National Root Beer Float Day

National Root Beer Float Day is Saturday, August 6th. I know I can use any old root beer and ice cream combo to make a tasty drink, what really floats my boat (see what I did there?) is one made with the boozy Not Your Father's Root Beer and Graeter's Ice Cream. Mmmm....Graeter's. (My favorite!)

While Graeter's Madagascar Vanilla Bean ice cream is perfect for a root beer float, so is their salted caramel flavor. I think so anyway. It adds just the right amount of salt to cut some of the sweetness. One of their chocolate flavors would be great too, but maybe not one with chocolate chips as they'd plug up your straw and impede the flow of root beer+ice cream to your gullet. And we can't have that.

Honestly, I don't know why Small Town Brewery calls their product, "Not Your Father's Root Beer," because my Dad will definitely drink it! It's an ale that tastes exactly like root beer - sweet, with the typical root beer melange of wintergreen/ sarsparilla/ vanilla/ anise notes, but it's 5.9% ABV. In any case, it's an alcoholic beverage, so don't give it to your kids. And please drink responsibly.

For those of you lucky enough to be living in states where ice cream and alcohol can be purchased in the same store, you can pick up pints of Graeter's and six-packs of Not Your Father's Root Beer at places like Kroger, Giant Eagle, and Harris Teeter. Then you can rush right home and make yourself a sweet treat. Even luckier people who have a Graeter's Scoop Shop (and can get fresh Graeter's ice cream any time they want - my dream) in their town can get someone else to make a root beer float for them in a branded commemorative mug. Here in Maryland, you have visit two stores (for example, Dulaney Wines and Spirits is a couple doors down from The Fresh Market in Towson) to get your boozy root beer float supplies, but heck, Graeter's is so tasty, it's worth any minor hassles you might face to obtain some.

If you do indulge, take a pic of your drink and post it on Instagram. Don't forget to use the tag #nationalrootbeerfloatday, and you can tag me, too, @Daminxy1, while you're at it so I can see your posts.

* Products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Purple Cauliflower Tacos

I purchased the most gorgeous purple cauliflower at the University of Maryland farmers' market the other day. It was ridiculously purple, and I had to have it. But when I got it home, I tucked it into the bottom of the fridge and forgot about it for a few days.

Then came the weekend and I had to rustle up something for dinner. Purple cauliflower to the rescue! I'm perfectly content to eat my cauli simply steamed and salted, maybe with a nice knob of butter on top. Honestly, I could eat a whole head myself--and have--and be completely content. But that wouldn't work for Mr Minx. He likes to have a more balanced meal, one with starch and protein. But I didn't feel like fussing with protein. I wanted to do something creative with the beautiful purple cauliflower.

So I made tacos. With cauliflower fritters, harissa mayonnaise, pickled carrots, and esquites. You may think that one (or more) of those things doesn't belong, but oh, they do! These tacos were full of intense flavors and textures - the herbal and crispy fritters, the pop and sweetness of fresh corn kernels, the salty funk of feta cheese, and the spicy tang of the yogurt. They were soooo good!

The fritters themselves were a bit of a gamble. I had never made them before, so wasn't sure about the texture at all. Would they fall apart in the pan? Would they get crispy enough? Should I make balls or patties? No, yes, and both. The cauli mixture (I can't really call it a batter) was very sticky. There was a lot of veg and very little binder, so it was easiest to make quenelle-style blobs that were roughly the same size and place them into the pan. Once I deemed the bottoms were browned enough, I flipped the balls onto their opposite sides as best I could, then smashed them flat with the spatula. Like a smashburger. It worked perfectly--they didn't fall apart, and it was easier to get them browned on all sides, as after smashing there were only two of them. I flipped them once or twice to make sure both sides were amply browned before draining them on paper towel-lined plates, and cooked them in two batches so as not to crowd the pan.

Since I had made the fritters with feta and mint, I thought I should just stick with Middle Eastern/Mediterranean-inspired flavors. I had a jar of fairly mild harissa in the cupboard that I thought would make a nice sauce with some Greek yogurt, and figured pickled carrots could add a bit of tang. (I totally cheated with the carrots. We were gifted with a jar of pickled yellow beets a while back, and after we ate the beets themselves, we saved the brine. It was perfect for a quick pickle with no effort on our part. I recommend saving your favorite pickle brine in its original jar in the fridge for such occasions.)  But then I had two ears of sweet bi-color corn to use. I was originally going to put the corn in the fritters, but thought it might get lost and simply become a texture. Salsa came to mind, but then I decided to make esquites, the off-the-cob version of Mexican street corn. Completely Minx-ified, of course, with little or no authenticity. It's the taste that counts, right?

Pretty and delicious. What more do you need from dinner?

Purple Cauliflower Tacos

For the harissa yogurt:
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
2-3 tablespoons harissa, or to taste (depends on the brand you use)
Lemon juice
Pinch salt

For the esquites:
2 ears corn, cooked and still warm, kernels removed
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon chile powder
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon chopped scallions

For the cauliflower fritters:
1 medium head cauliflower
Salt
1/2 cup chopped mint and cilantro (one or the other, preferably both)
1 scallion, chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup AP flour
Vegetable oil for frying

To serve:
Pickled carrots
Cilantro
Feta cheese
Taco or fajita-sized flour tortillas

To make the harissa yogurt: Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

To make esquites: Mix everything together in a bowl. Serve warm or at room temperature

To make the fritters: Remove the leaves and bottom of the stem from cauliflower and discard. Rinse the cauliflower well and place in a large pot with a couple inches of water. Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil. Cook the cauliflower until a knife inserted through the top goes through with only slight resistance. Drain the water and transfer the cauliflower to a bowl.

