Best of 2024

As usual, we ate a lot of good food last year. Here are some of the highlights. 

January 

This monstrous beef short rib wrapped in laminated brioche dough at Dominique Ansel Workshop in NY was freaking amazing. It was expensive, and I had to eat it standing up at a tiny table in the bakery, but it was so worth the price and inconvenience. Would 100% do it again. 

February

This chicken in milk doesn't look too great, but it was astonishingly delicious. Garlicky, creamy perfection. I am heartbroken that Tbiliso closed in the spring. We had several really great meals there, and I will miss all the various iterations of cheese-filled bread they offered.

March

I've never had a bad meal at La Cuchara. I can't imagine I ever will.

Obligatory Squire's pizza shot. Everything minus green peppers is our standard order. Perfection every time. 

April

The eggplant parm at Cecconi's in Manhattan was pretty pricey, but it came with a salad, was more than enough for two, and even tasted good cold. AND, it was vegan and gluten free. The restaurant seemed fancy, which made my BFF Andree and I feel fancy, too.

I make gazpacho a lot, and sometimes I put shrimp on it. Always great. 

May

I make beans fairly often. These gigante beans stewed with tomatoes and topped with homemade pesto were one of my favorite versions.

This duck confit, on the menu briefly at True Chesapeake, was the best I've ever eaten. 

I was fortunate enough to get some exceptional soft shells a few times this year. These came from Johnny's in Roland Park.

June

I can't get enough of the quesobirria tacos at El Salto.

July

I had the best lobster roll of my life at lunch at The Food Market. It was huge, the meat regularly tumbling out of the roll onto the plate, and it had bacon on it. Bacon.

August

While Neal's birthday dinner at Marta was overall fairly disappointing, this foie gras terrine was outstanding, as was my caprese cocktail. Neal enjoyed his beverage as well. 

Crab-topped gazpacho and crabcake grilled cheese. Yes, I am a genius.

September

Went to Pappas for restaurant week just to get these soft shells. The ones from Johnny's earlier in the year were great, but these were even better. And the pickled beets! Outstanding! 

Farmers' market tomato sandwich with Duke's mayo on Pepperidge Farm white bread. 'Nuff said.

October

Speaking of beets, this beet salad with pistachios from Petit Louis was truly one of the best things I ate all year. 

Cacio i pepe spaghetti squash served in an acorn squash at The Food Market inspired me to make a carbonara dish the following month. Amazing. 

November

For the last several years, our Thanksgiving dinner has looked like the photo above: charcuterie, cheese, olives, lots of booze. This time I used some puff pastry that had been hanging out in the freezer for a while to make tasty pinwheels of goodness, filled with sundried tomato tapenade and Parmesan cheese. I will be making these forevermore. 

I made my own birthday dinner this year - eggplant parm. I haven't found a restaurant version I especially liked--excepting the $28 one at Cecconi's (see above)--so I thought I'd try my hand at it. I used Progresso Italian breadcrumbs, which is what my mom always used, but they weren't quite the same. More salt, less cheese and herbs? Just different. My brother also noticed the difference. Next time, I'll add more basil, oregano, and definitely more parm.

December

I made gluten free gingerbread using a recipe from the blog Cotter Crunch. It was utterly fabulous. I used Mightylicious gluten free flour, which may or may not have been a key element in the success of this treat.

This potato leek soup from Petit Louis may seem simple, but it was smooth, rich, subtle, and far more than the sum of its parts.

I like stopping into Golden West for lunch before my thrice-yearly hair appointment at Brazen. Most recently, I enjoyed their vegan chicken and waffles. The waffle was lightly spiced, which made the dish even more delicious than the usual poultry version.

* 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!

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Restaurant Leftovers

Don't look too closely at the hands in this AI-generated image that was edited in Photoshop.

