In the photograph above I used conventional mozzarella, unaware two years ago when I shot it, of the abuse factory farm cows are subjected to–ie not seeing the light of day for obscene time periods, basically turned into milk machines that stand with their 1500 pound girths on cemented barn floors as opposed to getting out to pasture daily where they can switch their tails and chew their cud.

Thus, exceptionally pleased am I to have discovered that the reputable people in the Organic Valley cooperative make a mozzarrella. It’s square not round, sorry to say. But it’s taste is all the sweeter since it helps connect the dots between our bioethics and our consumption habits. So if you haven’t connected with a local cheese maker who does mozzarella–or don’t make your own–know that Organic Valley has its products available nationally. The good stuff is ours for the asking–and for paying the extra price it costs dairy people to treat the mama cows well.

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…

Not much to say here other than enjoy this vid on mixing up a bean loaf. There’s even an afterthought on one of my favorites, spaghetti squash.

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.

These little stovetop cornbreads are quick, warm, crowd pleasers. On tours I make them round, stuffed with cheese or refried beans drawing on gorditas and empanadas as my guide.

In April 2010, though, Justine, a Facebook pal from Southern California, shipped a box of avocadoes from her tree, and inspired these corn crescents.

Details

~Use the usual ratio of one teaspoon leavening to a cup of cornmeal/flour. On the cornmeal/flour ratio, it’s generally three to four parts meal for each part flour. One to two tablespoons of butter for each cup of masa/flour softens the dough nicely.

~Taking time to knead your dough some makes for cakes that puff some when fried.

Laurel Robertson, who wrote Laurel’s Kitchen with Carol Flinders, is some kind of woman. This salad is adapted from their pages where they titled it “Astonishing.” I’ve made it many times over the years, and it’s my privilege to translate it into a measure free format.

What I especially like about this vegetarian and vegan approach to a spinach salad is that it springs from the more traditional approach which relies on hot bacon fat to wilt the greens. So smart of Laurel and Carol to figure out a different approach to a warm dressing—a dressing that not only succeeds in taming your fresh garden spinach but also one that is pretty darn sexy with its polite pour of dry white wine.

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.

If you’re still buying canned beans, here’s a vid to inspire you to keep your money and take back your kitchen. After all a big pot of beans freezes up in to small containers beautifully and you’re set for a week or two.

Also a variation on the theme in a video at the bottom of this post. “Tostadas: So Easy an Old Stoner Can Make Them”

Here’s a take on a taco salad that goes light years beyond iceberg and draws on the bounty of an early season garden. If you’re like me and want lotsa veggies, just pile the mount way high and grab your chopsticks or fork. Then once you graze off the main heap, you’ll have a nice warm bundle of food to pick up and eat.

On A Fresh Herbaceous Kind of Spring—

The thing with spring is that oftentimes there’s not much to eat in the garden. Lettuces are young yet and peas just beginning to grow. But no problem, the grand seasonal cycle seems to tell us, there’s plenty of herbs.

So, what better time of year to graze on fresh herbs. To turn them into your vegetables. Their pungent mystique powerful enough to gaily chase winter mugglies away.

So especially in spring, consider using herbs as vegetables. Perhaps not exclusively, but still in significant green proportions. They skinny up to lovely advantage things like cabbage in a Tostada Salad or Levantine-style with whole grains in what we call Red Quinoa Tabbouleh.

Why the combination of parsley, summer savory, thyme, mint, tarragon, and chives? That’s what was looking good in the garden when these two recipes came together. A lovely combo I thought, although one sure to change with the seasons.

So grab you basket and go gathering—keeping an eye out for the occasional flower. Once back in the kitchen, snip the chives into bits with your scissors. Strip the summer savory and thyme off the stems in one fell swoop of your pinched fingers. Give your parsley and mint as much chop as you have the patience for.

You’ll wind up with a fabulous heap of herbaceous green. A beautiful spring green that will hold its color as long as it doesn’t spend too long under the spell of much heat.

The fabulous aroma of thyme, mint, and parsley makes this approach to working with fresh herbs so worth it. They remain innocent until the leaves begin to bruise when you strip the thyme off their woody stems and chop the parsley and mint with your knife. A rather lovely treat for the cook. No need to go out and buy aroma therapy when you’ve got this kind of action going in your very own kitchen.

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 you have to watch things like a hawk. Medium ovens of 350 work well too, and depending on what you’re roasting, munchies will be yours in a half hour. Then again if you’re going out for a walk you can turn the oven to 250. When you return, you’ll have the sweetest caramelized morsels a soul could ever ask for.

My preferred roasting vehicle is—or was—Jessie Branom’s extra large cast iron skillet. The iron and the sides of the pan cradle the vegetables in a cocoon of heat that caramelizes, and the veggies y turn out sweet and golden. Baking trays work too, but as you’ll discover if you use both vehicles like I usually do, the results cast iron produces are decidedly superior. Yet at this writing, a new over-sized cast iron skillet is on my shopping list. Here’s why.

Jessie Branom and my mother were close friends in Phoenix during the early 1960s where they raised their families. Jessie had two children; Mom had four. So the women reasoned that my mother should have the big frying pan Jessie owned, and Jessie should have my mother’s medium sized skillet. The swap was made, and much later after Mom passed away Jesse’s skillet came to me. I used it for years but as a historian who thinks in terms of centuries, I’m aware of how numbered our days are—and how things can get lost in the shuffle at the end of life.

So it was that Thanksgiving of 2007 when Jessie’s first granddaughter married, I posted the skillet swathed in wedding wrap. As I wrote to the young bride, Jenny Branom Patberg, “Great scratch cooks have used this skillet for a half century. May its journey go on.”

Postscript: I have by this time, 3 years after the above was written, purchased a new skillet which has definitely earned its keep and love as a new member of the kitchen family.