Putting Up Food

Getting Our Acts Together with the Sacred Quartet, Squash and Greens, & Frugality

3 January 2011 by Jean Johnson
As usual, it's not what we do but how to do it. Especially when it comes to the measure free hippie kitchen. So those long lists you see in cookbooks about putting a pantry together only go so far by telling us what to buy at the store. Half the ...

Freezing French Cut Green Beans & Happy Birthday to John Lennon

9 October 2010 by Jean Johnson
I don't have a cake to offer on behalf of John Lennon's 70th birthday. But I think if the man were here he'd welcome my French cut green beans with knowing look through his blue tinted granny glasses. Honest food from my no chem garden. A celebration of harvest. Putting ...

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 ...

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 ...

Apples in the Roasting Pans

3 October 2008 by Jean Johnson
After my comments on pesticides and apples in The Measure Free Weekly last time, I was especially pleased to have a box of apples in the basement from friend and gardener, Laura Berg. Laura is also, if you'll remember from her comment on last week's blogpost, the care ...

Celeste Basks in the Aroma of Roasted Food

26 September 2008 by Jean Johnson
Celeste has turned into a camera hound since she heard HH, a male frog in our town, spotted her on the back cover of Beyond Measure. She sniffs that she's not too interested, but the truth is, she invited him over once harvest is on the wane. So you can see, ...

Fall’s Here–Ladies & Gentlemen, Start Your Ovens!

20 September 2008 by Jean Johnson
We had a fleeting few scorchers last week in Portland, Oregon, but even fluke weather must give way to the changing of the seasons. Now with the equinox just days away on the 22nd, the days have grown brisk and flipping the over on to do a little roasting seems ...

…and the Livin’ is Easy

25 July 2008 by Jean Johnson
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 ...

Frozen Grapes Tide You Over in the Spring

2 May 2008 by Jean Johnson
This may be a dish so easy that you won't think of it as really a recipe, but it's so good that I included it in Cooking Beyond Measure on page 142. You can even douse frozen grapes with buttermilk and give them a whirl in the blender. However you ...

Hot and Sour Thai Soup Sings of the Tropics

9 January 2008 by Jean Johnson
This takes me back to Bangkok where I watched the gracious Daeng Arporn Punlert make tom yam goong, or hot and sour shrimp soup, many times. Here's what I wrote down one day while she was in action: Hot and Sour Thai Soup Recipe Note (Cooking Beyond Measure, p. 92) Boil the shells from ...