Who Cooked It Better? -

by BS

Who Mixed It Better? Sex and the City Cocktails

Congrats to last week’s Who Cooked It Better winner, Plaid Ninja, whose shot of Joe’s Best Burger was voted tastiest hamburger on the Internet. Anyone have Memorial Day burger stories to share? Do tell.

Moving on – if you are an American woman or gay male between the ages of 16 and 64, you’re fully aware that the Sex and the City movie premiers in theaters this weekend. And if you’re dating anyone who fits that description, you’re painfully aware of it. While I’m hesitant to promote the pop culture phenomenon that almost single-handedly turned my hometown into a stiletto-heeled amusement park, it’s safe to say this thing is gonna be pretty inescapable. Fortunately, Skyy Vodka has invented four Sex and the City cocktails to help us revel in the excitement and/or dull the pain. The only question is, which one of these sugary alkie concoctions should we whip up a batch of to get us through the weekend?

In the top left corner is the Carrie, aka the New Cosmo, vodka mixed with mango nectar, lime juice, simple syrup and triple sec. Perhaps one step over the line from sickly-sweet to just plain sickly, but the dried mango garnish adds some trendy points.

Top right is Charlotte’s rich bitch drink. Frangelico, Amaretto, Godiva dark chocolate liqueur (who knew that even existed but I’m sure it is great), mixed with half and half and vodka. This one’s more dessert than cocktail, but it’s hard to imagine how it isn’t tasty

Bottom left is Miranda’s power-woman drink, which uses the mixer of the moment, pomegranate juice, plus campari, vodka and lemon. Still girly, but this one actually sounds like a real drink. Almost.

Last up is Samantha’s slutty syrup, which mixes vodka with tequila (really?), lime juice and simple syrup. That combo of alcohol sounds like a recipe for puking in your mouth, although as a food snob, I have to love the white pepper garnish.

Oh, and in case you’re not into the drinks-as-candy thing, there’s also a man drink, albeit a very girly man drink. The Mr. Big dulls up your whiskey shot by adding some vermouth and peach bitters. Strained through a martini shaker and served chilled.

All the recipes can be found here.

Photos: Skyy Vodka

Find more cocktail ideas in Endless Cocktails

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Best Lookin’ Burgers

Last week’s WCiB? squeaker ended well for Dinner with Julie, who took home the best eggs benedict crown with 44 percent of the vote.

Memorial Day is right around the corner and in these parts that means it’s time to get excited about one thing: burgers! And when we say burger, we mean BURGER – the real deal. No chickpeas, seitan, tofu, turkey, sweet potato patties or ground chicken allowed. Just good old fashioned cow slabs cooked over a fire. And the truth about burgers is you can stuff em, you can top em, you can goat-cheese-and-red-pepper em, and of course, you can cover em in bacon, but when it comes down to it, the basic, classic cheeseburger really can’t be beat. So for this week’s challenge, we’re going on beauty alone, scouring flickr to find the best lookin’ burger in America, whether home-cooked or photo’d from restaurants.

Our first best lookin’ burger, in the top left, in the brioche-y bun, is from Dopiaza, who includes a full recipe on flickr. Dripping in cheese and topped with very thinly sliced red peppers, you can just imagine the perfect crunchyjuicy combo the first bite of this one would bring.

On the top right is Plaid Ninja’s photo of the Chipotle Bacon Cheeseburger form Joe’s Best Burger, an NYC joint I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never heard of, but surely will be visiting soon.

The bottom left amazingness is from oiseauxblue! Toasted wheat, mushrooms, gruyere, and fried onions – a salivating concoction indeed. No credit given as to whether this is from a restaurant or cooked at home, but either way, it’s a thing of pure beauty.

The last photo is from Adam over at A Hamburger Today, who offers a take on the famous Jucy Lucy from Matt’s Bar in Minneapolis; recipe inspired by John T. Edge’s Hamburgers & Fries. The simple idea is so brilliant it’s hard to believe everyone doesn’t do it – inserting your cheese into the patty instead of on top of it, creating a gooey, delicious mess.

