Minxeats Best of 2012 Part Two

We're always cooking something up at Casa Minx. Most of the time dishes are successful, but there's an occasional dud. And then once in a while we strike culinary gold and turn out something that goes into the permanent rotation. Here are some of those dishes from 2012.

Curried Banana Bread - sounds weird, but curry and bananas are a perfect combo, with the spice lending just the right amount of je ne sais quoi to the sweet treat.

Cheesy Meatballs - After receiving a bag of cheese cubes from a manufacturer, I felt the best way to utilize them was to pack them into turkey meatballs, where they added an extra savory punch to the lean meat.

Sous-vide Pork Tenderloin - the best tenderloin EVAR, cooked with garlic and love and time in the SousVide Supreme.

Butter Chicken - We love Indian food, but we seldom dine in Indian restaurants. Sometimes it's just nice to make it at home.

Shrimp Salad with Thai Flavors - Shrimp, Thai basil, and peanuts made for a flavorful summer salad.

Okonomiyaki - a visit to a new Japanese restaurant in town got me salivating for this traditional Japanese "junk food." Making it at home is easy as pie.

Esquites - despite not knowing how to properly pronounce the name (hey, I took French in high school), and not having half the necessary ingredients on hand, we turned out quite the tasty mayo and corn concoction.

Apple Crisp - when Fall comes, I go apple crisp mad, trying several recipes in search of perfection. Turns out that the simplest is usually the best.

Ma Po Tofu - this mixture of tofu and ground meat may seem like a bad way to use tofu, at least to vegetarians, but it's actually a perfect way for non-veg people to try the soy protein. In other words, it's delish.

Kofte with Pistachio Sauce - I bought one of the formidable Silvena Rowe's cookbooks after seeing her on the execrable but oh-so-recappable Time Machine Chefs, and it did not let me down. I drool when I think of her spicy lamb kofte, and look forward to whipping up another batch soon.

Scallops with Lavender Honey Brown Butter - while lavender and scallops might seem like odd bedfellows, they actually work together quite nicely, especially with lots of sweet butter sauce. One of the few times this year I really felt I got my money's worth out of scallops, and of course it's because I made it at home myself.

I hope you feel inclined to try some of these recipes for yourself. If you do, please come back and leave a comment on its corresponding post!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Rachael vs Guy Celebrity Cook-Off 2.1 Recap

As much as I dislike both Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri, I got a big kick out of the first season of Rachel vs Guy Celebrity Cook-Off. So much so, I'm watching it again this year and recapping it so you don't have to subject yourself to it. I know - my generosity knows no bounds.

This year, the "celebrity" cooktestants are of a somewhat higher caliber than last time, and we meet them all in a fake red carpet scenario. You know, to add a taste of Hollywood. After all, this season was filmed in Guy's stomping ground of Flavor Town Los Angeles rather than New York. After the multiple bad reviews of Guy's Times Square trough fatty feeding facility restaurant, he's afraid to even get near the city.

First there's Dean McDermott, famous for leaving his wife and son to screw around with and later marry Tori Spelling (who's famous for being Aaron Spelling's daughter, and maybe for being on Beverly Hills 90210). They've now cranked out four kids together so far, and it's one of those situations where you can't say you hope they look like the mother OR the father. Then there's Rozonda Ocelean Thomas, better know as Chilli, from the popular 90s singing group, TLC. Another singer in the group is Carnie Wilson, from that 90s trio of famous musicians' offspring, Wilson Phillips. Carnie tells us she's a good cook. She's also apparently a good eater. The gal has had weight issues for years, and despite losing 150 lbs after gastric bypass surgery and posing nude for Playboy in 2003, her weight is back up. Hey - she's only human. However, she should fire her stylist for putting her in that hideous horizontally-striped muumuu.

Former Pittsburgh Steeler, Dancing With the Stars champ, and media whore extraordinaire Hiney Warts is also on the show. And if you object to my calling him "Hiney Warts" instead of his actual name, then perhaps you shouldn't be reading the blog of a Baltimore Ravens fan. Just sayin'. Then there's Cornelia Guest, a self-proclaimed socialite, which is how they pronounce "whore" in polite society. She's a vegan, and will only be cooking vegan dishes for the competition. I predict she'll be gone early in the run. Another contestant who will be cooking primarily vegetarian/vegan dishes is Kathy Najimy, whose daughter is a vegan. She's been quite chubby in the past, but I've always thought she was as cute as heck. Another cutie is Johnny Weir, the flamboyantly talented figure skater who tells us that he cooks at home for his adorable husband and son (their dog). And last--and certainly least--is Gilbert Gottfried, the comedian best known for his annoying voice, which he lent to Disney as Iago the parrot in Aladdin and to insurance company Aflac as the duck mascot--until he got fired in 2011 after his rude Tweets about the Japan earthquake. Mr Minx took one look at him and said, "he'll be the first one off the show." Considering the man almost never opens his eyes, and can't possibly see anything in the kitchen, I'm betting he's right about that.

