippie Kitchen:

On Flash Cooking—

My Dad called me “High Heat Johnson.” He had me pegged and knew I took after my mother. Mom’s friends said she couldn’t even spell the word patience.

So I come to flash cooking honestly. When I cruise into the kitchen I want stuff done now. I want to pull leftover grains and legumes from the icebox and spin them together with a bunch of vegetables pronto. So I turn the heat up full blast and go for it. I used to think this tendency an indolent cop out, but after traveling in other countries, I discovered that I’m not the only one flash cooking and that there’s not a thing in the universe wrong with this approach to food.

To flash cook vegetables, start with a puddle of water, spices if you’re in the mood, and high heat. The idea is to use just enough water to cook your vegetables, adding small pours as you go—making sure to get things that take the longest to cook in the pot first.

My favorite vehicle by far for flash cooking is a cast iron wok because it holds the heat so beautifully and turns the vegetables crisp tender in minutes. But as I’ve discovered cooking in other people’s kitchens, regular woks, heavy bottomed skillets, and generally any pot or pan rattling around in the cupboard will be your friend.

It is true that flash cooking is an Asian stir fry in spirit since there’s lots of vegetables and full blast heat. But that’s where the similarities end. That’s because flash cooking isn’t bound by a particular orchestration of bok choy, soy sauce, and their buddies. Instead flash cooked dishes are free to move about in the world of fusion cuisine.

Flash cooked dishes can also skip the heat entirely and use raw vegetables. So in truth, the idea behind flash cooking is more about the flash and less about the heat. It’s also a way cooks in hippie kitchens get to muster all the soul at their command and sketch out flavors that appeal in a thousand different hues.

So, get all those blues. Must be a thousand hues.
And be just differently used. You just know.
You sit there mesmerized.
By the depth of those eyes that you can’t categorize.
She got soul. She got soul. She got soul!

~Bluebird, Buffalo Springfield, 1966

You got soul?

Mesmerized?

Far out…

To flash cook vegetables, start with a puddle of water, spices if you’re in the mood, and high heat. The idea is to use just enough water to cook your vegetables, adding small pours as you go—making sure to get things that take the longest to cook in the pot first.

Note on Cast Iron

My favorite vehicle by far for flash cooking is a cast iron wok because it holds the heat so beautifully and turns the vegetables crisp tender in minutes. But as I’ve discovered cooking in other people’s kitchens, regular woks, heavy bottomed skillets, and generally any pot or pan rattling around in the cupboard will be your friend.

In Soupy’s company, I found fascination too. Fascination for the feel of the warm bowl in my hands. Fascination for the smell of the broth wafting upwards on slender tendrils of steam. And deep appreciation for the wintry favors that melded together in this pale shade of spring offering.

Finally, for those of you who’ve not seen Soupy immortalized in Beyond Measure, here she is.

And really, finally–here’s a version of Soupy Soup I made, April 2010. It’s not soup at all since I didn’t use that much water. Principle’s the same though–and the parsley sings like it always does.

I bought some red peppers the other day. It was against my local, seasonal religion and all, but I guess I was feeling rebellious. For sure, the kale, spaghetti squash, and tofu dish I pulled together took on a wow when I added the red peppers. Still, I thought wistfully back to last year when I waited humbly and patiently for the tomato and pepper season. It’s true, I did appreciate the peppers and their saucy cousins way more when I let the anticipation build and counted the days.

So, I’m back on the straight and narrow. I don’t know why I was tempted by the peppers when spring greens are so very, very sublime. Absent is the strong taste that comes from mature greens. Ditto on the toughness. Spring greens are all about tender sweetness–so much so that they really are a different animal altogether.

All they take besides a minute flashed on high with a dab of water are some sliced scallions or green garlic and good oil along with red chile flakes for attitude. I enjoyed these greens with pan-fried Dover sole and leftover quinoa that I reheated in the hot wok once the greens were done. There were wedges of lemon to squeeze over the fish and greens, plus a little chopped parsley to decorate here and there.

