Category Archives: cooking

Bacon Muffins of Love

Posted on April 9, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 7 Comments

So– say you’ve been sick for a while– a never-ending cold that dragged on for a month, your cycli­cal spring depres­sion and a brief, scary manic burst of irra­tional rage, var­i­ous fam­ily things going on, etc., and you’ve also got to work and get up every day and at least pre­tend to the out­side world that you’re func­tion­ing like a com­plete human being.

In the midst of this, let us sup­pose you are so lucky as to have befriended some awe­some online peo­ple who not only leave you won­der­ful com­ments and call you even when you don’t call them back and send you encour­ag­ing emails, but one of them hap­pens to be some­one who lives rather nearby and is some­one with whom you’ve been lucky enough to break bread and share in-person laughter.

Fur­ther sup­pose that such per­son, know­ing how mis­er­ably sick you have been, embarks on a cheering-up project of epic proportions.

Imag­ine if, every day for a month, you got a post­card with silly mes­sages she knew would cheer you immensely.

What would you do?

I baked bacon muffins of love.  A whole dozen (though two did not sur­vive tran­sit for var­i­ous qual­ity testing-type pur­poses.  QT is IMPORTANT.)  Today I got to bring them to this friend who I’m blessed to have just met and got­ten to know, espe­cially since I have other in-person and blog friends I’ve been rot­ten to and/or just ignored dur­ing this wal­low I’ve been in, and to whom I also owe sim­i­lar baked goods of love– my ther­a­pist and I both agree.  Ver­bal expres­sions are not my forte, and you can’t really fold up a blog and mail it to someone.

This is what they look like on the inside.  (I had to qual­ity test, to make sure they were an ade­quate expres­sion of my feel­ings of extreme affec­tion and gratitude.)

I believe the cor­rect phrase is OM NOM NOM NOM.  They are sweet, salty, rich, fill­ing.  Just like the best friend­ships can be.

So.  I can’t make you these muffins and bring them to you in per­son — but I can give you the recipe, and assure you that each time you make it, I’m think­ing of how awe­some you are.

Bacon Muffins of Love– Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Corni­est Corn Muffins from Bak­ing: From My Home To Yours.

Bat­ter:

1 c. all pur­pose flour
1 c. medium ground corn­meal
6 tbsps. sugar
2 1/2 tsps. bak­ing pow­der
1/4 tsp. bak­ing soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
three strokes freshly ground nut­meg over your grater or microplane zester
1 c. but­ter­milk or whole-milk plain yogurt (I use yogurt, usu­ally Greek, most often, since I rarely have but­ter­milk, but but­ter­milk does freeze)
3 tbsps. salted but­ter, melted and cooled
3 tbsps. corn or other neu­tral oil (I used saf­flower oil, I don’t keep corn oil around)
1 lg. egg
1 lg. egg yolk
1 to 1 1/3 c corn ker­nels (your choice how much) fresh, frozen or canned, room temp.

Mix-ins:

1/3 bun­dle fresh chives, chopped or snipped small with scis­sors to equal appx. 2–3 tbsps.  More cer­tainly will not hurt.
1 c. shred­ded extra-dry ched­dar (I like Cabot’s hunter’s style, Grafton Vil­lage is another good brand)
4 slices bacon, fried until crisp, dried on brown paper, chopped small.

Cen­ter your rack in your oven, pre­heat to 400F.  Butter/spray muf­fin tin cups or line with paper– or use a sil­i­cone muf­fin pan (my pref­er­ence, these things are fantab­u­lous.)

In a large bowl, blend the dry ingre­di­ents together.  In another large bowl or large glass mea­sur­ing cup, whisk the buttermilk/yogurt, melted but­ter, oil, egg and yolk all together until they are blended.

Pour the liq­uid into the dry, then blend with a whisk or a spat­ula until they are blended, never mind­ing about too many lumps.  Add in the corn, herbs, bacon and cheese.  Spoon the bat­ter into the muf­fin cups.

Bake 15–18 min­utes (I baked for 17 with the extra ingre­di­ents) until the tops are gold and the edges light brown.  A knife in the mid­dle of the muffins should come out clean.  Cool five min­utes on a cool­ing rack before remov­ing the muffins from the pan to cool further.

Serve with plenty of but­ter– and love.  A bit of hot pep­per jelly would also not go amiss.

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Posted in baking, bipolar, cooking, flickr, food, links, photos, recipes

Pan-fried curried lamb shoulder chops with steamed cauliflower and yogurt sauce.

Posted on January 4, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 1 Comment

Holy crap, y’all.  I cooked twice this week and not only lived to tell the tale, I also took pic­tures. After all of the work­ing I’ve been doing, this hit the spot.

See?  See?  It’s true!  The cook thing in my screen name isn’t all a vile lie.  Pinky-swear.

This is roughly– very– based on this recipe from January’s Bon Appetit recipe.  I liked the basic idea, but, well, I thought it needed some changes, spice-wise.

I pre-salted and spiced my chops two hours before serv­ing with a tea­spoon each (be not afraid to be bold, we’re going for lay­ers of fla­vor) sweet curry pow­der, cayenne, cumin and ground corian­der, then let them rest (cov­ered in plas­tic wrap, because we have a MOUSE in the house, rrrrrrr) at room temperature.