So the celebs gather in what appears to be an abandoned restaurant to await the grand entrance of Rachael and Guy. They emerge from the second floor landing and swan down a split staircase while the celebs pretend to be excited. Rachael looks like she's completely given up on trying to slim down, as her keister is formidable. And Guy has apparently bought stock in a spray tan salon, because he's as orange as Michael Kors. It even looks as though the stuff has leached into his bottle blond hair and douche soul patch.

Their first line of duty is to pick teams:

Team Spray Tan: Dean, Chilli, Johnny, Cornelia
Team Keister: Kathy, Hiney, Carnie, Gilbert

I've decided that they all must have names that end in a "y" sound. Dean, Cornelia, and Gilbert will henceforth be known as Deany, Corny, and Gilby.

Rachael (Rachy?) and Guy then introduce this week's challenge: the teams have to provide a little dinner theater experience to 100 guests. Each person is responsible for one dish that will be part of a tasting plate, and a group dessert. And what's dinner "theater" without a little actual theater? (I'm guessing less chance of indigestion.) Each team has to put on a 3-minute skit, which shouldn't be too difficult for this pack of stage hogs.

The teams head off to their respective buses to plan their meals. Team Rachael seems a bit disorganized. After settling on "Pot Luck Party" as their theme, they seem confused as to who should cook what and why. Gilby is totally perplexed when he's told he has to cook a signature dish. What? I have to cook? Nothing comes to mind, and eventually he decides he's almost capable of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Rachael suggests he elevate them with cinnamon sugar or something, anything.

Over on Guy's side, his team is far more organized. They're doing a Western theme and have their menu planned in no time flat. Then it's time to put on chef coats and head into the kitchen for two hours of cooking.

On Rachael's side, Carnie has her macaroni and cheese under control and is working on the team's dessert, a bread pudding. Her other teammates seem to be doing ok, except for Gilby, who is grilling his PB&Js after topping them with the cinnamon sugar. The sugar burns, producing rectangular charcoal briquets. He's not sure it's a bad thing, but Kathy advises him to throw them out and start over. Rachael suggests through gritted teeth that he put the sugar on after the sandwiches are cooked. Honestly - what is he doing in this competition?

On Mr Spray Tan's side, Johnny is seen overmixing his chicken breast-only meatballs. Guy thinks that he probably shouldn't make them so dense and that maybe they need a little fat. When he leaves, Johnny says he's going to ignore the advice and do things his way, which will probably come back and bite him on his firm little ass. Corny is working on Deany's dessert, a "deconstructed" s'more, and after cutting out a couple of portions, she realizes there's not enough dessert to go around. Deany goes into panic mode and starts cutting the leftovers into tiny, uneven, squares and puts four on each plate, hoping nobody will notice how crappy they look.

Time's up and the teams have to present their food. Team Guy goes out first with their "Wild Wild West of Flavors." Each celeb has donned some Western-esque garb and basically just introduces his or her dish. Chilli's in her element when she's on stage, acting sassy and waving a prop gun around entirely too close to her face. Doesn't she know she could knock an eye out with that thing?   And Johnny steals the show when he rips off his oversized plaid shirt to reveal a sparkly black corset. Deany is so taken with him, he dips Johnny and gives him a passionate smooch on the mouth. Look out, Tori. Johnny is much more attractive than you are. Much.

They serve their food. Deany's made a skirt steak with polenta that Rachael and Guy and two nobodies from Entertainment Weekly love. They are less enthusiastic about Corny's bland three bean veggie chili. Chilli has made something she cutely calls a "Chill"apia tostada, with spice-rubbed tilapia, and the judges rave. Finally, they taste Johnny's aptly-named "chicken tumbleweed" - chicken meatballs that are dry and dense and flavored with too much white truffle oil. Deany's dessert, which they've called "Less is S'more," tastes fine, but the portion sizes are all over the place.