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in Cheese / Red Meat 6 comments

by BS

Nobody Likes a Tie

Last week’s Eggs Benedict Who Cooked It Better appears destined to remain deadlocked, with Cheese ‘N Things’ Eggs Jamie and Dinner with Julie’s Crabcakes Benedict drawing 41 percent of the vote each. Because no one is happy with that result, we’re gonna go ahead and leave this poll open for another week, in the hopes of declaring a true winner. (That’s Cheese ‘N Things in the top left corner and Dinner with Julie next to it. For the full recipes, check out the original post.)

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PS – Anyone make any eggs or other great creations for Mother’s Day? Do share. My mom thinks runny eggs are the nastiest thing in the world, so we went out for Iraqi instead.

in Breakfast / Eggs 4 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Eggs Benedict

No One Puts Cupcakes in a Corner takes the cake in last week’s Who Cooked It Better, racking up 61 percent of the vote for her dark chocolate bacon cupcake.

With Mother’s Day around the corner, I thought it would be fun to explore that ultimate brunch food, Eggs Benedict. Searching around the Interwebs for creative Eggs Benedict recipes was an appetite-whetting endeavor indeed, and I am just about ready to take a bath in egg yolk right now.

Of course, you can’t get too creative with the way you prepare this dish, as there are only so many ways to poach an egg, and hollandaise sauce is complex enough that it shouldn’t be trifled with. But here are four recipes that offer cool alternatives to the traditional Eggs Benedict. Yes, I know, getting creative makes it technically not Eggs Benedict, but these four recipes sound delicious, plus they are all friggin beautiful.

The recipe on the top left is from Jamie over at Cheese ‘N Things. Her “Eggs Jamie” has tastiness piled so high that hollandaise sauce seems unnecessary. The poached eggs are served on a bed of balsamic-upped arugula, which is mixed with crispy prosciutto and shavings of parmagiano reggiano, and the whole thing is topped with caramelized red onions. I love how instead of going for the money shot (runny yolk everywhere), she presents the egg just as it’s ready to burst. So much anticipation. Full recipe here.

The top right dish is from Julie of the Dinner with Julie blog, who, as you might gather, is chronicling a year in her kitchen. (Aside: Check out her bageleggs – how cool is that?) Julie’s Benedict uses a crabcake as a base instead of the muffin, and puts a cool spin on the hollandaise sauce with a lightened lemon-basil recipe. Complete recipe here.

The bottom-left Benedict is the traditionalist version, although it does make me think – I have never been served Eggs Benedict with a beautiful thick slice of Country Ham like Closet Cooking dishes up here. Usually you can barely taste the puny slice of Canadian bacon under the runny egg yolk and hollandaise, but this hunk of ham really completes the dish. Now this is one version that pays respect to the pig. Recipe here.

I stumbled upon this last photo over at Noshtalgia, who is noshtalgizing about “Italian Eggs Benedict” and points us to Lucahjin’s stream on flickr. Lucahjin put together this simple/genius creation – a poked poached egg swimming in a pool of tomato sauce and chickpeas. Brilliant!

So….

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Photos: Cheese ‘N Things, Dinner with Julie, Closet Cooking, Flickr user Lucahjin.

in Cheese / Eggs 7 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Bacon Cupcakes

Chalk up another win for the blogs over the MSM, as Sushi Day’s steak sushi rolls over Gourmet, 58 percent to 42 percent in last week’s Who Cooked It Better.

For this week’s contest, we’re going with a hot new trend that combines a possibly tired trend with a classic taste to make everything new and creative again. Confused? You’ll understand in a second.

As you know, cupcakes have been quite the ubiquitous presence over the past few years, to the extent where some are declaring them so over already. I liked them better myself in grade school, when they weren’t trendy and didn’t cost nine dollars, but I think we can all agree, overexposed or not, these little devils are delicious.

One thing that is definitely not over is bacon, so it was only a matter of time before bacon collided with cupcakes to create something God is kicking himself for not inventing. Bacon cupcakes are here indeed, and all of a sudden they seem to have taken over the food blogosphere. I browsed through said blogosphere to find the best of the best, and there are no half-assed bacon-topped cupcakes here, each of these three contenders mix actual bacon into their batter to present three tantalizing recipes.

On the left is one of the first known versions of the mythical bacon cupcake. From the Vanilla Garlic blog, this maple bacon cupcake is for “those who eat with no fear,” and it sure lives up to that claim. Diced bacon is mixed into the brown sugar-maple syrup cupcake, which is then topped with a maple syrup-butter frosting and finished off with a sweet and salty kick from turbinado sugar and kosher salt. (Note: This does not make the cupcake kosher in any way). Full recipe here.

