Category Archives: cooking

“…and whether pigs have wings.”

Posted on June 7, 2011 by bipolarlawyercook| 5 Comments

I’ve been writ­ing here, on and off, seri­ously and less than so, since 2007.  But of late, things have been chang­ing because, well– I have been chang­ing a lot in my per­sonal life the last sev­eral years.  For bet­ter or worse, this blog doesn’t quite fit who I am or who I want to be any more.

I still am bipo­lar– I always will be– but that’s not all of who I am, and I’m try­ing to define all of the things that I am besides my men­tal health, and fig­ur­ing out what’s my per­son­al­ity, what’s my pathol­ogy, and how to inter­weave all of those threads into a coher­ent life that I feel is worth liv­ing is a strug­gle that I need to rela­bel– not so much as being bipo­lar as being a grownup who can iden­tify the things that she wants and work on try­ing to make those things actu­ally happen.

I’m trained as a lawyer, but the com­pet­i­tive­ness, argu­men­ta­tive­ness, the nit­pick­i­ness, the focus on trees to the dis­re­gard of the for­est?  Those are things I need to work on and try to move past, because they’re not qual­i­ties that I want to have at the fore­front of how I express myself and inter­act with most people.

Cook­ing?  I still do it, but between the wors­en­ing gluten intol­er­ance and the anorexia my mood-stabilizer instills in me, it’s kind of a crap­shoot whether I can muster the inter­est in eat­ing, much less gag down all the food on my plate and man­age a week’s meals on a reg­u­lar basis.  Out­wardly, right now I am thin, but inside I grew up a fat kid with food issues who knows her weight loss is med-driven.  Com­pli­ments on my appear­ance mess me way the hell up.  Defin­ing myself as a cook is iffy as hell, and I’ve got all these pho­tos of dishes I cook wast­ing away on my hard drive because I can’t find it in me to blog about food any­more.  I’m not hun­gry any­more.

I will likely find a new time and place to talk about many things, from ships and  shoes to seal­ing wax to the newest YA release to  whether it sucks that women’s use of makeup in the work­place achieves bet­ter sales (it does suck, but it works, in my hum­ble opin­ion).  It won’t, how­ever, be here, because peo­ple change and need to make new places for them­selves some­times. I find that I’m at that place,  now.

Thank you to all of you who’ve read here and been such very good friends.  You’re all won­der­ful, and I can still be reached at bipolarlawyercook@gmail.com.

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Posted in Deep Thoughts, bipolar, cooking, fat, friends, gluten free, lawyer

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker

Posted on March 15, 2011 by bipolarlawyercook| 4 Comments

These last two weeks, I’ve been wear­ing my baker’s hat.  I made some lemon yogurt muffins from Mar­ion Cunningham’s Break­fast Book, a cook­book every­one should have if only for her Fresh Gin­ger Cake and Nut­meg Muffins, and then made the (gluten free) Choco­late Chip Cook­ies in Cook­ing for Isa­iah.  The lat­ter were excel­lent, and no one at work noticed they were GF.  The tex­ture was a bit dif­fer­ent, but I made them with but­ter and not the short­en­ing option (com­pletely tested & approved by the author) and they were deli­cious and toll-house-y, which is really the depar­ture point for all choco­late chip cook­ies.  And they did not make my stom­ach upset, always a bonus.

But as tasty as these things were, they couldn’t beat two real standouts.

First:  Melissa Clark’s Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake.  I love Clark’s col­umn, “A Good Appetite,” at the NYT, and I own her book.  Twice.  In hard­cover, and also on my Nook Color so I can shop from it ran­domly in the super­mar­ket when I have no idea what to cook.  I’d never made an olive oil-based cake, and I hadn’t had this winter’s serv­ing of blood oranges, so.…  I used yogurt, not but­ter­milk, an either/or option in the recipe, and though Clark calls for whipped cream on the side, I wanted creme fraiche.  And my blood oranges were a lit­tle dry and tart, so– I heated my honey-fruit com­pote in the microwave with a lit­tle more honey than called for to give it more sweet­ness and oomph.

