09.04.08

Hungry Hungry Hippie

Posted in american, cooking, food, main dishes, non-casein, non-dairy, original recipes, vegan at 4:12 pm by Hanne Blank

This is a cellphone photo of my lunch yesterday, which, in this case, was, a serving of a dish I first devised in college when I was poor and had to make something hearty for a vegan potluck.  My roommate at the time christened it, amusingly if not entirely charitably, “Hungry Hungry Hippie.”  (The reference, for those too young to get it, was to the children’s board game Hungry Hungry Hippos, introduced by Hasbro in the late 1970s.)

Hungry Hungry Hippie is one of those dishes for which I will never publish anything like a precise recipe because there really can’t be one.

Nonetheless, I love Hungry Hungry Hippie to this day, and wish to spread the joy.

Hungry Hungry Hippie is, in its most elemental form and as pictured here, a sort of pilaf of cooked seasoned barley tossed with cubed tofu.

It can get plenty fancy if you have the scratch and the interest.

But usually, if you are making Hungry Hungry Hippie, you don’t.

How you make the basic version (and it makes plenty) is like this:

– you take about seven cups of water and you put it in a big heavy-bottomed pot what’s got a lid to it, and you start heating it

– then you flavor the water with a spoonful or two of Vegemite or Marmite, maybe some miso, and some onion powder and garlic powder; the water should end up pretty strongly flavored and a notch or so saltier than you’d want it for soup.  You use the Vegemite or Marmite (I prefer the latter) because it has a lovely strong meaty flavor that goes really well with the barley, and also seems to penetrate and soak into the barley better than anything else.  Don’t use boullion cubes instead of Vegemite or Marmite, it won’t work, it’ll taste of salt and nothing else.

–then you add a couple-three tablespoons of olive oil or whatever kinda oil you got.  Bacon grease is amazing in this, but totally not vegan or vegetarian.  You do what turns you on.

– then you pour in 2 cups of pearled barley and you stir it, and you bring it to a boil

– then you reduce the heat to a low simmer, cover it most of the way, and let it simmer until the barley kernels get to swelling appreciably

– whereupon you give it a stir, turn the heat off, put the lid on tight, and ignore it for a couple hours until all the liquid is absorbed

– at which point you drain and cube a pound or so of firm tofu and toss it into the barley, and reheat the whole thing a little (add another half-cup of liquid if you do it on the stovetop, or else put the whole thing (covered) in the oven at 300F for a bit)

And then you eat it!  Unless, of course, you’d like to add something yummy to it first.

Many things can be added to Hungry Hungry Hippie along with the tofu.  Some combination of sauteed onions, garlic, celery, and mushrooms is good.  Thoroughly caramelized onions are super-duper rockin’.  So are caramelized tomatoes, or little bits of sun-dried tomato.  Sauteed cabbage (sliced thinly) goes into it nicely. So does chopped fresh parsley. And so do chopped up dried tart fruits like unsweetened dried apricots, or cranberries.  When I could, I used to eat it with a dollop of sour cream on top.

But it’s also really tasty (and hella easy) on its own.  I like it with a healthy wodge of black pepper ground on top.

Its many virtues include keeping well, reheating well, being very nutritious, being very filling, having lots of complex carbs that will handily carry you through the day, being high in fiber, and being extremely economical.

Good for hippies and other living things.  Give it a whirl.

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