More it’s easy to slice off for toast.

And it’s good spread with hummus and jam.

So good that before you know it, you’re outside ready to rock & roll. Now you see it.

Now you don’t. Think 6′ by 5′ by 4′ –just the right size to install a double egress window in my basement bedroom.

The inspection crew arrived.

And called it good.

As for me, I got into such a rhythm that when the job was over I went out back and turned the winter’s compost pile.

All muddy spring chores must eventually come to an end, though. So time to clean up the tools.

So I’ll just pot up a start of chives for Arlene–my latest food pal who nabbed a copy of Cooking Beyond Measure last month and has been delighting me with her forays into the book. So fun, since Arlene has picked right up on the thrift of my approach as well as the health and fun. Makes sense because she’s a gardener from way back and hip to what scratch cooking’s all about.

And whip out a healthy, thrifty, ultrafast Arfie Luf Tostada (Hippie Kitchen, p. 98)

This is the first time I’ve ever emailed someone who has subscribed, so I was stunned to get a message back from her:

Bought your wonderful books, Cooking Beyond Measure and Hippie Kitchen at Barnes and Noble. I’m on my second reading, this time high-lighter in hand so as not to miss anything!

Diana

Then a few days later, in the mail came this beautifully rendered sampler. Here’s the context from Hippie Kitchen, page 124:

“No wheat or other kinds of flour in your food plan? Flax meal and oat bran can help you work it out. As Lennon & McCartney wrote in 1965, ‘Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friend.’”

If you want to try this and havie no bookie, there’s a blog post right here from 2007 where I shared the recipe.

and in the house–with bulbs from last year’s crop starting to sprout–a sure sign that it’s time to roast some garlic.

Why? Because it takes heads and heads and heads to get very much of the delicious caramelized goo. So no need to let sprouting garlic go to waste.

The bulbs are fetching–tips trimmed for roasting and all shined up with oil. On the green shoots, prevailing wisdom in chef circles is that they are bitter and need pulling out from the otherwise still good cloves. Myself, I’ve tasted them over the years and haven’t found them off-putting. That’s what I like about cooking, you can see for yourself and then proceed accordingly.

Whatever you do, leave the green shoots in or strip them out, the tips of the cloves do need trimming so that once the garlic is roasted, it’s easy to squeeze out. (Expect a sticky experience, lessened by dipping your fingers in a dish of water as you work.)

Once you have some roasted garlic, sky’s the limit on what you can do with it.

It’s great smeared on a polenta pie pizza, decorated with last year’s tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and a healthy trickle of olive oil.

Not as sexy, but equally good, roasted garlic turns wilted winter greens into a taste treat and plain old white beans into food worth savoring.

All that and you can even snip spring garlic greens for mincing into anything from scrambled eggs to a grain salad. If that’s not enough, there’s green garlic as well that people who have Hippie Kitchen can check out on page 26. Truly a lazy cook’s dream, but then so is roasting some garlic.

Just put some heads in an oiled covered dish the next time you have the oven on. In 15-20 minutes you’ll be in possession of some seriously heady–but not strong*–stuff.

*Cooking mellows strong garlic and roasting really lays it away. More, different kinds of garlic pack different wallops.

The type with the purple-lavender husks that I grow are highly mellow. Where you could only use one clove of stronger garlic, you can use 3-4, even a half dozen of these cloves without going over the top.

I’ve learned this by working with this variety for years now–and also from my reading of Lulu’s Provencal Table by Richard Olney. Lulu favors the purple husk variety as well because it allows the cook to go for plenty of flavor without having the garlic over power. She even minces all the cloves from a single bulb to put into dishes.  (Great cookbook, by the way.)

Here’s to working with pretty, pearly fresh garlic.

Plus that squash is great food if you want to trim down some. I know when I stay true to winter squash et al–meaning there’s no silver bullet here and the idea is to eat a variety of  fresh seasonal vegetables–the scales tip in a favorable direction.

Long time friend in Northern Arizona says it’s true for him too. Here’s a shot of the harvest Bob sent along with a note:

Jean,

We have been eating a lot of this stuff this winter and have found that a piece of any kind of squash with a couple of poached eggs on it is an awesome breakfast. With something like half an acorn it is easy to turn it into a real show piece.

Now that Beth is retired I have been eating much more of her cooking and have lost twenty-five pounds. I went over to Mac’s and retrieved all his old Levis that now fit me.

Bob

[Note: Mac is my former husband, a tall bean pole of a Grand Canyon hiker guy while he walked the planet.]

****************

Squash goes great in a lunch box too. Here is fare I toted out one fall when there were still fresh tomatoes around. Nice meal it was:

sweet dumpling squash wedges
steamed beets
tomatoes
blue cheese
soynuts
on a bed of brown rice and garden greens
dressed with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

A fraction of the cost of paying the man for unhealthy questionably sourced food as well.

Spaghetti squash is one of my favorites. Here’s a half ready for the oven on my griddle.

And here’s a warm salad I conjured up with it during pomegranate season over the holidays.

The flash cooked kale dressed with the usual suspects: oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper is a great foil to the sweet squash.