Flip the cauli over and remove the rest of the stem and any overly large "branches" that might still be a little hard. Bash the florets into small pieces with a potato masher - you don't actually want to mash the vegetable, just to break it into very small bits. Discard any other hard stem bits you may find during this process. Stir a large pinch of salt into the cauliflower and let it cool to room temperature.

Once cool, add the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine. You'll have a purple and green sticky mess in a bowl. Using two tablespoons or your hands, form the mess into 15 or so football-shaped blobs, placing them on a couple of plates or a clean cutting board.

Heat a tablespoon or so of the oil over medium-high heat in a large non-stick skillet. Place as many of the purple blobs in the skillet as will fit comfortably without crowding. Cook until the bottoms are nicely browned, 3-4 minutes. Flip the blobs so the browned sides are facing upward, then gently smash each ball into a patty with your spatula. Continue frying until browned on the bottom side, then flip again to cook the exposed still-purple bits that didn't get browned the first time around. Once browned on both sides, remove to a paper towel-lined plate and hit with a pinch of salt. Repeat with remaining blobs.

To serve: Place a stack of tortillas on a microwave-safe plate. Cover with a damp paper towel and nuke for 45 seconds to 1 minute, until tortillas are warm and pliable.

Put a warm tortilla on a plate. Smear with some of the harissa yogurt. Top with one or two fritters, depending on the size of the tortilla. Add a spoonful of the esquites, some pickled carrots, a few bits of feta, and some cilantro. Eat and repeat.

Makes 8-12 tacos.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Maryland's Chesapeake

Mr Minx and I spent much of last year writing a book - Maryland's Chesapeake, How the Bay and Its Bounty Shaped a Cuisine. We're happy to announce that it is finally available for purchase! Today, August 1, is the official release date, so hopefully your MD-area bookstores have received it. If not, and you're not averse to making online purchases, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both stocking Maryland's Chesapeake.

Both the fauna in the Chesapeake and the flora around it have greatly influenced the cuisine of Maryland. The Bay has sustained numerous generations of people, from the Native Americans to the British colonists to today's diverse population. Every summer, we look forward to the sweet corn, tomatoes and strawberries that are grown along the Chesapeake's shores. Long have we enjoyed the oysters, crabs, and rockfish from its waters. While Maryland's Chesapeake celebrates these delicious creatures, we hope it also serves as a reminder that unless we take steps to rejuvenate their populations and control pollution, eventually there may not be any of them left to eat.

We hope to announce signing events in the near future, so stay tuned.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Runamok Chicken and Waffles

One of my favorite parts of the Summer Fancy Food Show is the new products aisle. Some of the products are truly tasty and seem promising, others not so much. My favorite of the "truly tasty" variety was Runamok Maple. Maple syrup is a bit of a mini-trend at the SFFS - there were at least twice as many maple vendors this year as last, but the total number was still very small.

I grew up eating Mrs Butterworth's on my pancakes, and trying real maple syrup for the first time was a bit of a revelation. Not only is the real stuff not as thick as the fake stuff (which gives tar a run for its money), but the flavor is also much more subtle. (Imitation maple gets its flavor from the lactone soloton, which is found in the herb fenugreek, used widely in Indian cooking. If you've ever found a curry to taste like maple syrup, it's actually the other way around - your "maple" syrup tastes like curry.)

Runamok Maple is definitely the real thing. It's hand-tapped maple sap, concentrated to remove much of the water, then boiled into the golden elixir that many of us know and love. And while Runamok Maple sells this "plain" syrup, which they bottle as the Sugarmaker's Cut, they also flavor their maple. Some are aged in barrels recently used to hold rye, bourbon, or rum, which imparts a distinct boozy taste to the syrup. They also have a line of syrups infused with things like hibiscus flower or elderberries. And then they do an amazing pecan wood smoked syrup that might be odd on pancakes, but works great in a cocktail or in place of bacon in our maple bacon chicken and waffles.

We fiddled around with the original recipe, substituting Runamok Pecan Wood Smoked Maple Syrup for the bacon. Because not everything needs to have bacon in it. No, I'm serious.

Runamok Chicken and Waffles
Serves 4-6

For herbed cornmeal waffles:
1 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone ground
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 ½ cups 2% milk
½ stick melted butter, cooled
2 scallions, finely chopped
8 sage leaves, finely chopped

For chicken:
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup water
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

For gravy:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups of the stock left over from cooking the chicken (if there's not enough left, add regular chicken stock to make up the difference)
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons Runamok Maple Pecan Wood Smoked maple syrup
1 tablespoon Runamok Maple Bourbon-Barrel Aged maple syrup
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped scallions for garnish

To make waffles: Preheat waffle iron. Preheat oven to 250°F and place a baking sheet in the oven.

Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the eggs, then whisk in the milk and butter until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until combined. Stir in the scallions and sage.

Spoon batter into waffle iron according to manufacturer’s directions. Cook until golden and crisp. Place cooked waffles onto the baking sheet in the oven. Repeat until all waffle batter is used.

To make chicken: Combine all ingredients in a pot. Bring liquid to a boil, then turn the heat down and let simmer until chicken is cooked through, about one hour. Set chicken and the resulting stock aside.

To make gravy: Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and whisk in the flour. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly, to create a light blonde roux. Raise heat and whisk in chicken stock; bring to a boil. After a minute or two, when stock has thickened to gravy consistency, lower heat to medium and stir in the cream and maple syrups. Season with salt to taste and lots of freshly ground pepper.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.