The Food & Wine site has a piece on the annoyance some servers feel when customers want to take their uneaten food--which they paid for--home. The whole concept annoyed me enough to write about it. Go read the article and then come back here for my rant.

https://www.foodandwine.com/taking-home-restaurant-leftovers-6404995

My opinion: Suck it up, Buttercup! I just paid good money for this food that I can't possibly finish because: 1) I ordered and consumed an app; 2) your portion sizes are too large; 3) I have a dog who enjoys fancy food; 4) I shouldn't have to give you a reason because I PAID FOR THIS FOOD. ALSO, reason #5 which should really be reason #1: food waste is despicable. People who leave food behind in restaurants are entitled brats. No, I'm not going to mention the "starving children in China" or whatever bullshit our parents attempted to guilt us with when we wouldn't finish our boiled brussels sprouts. I am, however, going to guilt you with the amount of labor and natural resources it took to produce the food you're too good to take home with you. Farmers, laborers, butchers, bakers, food inspectors, distributors, cooks, waitstaff, restaurant inspectors, water, electricity, gasoline, and cooking fuel are used to create even the most basic fast food cheeseburger. Years ago, when I was considered an "influencer" (Instagram's algorithm has reconsidered since then), I was invited to a restaurant opening and had the misfortune to share a booth with a couple other "influencers" I didn't know very well. One of them ordered the most outlandish item on the menu--a deep-fried burger--took a bite for photographs, and left the rest on the plate, uneaten. He didn't take the leftovers. This was years ago and I am still pissed when I think about it. 

(There are a few exceptions to my rule. The first is staying in a hotel room that isn't equipped with a fridge. If it's winter, there's snow on the ground, and the room has a balcony...maybe. Otherwise, it's not safe to keep most leftovers un-refrigerated. Bread, muffins, croissants, and non-dairy-filled pastries are ok. Everything else could eventually fall victim to bacterial growth. I don't need that. Second, if I'm attending some sort of long event immediately after the meal, say going to the theatre or a concert, especially if I'm traveling from restaurant to venue on foot. Finally, if the food was truly bad, or under- or overcooked. In that case, I would have brought it to the attention of my server and the situation should have been remedied by the kitchen. But sometimes that doesn't happen.)

Also, I realize that some people are so inept at cooking that they can't fathom repurposing a leftover cheeseburger. Which is beyond sad. Take the filling out of the bun, pop it in the microwave for 45 seconds, re-bun it, and eat. There are plenty other ways to use leftovers, but that's another post for another day.)

For the servers who whine about having to send out a busboy to pack my leftovers: I am perfectly capable of doing so myself. In fact, I prefer to do it myself. Just give me a small container and I will happily scrape my own plate. And yes, I am going to take any (good) bread that is left because otherwise it will be thrown away. If a restaurant is not throwing it away, and repurposing something that was touched and possibly coughed on by the customer, I'd like to know because I will never set foot in that establishment. (It's good to avoid bread pudding for that very reason.)

I guess now I need to create some posts about reusing leftover restaurant food, huh? For now, please to enjoy the most popular post on Minxeats regarding making hash browns out of french fries.

* 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!

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Mightylicious Cookies

I was gifted a box of Mightylicious cookies and I want to tell you about them. 

I always get excited about gluten free products. I don't have celiac, but I try to avoid gluten because I'm addicted to products made with wheat. I eat them, can't control myself, and get fat(ter). If I avoid gluten, I really don't crave bread, pasta, pastries, cookies, or pizza, and I can lose weight. Honestly. I think about them from time to time, but I don't need them. But if I have one piece of good bread or a cookie, I have to have a second or third or even fourth piece. So it's just best that I avoid products that have gluten in them. It works for me; it might not work for you. 

Back to getting excited about gluten free products. I heard about Mightylicious gluten free cookies when I was planning my trip to the Summer Fancy Food show last year. I wasn't able to attend the show, but the company was kind enough to send me a bag of each variety of their cookies, plus bags of brownie mix and their gluten free flour. It was a real embarrassment of riches, and I am appreciative. 

I've only tried the cookies thus far; the brownies and flour will have their own post sometime in the future. 

The Salted Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Coconut, Oatmeal Raisin, and Brown Butter Shortbread cookies are excellent. I loved the flavor and the texture of each of them. The Salted Peanut Butter was very much like good old-fashioned homemade peanut butter cookies, made with peanut butter, sweetener, and salt. Mightylicious also adds eggs and vanilla, but no flour of any kind. They are crazy rich and were my favorite of the bunch. One cookie was a perfect snack. Both the Oatmeal Cookies also had great flavor and texture--these are somewhere between soft-baked and crispy cookies--and this raisin-hater even enjoyed the Oatmeal Raisin cookies (though I preferred the Oatmeal Coconut). The Shortbread Cookies were little miracles. Smaller in diameter but fatter than the other cookies, these tasted just like gluten-y shortbread. Maybe not as crumbly as the real thing, but damn close. Highly recommended.