As an afterthought, I also flashed some mushrooms once the quinoa was out of the wok. Again, it was a brief minute on high heat in enough water to help things along. I saved the butter for the end once the shrooms onto the plates. All that and it was still a 10-minute meal, clean-up included.

(The mushrooms were a real treat since I only buy the expensive organic kinds. Non-organic shrooms have some of the highest residues of fungicides and pesticides of any food. In addition to spraying the crop, the compost and sheds in which the mushrooms grow are treated as well.)

This meal isn’t new with me. Most every inventive cook these days makes a version of this great dish. Every mouthful is so delicious. More it’s a one-skillet flash cooked pull together.Still, as you can see it’s so beautiful that I chose it for the cover shot on Beyond Measure. It tastes every bit as good as it looks.

Snap the tough ends off your asparagus and flash cook the spears on high in a little water. Once they’re done, plate them and do your eggs on medium in a little butter, salt, and fresh cracked pepper. (I used a lid to help the egg cook without having to turn it. That way the yolk remained a little runny even as the white cooked through.)

From there is just some shaved Parmesan and a knife and fork. Truly the bestest, bestest way I’ve ever had asparagus. So divinely superb and sunny and seasonal.

At least I think there was a dance called the savoy shuffle back in the Roaring Twenties. At any rate, savoy cabbage is a whole lot more fun that regular old plain cabbage. If you find some of this crinkly, almost psychedelic cabbage there’s no end to what you can do with it.

There’s good old corned beef and cabbage for those that get into the St. Paddies Day thing. Or there’s slaw.

In the case of this particular savoy cabbage, I started out aiming for a warm salad and sliced half the cabbage thinly, giving it a quick chop so the pieces weren’t too long. Then I piled the fetching savoy into my cast iron wok on high heat with a little water, sliced onion, and grated carrot. Flash cooked veggies were mine pronto. Ready and waiting.

I dressed the works with fish sauce (easy does it on this salty, umami brew), crushed red chiles, a chopped pear or two for sweet, and fresh lemon juice for sour (wishing I’d had a lime on hand). Then I found a can of coconut milk in the cupboard and decided to heck with the salad. In went the coconut milk along with pinches of coriander and turmeric, and a fresh chop of cilantro at the end when I tossed in cooked prawns.

Some serious yum, this flash cooked, ten-minute meal was–and it all started from the humble cabbage. (True, I used the fancy Savoy because it’s so gorgeous my artist’s soul can’t resist it, but I could have just as easily made do with regular cabbage.)

Thanks to Michelle for prompting this post. She looked at the Flash Cooking entry back in January and made the sensible connections: wok + green veggies = where’s the tofu?

She’s right, of course, tofu’s a great protein source to pair with vegetables. Yet, in addition to buying seasonal produce, what’s opened the door onto enjoying vegetables for me has been giving myself permission to break the rules.

My cast iron wok has found a permanent place on the stove and gets used daily, but I can’t remember the last time I made anything remotely akin to an Asian stir fry. With it’s base of oil, particular vegetables, soy sauce, etc., it doesn’t work for me that well.

Rather, it’s flash cooked veggies that I like. A bit of water to start and then whatever, most always building in the sweeter squashes (cooked spaghetti squash in the case of this pic) and root vegetables before bringing on the greens and things like minced garlic and hot chile at the very last.

Because flash cooking doesn’t need to start  with oil, I turn these dishes  yummy at the end with nutbutters or good cheeses like blue, caramelized goat cheese, or parmesans–not to mention chunks of fresh fruit and nuts. All that and there’s still enough wiggle room for a drizzle of nice olive or sesame oil, fresh lemon juice or interesting vinegar, salt, and a crack of pepper.

If you’ll notice, the template for flash cooking doesn’t even require spices. If you find the flavor wanting, a careful spoonful of fish sauce does the trick–or a smashed anchovy if you’d rather, since that’s all fish sauce is. Then again, if you’re vegetarian, tamari or soy sauce works.