Rachael's team is up next, and they act out their version of Cinderella, which they call, "Pot Luck Princess." Kathy has the idea that they should deliver the dialogue "backwards," but it just sounds like some consonants are being misplaced here and there. Gilby, wearing a feather boa and two different wigs, is at his best (that is - annoying). And Hiney (also in a wig) tells us that if any of his former team-mates caught him dressed as he was, they would "rag him to deaf." I don't know what they would do exactly to cause his hearing loss, but whatever it is, I want to watch.

Now the food: Kathy's vegan stuffed mushrooms are bland, and one guest calls it "the stereotypical example of what everyone thinks about vegetarian food"; Carnie's mac and cheese is called "awesome," which of course means absolutely nothing. Hiney's "Asian persuasian" wings are cooked well and crisp. Gilby let his team-mates down with his uninspired PB&J. The team dessert, Carnie's bread pudding, is both interesting and full of flavor.

Later, we see Rachael and Guy behind a Top Chef-style desk, pontificating about the food they just ate. They tell the celebs that Chilli's tilapia tostada was the favorite dish of the evening, according to the guests' comment cards. Overall, Guy's team is the winner, and will receive some sort of advantage in next week's challenge. This puts Rachael's team on the bottom, and the creators of the two worst dishes have to go head-to-head in a blind tasting elimination challenge.

Kathy's mushrooms were bland, but couldn't possibly have been as bad as Gilby's sandwich, which one diner said could have been made by his three-year-old. The two of them are sent back to the kitchen to make the ultimate midnight snack. Kathy immediately runs for the chick peas and tahini to make her mother's Lebanese hummus and pita crisps, because she likes to have gas when she goes to bed. Gilby, whose imagination is completely spent after the difficulties of the main challenge, decides to make something he's more comfortable with - a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

When Rachael and Guy see the dishes, they know exactly who made what. And while Gilby's sandwich was admittedly tasty, they couldn't allow him to compete for another week. That voice! So annoying!

Mr Minx is (as usual) right, and we're down one contestant. Seven to go.

Next week: the celebs have to harvest their own ingredients from a large garden. Hilarity ensues.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Top Chef Seattle Episode 9 Recap

This week's Top Chef starts out with scenes of the cheftestants in the morning: one makes the bed; Stefan slathers moisturizer on his thumb face; Sheldon takes a dump sharpens his knives. He says that super sharp knives are what separates great chefs from good chefs, or something like that. I'm just a scrub, because my knives are as dull as doorknobs. And they're cheap - when they get dull, I just buy new knives.

Good thing Sheldon is so obsessive about his instruments, because the Quickfire Challenge involves exactly that - sharp knives. Master bladesmith Bob Kramer is on hand to judge this contest in three parts. The first part involves sharpening a knife until it can slice through paper. The second part is to tournée a bunch of taters. The third is to dissect a pair of bunny rabbits. But first, Kramer demonstrates why his knives sell for $500 per inch by slicing up some heavy sisal rope. The cheftestants get hard-ons and gasp appreciatively.

The nine cheftestants are put into three teams of three by the luck of the draw (from the knife block, appropriately) and have at it when Padma gives the signal. Padma, by the way, is wearing a very summery ensemble of black long-sleeve turtleneck and velvet pants. Is it no longer June?

The green team of Stefan, Brooke, and Lizzie think they have finished first, but it turns out that Brooke's knife is still dull. They resharpen and TMHCiD calls "check" for his Red team. Kristen is irritated at his less-than-team-player behavior (but surely can't be surprised) because she is sure her knife isn't yet sharp, but it is. TMHCiD's, however, is not. In the battle of Karma vs Ego, Karma always wins. The Blue team of Sheldon, Micah, and the Mustache has a chance to catch up and successfully slice. And then, after a few more minutes, TMHCiD does sharpen his blade enough to slice through the piece of "Top Chef" branded paper and the round is over. The Green team is DQ'd. Womp womp.

Tournée-ing potatoes - cutting them into seven-sided football shapes - is a real snooze, and apparently somewhat difficult to do with a 10" chef's knife. TMHCiD much prefers a paring knife, not that anyone cares. Red team's Josie cuts herself, so she's DQ'd and her team is left with only two people to shape the required amount of carbohydrate bombs. Predictably, the Blue team catches up and wins and goes on to slice and dice cute woodland creatures. The rabbits are so small, the chef's knife seems more of a burden than an asset, but Micah manages to do the job and wins not only immunity from elimination but also one of Bob Kramer's expensive knives.