Then there were the Chocolate Chip, Brown Butter Chocolate Chip, and Double Dutch Chocolate Chip cookies. They were also that texture somewhere between soft-baked and crisp cookies--they were fairly moist--but they just didn't have the depth of flavor that I'm used to with a home-baked, gluten-flour, chocolate chipper. They just seemed...sweet. However, all three of them made excellent ice cream sandwiches because they were much less-likely to crack when smushed on either side of a blob of ice cream. And they ate well as an ice cream sandwich component as well. They didn't get soggy, nor were they overly crunchy when they came out of the freezer. I preferred the Double Dutch Chocolate Chip variety for this use, but the other two worked just as well.

Would I eat these cookies again? Absolutely, particularly the peanut butter and shortbread varieties. And I would not be averse to double dutch chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches again. In fact, I could go for one right now....

* 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!

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A Different Kind of Pumpkin Soup

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of dinners and have at least 4-5 meals in a row planned out. I account for new items, restaurant dinners, and the using up of leftovers. But some nights I throw caution to the wind and change things up. Inspiration does that to you. Of course, that means  the spreadsheet must be altered to reflect the change. Friday's dinner was to be frittata; we have lots of eggs, and various odds and ends to add to them. But it was cold outside, which made me think of soup. I remembered that I had a couple of cans of pumpkin in the cupboard, and some Mexican chorizo in the freezer. Why not combine them to make something totally different?

Mr Minx will eat pumpkin soup--as long as it's not sweet. I ordinarily make a curried version, but the Mexican-style seasonings I had received from Spicewalla were calling my name. Spicewalla spices are always very fresh, and their blends are interesting and tasty. They have somewhat esoteric stuff like furikake, mignonette blend (for raw oysters, or dips and salad dressings), and golden milk spice mix, but also "everything bagel," and taco seasoning. And they come in the cutest little tins. The taco seasoning and another one I like a lot, Chilli Lime, were employed to season this particular batch of pumpkin soup, as I knew they would work with the Mexican chorizo. Both the spices and the chorizo contain chiles, so if you're a wimp when it comes to hot foods, you might want to cut back on the amounts of both, maybe up the brown sugar a bit. Or find another recipe--my feelings won't be hurt. Personally, I think the proportion of spice to pumpkin I used is just perfect. Hot enough to know that it's spicy, but not hot enough to burn anything important. YMMV, of course.

Cilantro is one of my favorite herbs, but if you don't like it, leave it out. The soup will be missing something, but the cilantro averse won't even notice. 

Pumpkin Spicewalla Soup

About 1/4 of a standard supermarket bunch of cilantro 
1 medium onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 poblano pepper, seeds removed, diced 

2 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 ounces Mexican-style pork chorizo (I used Cacique brand)

2 teaspoons EACH Spicewalla** Chilli Lime and Mom's Taco seasonings*

2 15-ounce cans pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling!)

1 quart of chicken stock

1 empty pumpkin can-full of water

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas) for garnish, optional

Cubed avocado for garnish, optional

Thoroughly wash the cilantro. Remove 3" - 4" of the stems and chop them coarsely. Set the leaves aside for garnish.

Add the vegetables, garlic, and chorizo (remove from casing, if any) to a 4- or 5-quart lidded pot. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until vegetables are wilted and chorizo is broken down into small particles and distributed evenly through the vegetables, about 12 minutes. Stir in the cilantro stems and the Spicewalla seasonings and cook 2 minutes. Add the pumpkin, chicken stock, and the water. Turn up the heat to bring to a boil. Turn down the heat until the soup is just simmering, cover the pot, and cook 30 minutes. Add the brown sugar. 

Taste for seasoning and add salt, or more of the Spicewalla seasoning blends. Ladle into bowls and garnish with pumpkin seeds, reserved cilantro leaves, and avocado, if desired.

Makes about 2 1/2 quarts

*If you don't want to splash out for new seasonings, then you can use a couple teaspoons of regular taco seasoning, or a combination of ground coriander and cumin. Most supermarket taco seasonings are muy salty, while individual spices are not salty at all, so you'll have to watch the balance there. 

** 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.

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