The walnuts and ruby jewel goodies help pull the whole thing off.

Speaking of squash, here’s what my oven looked like this morning.

Baking up some squash ahead for dinner.
Roasting some garlic to spread on polenta.
And warming some spice bread I made with squash for breakfast.

Not only did I get some nice food ready for later, the kitchen got warm enough to make folks want to linger a bit over coffee.

Not a bad deal all in all.

Oh. Did I say I’m down too?

Closing in on ten pounds and feeling skppety-do-dah.

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables.

The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion.

Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity.

Beets are deadly serious.”

Great lines…

If you’re inspired, Cooking Beyond Measure has a recipe for roasted beets, blue cheese, winter greens, garbanzos, and toasted hazelnuts. It’s on page 116 if you want the particulars, or just rock and roll with olive oil, cider vinegar, salt, and plenty of black pepper–and if you’re vegan, just leave the cheese off….

Whatever direction you take, you’ll be eating seasonally. Letting nature take it’s course. Going with the flow.

It’s like what time of year other than winter do we need deadly serious food.

As usual, mother takes care if we let her…

All that and this is the stuff of a thrifty cook. No tossing these lovely peels to the compost. Making use of them to add oodles of flavor to your holiday cakes. Who knows, it could even lead to drying our peels to add them to tea come winter. Constant Comment did it to very good advantage way back when…and now they’re rich kids–chuckle.

This year I candied one of each critter: lemon, orange, grapefruit, citron, and lime. Lemon and orange were quite good as was the grapefruit. Citron was hard to find but it rewarded with an extra thick pith. Lime with its thin peel was not as plump and enticing, although still brought an intrigue all its own.

You can see how large the citron is and how little fruit it has, making it a shoe-in for candying with its thick rind. This is the etrog variety as opposed to the more readily available fingered citron, also known as Buddha’s hand. The advantage of the fingered citron is that its all rind and thus gives up a goodly amount of candied peel.

Just ask friend, Michael Mock, who experimented with that this year. He ended up with a couple of cups of diced peel, plenty for not only fruitcakes but also Christmas Stollen and my latest use of candied peel: in a beet salad with fresh oranges, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and a healthy spike of country mustard.

Back to the matter at hand, though. The gist on candied peel is really just the same as on everything else that’s commercially prepared today. Making it is easy, but it is yet another chore. That said, as people who do their own chores know, there’s nothing like home made for both satisfaction and end product.

How easy? How about 1, 2, 3.

1. Take the peel off the fruit (or in the case of etrog citron, cut the fruit out of the peel) and dice it–or at least get a bite-size cut. No need to fret over removing the pith as you want that for meaty dices and the bitterness goes mostly gonzo during the blanching. (Besides, like Old Fashion drinkers know, a little bitter makes the sweet rock & roll.)

2. Blanch in boiling water a couple times. Draining and rinsing each time to remove the bitterness. (Some recipes call for three and four times of blanching. I did it twice, letting the peels bubble about for a minute or two each time before rinsing.)

3. Simmer with sugar and water (one part sugar to two parts water) until things get syrupy. Use enough water to barely cover your fruits nets about the right amount of syrup.

If you’ll notice in the last image here, some of my jars have less syrup than others–point being there’s no hard and fast rule, just you experimenting.

Just you, the measure free hippie cook, in charge. (How was it that we ever turned into technicians anyhow? Following orders from headquarters in the privacy of our own kitchens? Aren’t our lives ruled and regulated enough already? More chuckle…)

Our cover girl, Celeste, is never far from the kitchen action of course. She is even in the holiday spirit enough to let the latest member of the family–Blue Bird–to share the frame with her.

In fact, when I steamed up a few handfuls of wild rice this morning, I only vaguely thought dressing. But it smelled so nutty I got in the mood and toasted up some quinoa, pilaf-style, for steaming. Then after yoga I got serious. Minced garden sage, stirred in a few eggs, diced some celery & shrooms & apples, all sauteed in the requisite stick or two of butter Thanksgiving seems to demand.

It was an enchanting experience, this business of letting what was on hand and fresh run the show. Not that it’s a new idea, but somehow at Thanksgiving all that easy does it goes out the window and there’s more time spent pre-planning than actually eating.

Of course, I incorporated techniques from years of cooking: stirring in enough eggs like you do in meat loaf or bean loaf to hold things together, not skimping on the butter, tasting to make sure the salt was right, mincing enough sage to say Thanksgiving, staying mindful of appearance. So beautiful it was with the chunks of apple. So beautiful I made three skillets full: big ones for each of the meals I’ll attend and a small one for the house here so that even though I’m going out, those cherished leftovers will still be around.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone–As Pink Floyd sang so many years ago: Wish you were here…

A few big spoons of small white Navy beans that were waiting in the fridge all cooked up, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and we were there. Grab the Parmigiano Reggiano–that we can afford since we grown our own and eat beans–some homemade Tangled Up Focaccia and we were there. On the deck with a glass of wine eating first class peasant food and loving it. Indeed, we don’t have to be gourmet to eat well, no?

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