You pan-sear the chops to your desired level of done-ness.  Mine was medium-rare, about 7 min­utes.  Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Every­thing (if you don’t own it, you should, even if you’re a good cook) has great done-ness temps and times charts at the back of his book.

I steamed the cau­li­flower as ordered, but in place of the reg­u­lar dress­ing, I did this:

2 bunches scal­lions, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2– 2/3 plain full-fat yogurt, chopped
2 limes, juiced and zested (these are try­ing times, friends, don’t waste the rind)
a large pinch of salt
2 dashes tabasco
2 table­spoons mango conserve

I would have used chut­ney and the cream sauce like the recipe said, but the co-op was out, they’re quirky like that.  They did have the plain con­serve, how­ever, and thus the ersatz yogurt chut­ney idea was born.  It was yummy, even the hus­band said so, and he’s not a fan of yogurt at all.

Serve with some clemen­tines or a peeled orange and one of those bot­tles of cham­pagne you didn’t open at New Year’s.


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

New Year’s Eve Soup and Salad

Posted on January 3, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 2 Comments

So, there’s this “cook” thing in my screen name.  And I do it, some­times.  Amaz­ing, I know.

Et voila, proof of the pho­to­graphic vari­ety, because you’re all no, we do not believe it.  All you do is bitch about peo­ple with­out their receipts.  Because you’ve never lost one piece of paper­work in your life.

So.  Recipes, of a sort.

Zuc­chini, shred­ded on the man­do­line, salted with kosher salt and tossed with fresh ground black pep­per, extra vir­gin olive oil, a cap­ful of bot­tled lemon juice (shh, it’s my real gourmet secret) and blood orange sec­tions and the juice of the post-sectioned fruit, all smushed up in my hand as a way of get­ting out my petty frustrations.

And then there was soup.  Lucky soup, all round coin-like shapes of lentils and sausage, green spinach for money to boot.  The recipe’s here at Epi­cu­ri­ous, though I used sweet sausage, not hot.  I’m con­trary like that.

Light and crunchy, sweet and tart– fol­lowed by warm, earthy, hearty and fill­ing.  Not con­trary at all.  Just damned lucky.

Yummy, too.

Yields– lots of left­overs, good for crummy days like today, when there’s shov­el­ing to be done.

Happy New Year, my friends.  May you have bright con­trasts, fol­lowed by warm, pleas­ing ful­fill­ment that sticks with you for hours.

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Posted in Deep Thoughts, cooking, flickr, friends, links, photos

Feed Me Bubbe

Posted on August 26, 2009 by bipolarlawyercook| 3 Comments

I wanted to use the Yid­dish term Bubbe yes­ter­day– when I googled it, this was the num­ber one page-ranked result– an actual guy’s Bubbe, giv­ing lessons in kosher cui­sine on You Tube. (Teh You Tubes for you younger kids.) I haven’t watched it all the way through, but it just kills me in all the best ways to know this lady has a You Tube Channel.

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Posted in YouTube, cooking, good things, sparkly

The year began with dinner

Posted on August 19, 2009 by bipolarlawyercook| 6 Comments

It’s not lunch a la Peter Mayle, I didn’t get started as early as that, (bet­ter late than never) but the BH and I rang in the Yes Year (Damn, that’s hokey, but what else to call it except maybe A Year in JP?  Hmm.) on Mon­day night with my own ver­sion of the bruschetta that made my mouth water and heart clench as I watched Julie and Julia.  In the movie, there’s a lin­ger­ing shot of the bread slices fry­ing in oil before they’re piled with deli­cious chopped heir­loom toma­toes and basil.  The sound of the film is so good that you hear the slurp-crunch as they eat.

I’ve never fried the bread for my bruschetta before, and I’ve rarely grilled it.

I will never make that mis­take again.

Always fry your bread in olive oil until it’s crunchy and golden, then drain it on a paper bag, then put it on a plat­ter with too much cheese.  Always.  (Also, “too much cheese?”  I must be crazy.  There’s no such thing.)

Here’s what it will look like.  (Bosto­ni­ans, this is an Iggy’s Francese loaf, sliced.  I know– Francese bread for an Ital­ian dish?  It was good.  You’ll for­give me.)

Then, you also have lit­tle cut up bits of cherry-sized heir­loom toma­toes that you’ve bought from Trader Joe’s because you were lazy the Farmer’s mar­ket, and dressed with salt and pep­per and torn pieces of basil and a half a chopped vidalia onion.  Like this.

And then you will smear your crusty, toasty, crispy, oily and oh-so-delicious bread with too much just enough ricotta or fresh sliced moz­zarella and pile on some toma­toes, and you will look at it and think “Oooooh.”  Like this.

And then, then, you will crunch through the oil-crisped bread, the creamy sweet rich ricotta, the tangy-herby-fruity-vegetal top­ping, and you will agree.

Always fry the bread.

You prob­a­bly won’t even need the olive oil, good bal­samic your BIL brought back from his hon­ey­moon and/or good sherry vine­gar to top it all with. I didn’t.

(I may have driz­zled some vine­gar right onto some moz­zarella slices all on their own and then eaten them with my bare hands and then licked my plate after all the bruschetta top­ping was done, but that would be kind of piggy and there’s no pho­to­graphic proof to say that it hap­pened.  Just a Freudian slip in a blog post.)

The year began with dinner.

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Posted in Better Half, cooking, flickr, food