Bob is shooed away before he hurts someone with those things and Padma introduces the Elimination Challenge, which this week involves two corporate sponsors. Using the Kindle Fires (because Internet juggernaut Amazon needs advertisement) nearby, the cheftestants will watch a memorable scene from one of the previous nine seasons. They will use that scene as an inspiration to create a healthy version of the dish in question, and the winning dish will be bastardized into a future Healthy Choice Café Steamer. I think "Café Steamer" is such an unfortunate name. To me it sounds like a euphemism for something someone would leave in a toilet at Starbucks. (And wouldn't local Seattle business Starbucks make a better sponsor?)

The chefs check out their assigned Kindles and watch amusing scenes like "Pea Puree-gate" from season 7, and Carla Hall's coo-coo chicken pot pie performance on Jimmy Fallon. Josie decides she wants to say, "I'm not your bitch, bitch" over and over, which makes the Mustache wish *he* had won that sharp knife earlier. He gets to do something with Michael Voltaggio's pork belly dish from season 6, which makes him nervous. Two failed pork challenges later, Mustache really doesn't want to deal with that protein, but he pretends to be pleased yet again at a chance for redemption. And, I hate to say it (no I don't), but Mustache is no Michael Voltaggio. Hell, few cheftestants since season 6 have come even close.

The chefs have 2.5 hours to get the job done before serving their food to a gaggle of Top Chef "super fans" and the judges. The kitchen is small, so three cheftestants cook at a time, in order of season, which means the cheftestants working from seasons 1, 2, and 3 go first. TMHCiD happens to be stuck with a season 3 risotto dish. Anyone else think this is a welcome fix?

This week's judges include Top Chef Master Chris Cosentino and two Master competitors, Jonathan Waxman and Wylie Dufresne, plus Wolfgang Puck. Puck is supposed to be a regular judge this season, but has been pretty scarce.

I take terrible notes these days so couldn't tell you what Josie made except that it was unexciting. Stefan's soup and grilled cheese sandwich a la season 2's Betty Fraser was good (the soup) but greasy (the sandwich). And TMHCiD's risotto was both over- and under-cooked. How did he manage that? And why didn't Wolfgang stomp into the kitchen to demonstrate how to make a proper risotto like he did while judging the Next Food Network Star a couple years back? You know he wanted to.

Mustache redeems himself nicely with his well-cooked pork tenderloin, but Sheldon's carpaccio dish is ugly. Lizzie was stuck with the unpleasant Jamie Lauren from season 5, best known for 1) her love of scallops; 2) hatred of celery; 3) the way she turned on Stefan. Lizzie's scallops smelled when she took them out of the package but used them anyway, much to the judges' consternation. Bad idea.

Finally, safe Micah cooked a nice duck breast. Kristen wowed the judges with her deconstructed pot pie with tofu gravy. And Brooke dazzled (ok, maybe dazzled is too strong a word) with a very nice roasted salmon filet.

Padma dismisses Jonathan Waxman and Wylie Dufresne but takes Chris Cosentino back with her to Judges' Table. She enters the stew room to summon TMHCiD, Mustache, Kristen, Lizzie, and Brooke. That's confusing, since it's clear that TMHCiD and Lizzie are on the bottom, and Kristen and Brooke are on the top. Why are top and bottom called out at the same time? And where does the Mustache come in? Turns out he's fine - he pleased the judges with his pork this time and is safe. Cosentino says the judges unanimously chose Kristen's pot pie dish as the winner, which makes three Elimination Challenge victories for her at this point, and another $15,000 for her wallet (and Stefan's g-string). Plus she gets to have her dish bastardized into a Healthy Choice entrée. All they need to do is add a bit of sadness.

As for TMHCiD and Lizzie - they are indeed on the bottom. His risotto has both mushy and hard bits, which he blames on the lack of any flat-bottomed pots in the kitchen. Mustache pipes up and says he had no problems with the pots and pans, which chaps TMHCiD's ass. Ha. Lizzie's dish just stunk. But instead of sending one home at this point, Padma pulls out another Kindle Fire with a clip from season 10. This season's memorable moment (so they say) is CJ being sent home for making that execrable burger with spicy artisan pickles. The challenge is to recreate the burger in a healthy way, so back to the kitchen for 45 minutes.