Melissa Clark's Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

It was gor­geous and moist and a lovely, cit­rusy, mid­win­ter cake.

And then there is Impos­si­ble Pie. Today’s been an Impos­si­ble Day, for var­i­ous rea­sons that aren’t bor­ing or unblog­gable but which, well– I just don’t feel like dis­cussing the rea­sons. So I won’t. But I did make Impos­si­ble Pie, which gets its name (so says the March 2011 Food & Wine arti­cle in which it’s con­tained) because it forms its own crust from the one-bowl bat­tery mess of dried coconut and other pantry and fridge sta­ples (um, if you keep coconut in your pantry, that is) that is totally worth mak­ing if you feel like– I need some­thing custardy-sweet and com­fort­ing.  Now.  I did tweak the recipe thusly: I didn’t have sweet­ened coconut, only un-, and I had coconut milk, so I used 1 cup coconut milk (all the liq­uid in the can and then enough of the sploogy-clotted coconut cream to make one cup in a two-cup mea­sure and 1 cup whole cow’s to fill) plus 2 cups dried unsweet­ened coconut– then every­thing else as called for.

It’s not gluten free– it calls for 1/2 cup of self-raising flour (cheat recipe here)– and the next time I make it, I’m going to try sub­bing in the basic gluten free blend from Cook­ing for Isa­iah with the self-raising adap­ta­tion of bak­ing pow­der and salt and see how I do– but it’s not so much that I think I’ll get a rumbly tummy from one slice a day.  Or two.  Maybe three?  Why not.  I deserve it.

Impossible Pie

It’s awfully good– enough to turn an Impos­si­ble Day into a pos­si­ble one, even.

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Posted in Pantry cooking, baking, books, cooking, flickr, food, gluten free, links, photos

Easy, sexy chocolate mousse (pudding)

Posted on January 1, 2011 by bipolarlawyercook| 5 Comments

For those of you who don’t fol­low the Recipe Redux col­umn Amanda Hesser writes in the NYT Sun­day Mag­a­zine, here’s a dou­ble thumbs up from the BH and I for the Chocolate-Rum Mousse.

The BH made it for us for New Year’s Eve din­ner, and it is, as Hesser says, more pudding-like than a real, “proper” mousse.  That said, it’s rich, choco­latey, rummy, and com­pletely deli­cious.  The BH reports that it’s also lit­er­ally a whiz to make in the blender, pun com­pletely intended– he used choco­late chips for the choco­late, and it took less than a half hour to make, start to fin­ish.  The only “trick” ingre­di­ent is the plain, unfla­vored gelatin, since I’m the kind of nerd who has that in my pantry, but most well-stocked super­mar­kets have it these days.  And when it’s done, you’ve got an easy, sexy choco­late dessert that’s got Jello beat, what­ever you call it.

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Posted in Better Half, cooking, food, links, recipes

Not just any pancake

Posted on October 31, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 7 Comments

The hus­band can cook.  Very well, in fact.  He is a break­fast cook extra­or­di­naire.  His omelets?  You should be so lucky to be the recip­i­ent of his egg cook­ery.  Trust me on this.  He gave me (while I was dat­ing another man, no less) my copies of Mas­ter­ing the Art of French Cook­ing one Christ­mas.  He’s also an excel­lent baker.  (Just don’t expect him not to use every pot in the kitchen.)

So, when I was look­ing at Amanda Hesser’s web­site, food52, and saw David Eyre’s Pan­cake there as a pre­view of the new Essen­tial New York Times Cook­book, I thought to myself, “Self, this is what we’re hav­ing for break­fast tomor­row.”  And promptly handed the recipe over to my Bet­ter Half.  Because I stink at mak­ing pancakes.

Yep.  I am made of pan­cake fail.  You heard it here first.

But the hus­band?  He is not.  He can also make waf­fles.  And some­times?  The gluten is worth it.  These pan­cakes most def­i­nitely are worth it.  Cut into fourths, sprin­kled with a lit­tle lemon juice and coated with pow­dered (or superfine, because that’s what we had) sugar– mmmm.  Deli­cious.  A recipe worth the book’s price of admis­sion, I think.