TMHCiD whips up a lamb burger with an egg on top and an aioli containing cream cheese. Oh yes, so healthy. Lizzie takes the challenge to heart and makes a burger of ground chicken breast with a pickle salad. She almost didn't get the pickle salad because TMHCiD decided to play games. He used all but one small sprig of the dill she pulled from the pantry, and then threatened to keep the entire jar of pickles. He was confident that he could have made a plain boring beef patty and served it to the judges with the jar of pickles under his arm, because if Lizzie had no pickles, she wouldn't win. Unfortunately for him, she did have pickles and she did win because her burger was moister and more flavorful. And not full of fat.

Buh-bye, TMHCiD. Don't let the door hit your wrinkled old ass on the way out.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Minxeats Best of 2012 Part One

By necessity, we Minxes spent a goodly portion of early 2012 dining in restaurants. You'll find out why soon enough. For the most part, we ate well, and in some cases, very well. Without further ado, here are our favorite restaurant dishes for 2012.

In January, we had an incredible Restaurant Week dinner at Ten Ten, in Harbor East. Their ricotta dumplings in a cheesy sauce were just about perfect.

Also in January, I sampled several varieties of bao at Eddie Huang's Baohaus, a tiny storefront in the East Village (New York). While the pork belly version of this Taiwanese treat was delicious, I may just have enjoyed the fried chicken version more. But damn, I'd eat any of them again.

In March, we tried Republic Noodle, a pan-Asian joint in Federal Hill. Sadly the restaurant closed because they couldn't get a liquor license. Honestly - I really don't care about boozing it up with dinner, but apparently other folks do, I guess. In any case, the Northern Thai-style chicken wings were ah-may-zing. I want to eat them right now.

In April, we sampled the wonders of Aldo's, in Little Italy. Everything was excellent - decadent, rich, flavorful - so it's hard to pick just one course to love. My personal favorite was the Tournedos Rossini, a perfect little filet topped with foie gras. I don't generally like filet, but this piece of meat made me understand why other folks buy the hell out of it. Unfortunately, there's no photo, as we were trying to be nice and not use flash.

In May, we wined and dined at the Prime Rib. The Sun recently named it the #1 restaurant in Baltimore, and it's pretty easy to see why. The food is all of very high quality, simply prepared with care, and the service is perfect. Friendly, generous, welcoming, and on-the-ball, but without the coddling found at some other high-end restaurants. While I really enjoyed the enormous oysters Rockefeller, I loved the juicy prime rib even more.

Later that month, we ate the best crab cake in Baltimore at Koco's. 'Nuff said.

May was full of good eats. We tried Pabu, Baltimore's first izakaya, and enjoyed pretty much everything we put in our mouths, from the food to the delicious sake and cocktails. Even the sweet potato beer. But my favorite dish, which I think about from time to time, was the okonomiyaki, a cabbage-filled kinda-omelette with crab. I was even inspired to make a home version of the dish.

June took us to Great Sage, a vegan restaurant in Clarksville (near Columbia). We're obviously not vegans, or even vegetarians, but damn if we didn't love our meal there. I particularly enjoyed the "crab" cake, cleverly made with hearts of palm. It's not Koco's, but it was far better than many real crab cakes I've eaten in my life.

Our favorite burger of the year came from Hamilton Tavern. (Ignore those onion donuts on the plate - they were a disappointment.) The patty was the perfect size, and the horseradish cheddar and sugared bacon were the perfect accompaniments. I haven't eaten a burger with that much flavor in a long time.

In July, we paid a visit to the newly-opened Earth, Wood, & Fire. We sampled one of everything on the menu, and while we really enjoyed the thin-but-chewy-crust pizza, I think my favorite dish was the asparagus with shiitake "bacon." Not only was it really delicious, with a lovely grilled flavor, but it was also visually appealing.

We took a rather large hiatus from restaurant dining. It gets expensive! But in November, we went to the Food Market in Hampden and had some lovely pork belly with a brown sugar crust.

And finally, in December, I had a really swell truck lunch from Charm City Gourmet. The scallops with creamed corn and prosciutto bacon was really delicious, and satisfied the scallop cravings I'd been having for most of the year.

So that's it for favorite restaurant dishes of 2012. Stay tuned for our favorite home-cooked delights of the year!

Posted on Minxeats.com.