Truly.  There’s a rea­son we’ve been mar­ried for 10 years this com­ing week.

Well, that and the open­ing jars thing.

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Posted in Better Half, baking, cooking, flickr, food, links, photos

Minestrone with Almond Pistou

Posted on October 15, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 5 Comments

I have, in the past, pooh-poohed the idea of things like fancy-shmancy herb top­pings and such.  And then I dis­cov­ered gre­mo­lata and learned the errors of my ways.

I have now learned that yes– putting pesto, or, as the French say, pis­tou, or your mine­strone?  It’s a mighty fine thing.

Last night’s soup, inter­preted to use what I had in my pantry and fridge from this Melissa Clark recipe here at the NYT (quickly becom­ing my go-to gal, even more so than Bittman), was topped off by a dol­lop of almond pis­tou.  It was mighty deli­cious, even with my fid­dling about and omis­sions, the which you’ll see when you com­pare my bas­tardized ver­sion to Clark’s, which no doubt is bet­ter– but I didn’t have leeks, fresh toma­toes, or fresh beans of the kind she called for on hand, but I still wanted soup.  So I winged it, because I did have fresh basil– and really, when you’ve got fresh basil, pis­tou just must be made.

Look at that photo and see if you disagree.

And now the impor­tant part:  the recipe, such as it is.

1 32 oz. can chef’s cut toma­toes, with or with­out basil.
1 small can chick­peas
12 baby car­rots, appx. or 1 large peeled car­rot
1 large onion, chopped
1 med. zuc­chini, chopped
large hand­ful green beans
1 sprig rose­mary
large spring pars­ley
2 cups chicken broth made from Knorr bouil­lon (Yes.  I am really that lazy.  All the time.  I do not use stock, pretty much ever.)
tsp. salt
3 tbsps. extra vir­gin olive oil, because that’s all I ever keep in the house
3 gar­lic cloves, peeled and smashed with the flat of a large knife

Pis­tou:
Large bunch basil, appx. 2 cups
1/2 cup unsalted roasted almonds, skin on
freshly ground pep­per
1/4 cup parme­san, grated
salt, 1 tsp
extra vir­gin olive oil
2 gar­lic cloves, peeled
1/4 tsp. red pep­per flakes

Tie the herbs together with butcher’s twine, put them in a tea ball or cheese­cloth, or decide you don’t mind fish­ing them out or pick­ing out pieces of rose­mary from your teeth (or finely chop the herbs and add them to the sauce that way).

Saute the car­rots, onions and herbs over med-high heat in the olive oil with salt, pep­per and red pep­per flakes until soft­ened, appx. 5 mins.

Add gar­lic and other veg­eta­bles, except for toma­toes and beans, toss to coat in oil and lightly golden, appx. 10 mins. more.  Do not let the gar­lic get too brown.

Add the toma­toes, beans, chick­peas, and a can of water from the tomato can, lower the heat and set the whole thing to sim­mer 30 mins. with the lid on.  (I only added one can of water from the chick­peas and now wished I’d added just a bit more, so I’m say­ing that I should have added from the tomato can and not the chick­peas as I look back.)

When the soup is done, make the pis­tou in your food proces­sor or blender or mor­tar and pes­tle or other wham-bashy thing (I know.  Highly tech­ni­cal, here.)  Whiz the basil with the remain­ing ingre­di­ents and just enough olive oil to make a thick paste that coheres to itself but isn’t too liquid.

Put a teaspoon-sized dol­lop on top of your soup, serve with a hearty red wine like a petite sirah from Bogle or a Rioja or some­such, and enjoy the veg­etable, herb-almond-cheesy goodness.

I think if you had a lac­tose allergy or didn’t eat cheese you could well leave out the parme­san in the pis­tou, up the salt slightly, and still have the same over­all tasty effect.  I’d prob­a­bly add more oil and almonds to up the fat con­tent as well.

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Posted in Pantry cooking, cooking, flickr, food, links, photos, recipes, wine