Appearing in the middle, No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner throws a chocolate spin on the BC, dreaming up an amazing coffee-buttermilk-dark chocolate-bacon batter. While she doesn’t give us a chocolate frosting recipe, she more than makes up for it by sprinkling bonus bacon (crispy, of course) on top of the cupcake. Full recipe here.

A Good Appetite, on the left, also goes with the dark chocolate theme, whipping up a batch of Hershey’s dark cocoa batter, topped with some dark chocolate frosting and a sprinkling of fleur de sel for that extra salty (and artsy!) touch. Extra points for some creative black and white photography. Full recipe here.

Wow I am hungry after writing all that up. I, for one, will surely be trying one of these recipes soon – so which one?

Find more cupcake commentary in Endless Cupcakes

(Photos: Vanilla Garlic, No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner, and A Good Appetite)

in Bacon / Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Trends 17 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? The Great Steak Sushi Roll-off

The results of last week’s veggie burger battle royale are in, and with 98 percent of all precincts reporting, Eat Air’s Big V captured 47 percent of the vote, earning the official title of best veggie burger in the world. Ever.

Since today is a big election day, we’re going with a political theme for this week’s Who Cooked It Better. The good folks over at Urban Spoon recently crunched some numbers to come up with the Steak/Sushi index, which shows that any city’s voting habits can be predicted by its ratio of steak houses to sushi joints. The nation’s political divide falls almost exactly along these lines, from Dallas (most Republican; most steak houses) to San Francisco (most Democratic; most sushi).

Of course, in 2008 everyone is all gaga for unity and bipartisanship, and what better way to celebrate such feelings than with steak sushi. This inspired creation is popping up on more and more restaurant menus, and it’s a delicious trend that should keep on trending, if you ask me.

Our first steak sushi roll, pictured on the left, is from Sushi Day, who offers up some beautiful butter-fried flank steak cooked to a pinkish rare. But more importantly, Sushi Day has the gall/genius to roll it up with onion slices and french fries! (The fries are both inside the sushi roll AND served alongside it.) This non-conformist sushi is topped off with BBQ sauce. Full recipe here.

Our second steak sushi recipe is from Gourmet, and as you might expect, they go avant-garde, getting rid or the seaweed and instead wrapping a bloody steak in thinly-sliced carrot ribbons. A mustard sauce made of basil, parsley, shallots, capers and garlic brings the flavor, and a flaky sea salt garnish adds extra arty effect (does anyone else think it looks like sushi falling from the sky?) Full recipe here.

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Have an idea for a Who Cooked It Better or wanna see your own blog featured? Pop an email over to info@endlesssimmer.com

Photos: Sushi Day, Gourmet

in Politics / Red Meat 6 comments

by BS

Who Cooked It Better? Veggie Burger Battle Royale

Last week’s Who Cooked It Better aroused quite the display of passion in you folks, finally giving America’s pissed-off vegans a chance to vent their frustrations against that scourge of vegans everywhere, Anthony Bourdain. This was Endless Simmer’s most popular poll to date, and with 800 of you weighing in, Hezbollah Tofu crushed Anthony Bourdain, 83 to 17 percent. Many congrats to HT on a truly winning original recipe.

In a shameless ploy to hold on to our newly expanded vegan readership base, we’re continuing with the “hold the bacon” theme for this week’s Who Cooked It Better, a search for the ultimate veggie burger. But before you meat-lovers tune out, let’s remember that grillin’ season is just around the corner, and if you expect to keep your veggie friends around for the summer, you better have a good faux-burger recipe. And don’t say, “Oh, I already know about Boca Burgers,” because when your vegan friends respond “that’s so considerate of you to think of me,” what they really mean is “Great. I can’t wait to eat this same store-bought patty every weekend for the rest of the summer. By the way, I’m a vegan and this has cheese in it.”

Seeing as how veggie burgers are kind of an anti-establishment thing anyway, we decided to go all-blogger for this challenge. Our first cheftestant is Swell Vegan, whose tasty-looking seitan burger (top left) is accented with chopped sesame seeds, red pepper and carrots. In a twist that could have you choosing this over steak at your next BBQ, Swell Vegan mixes chimichurri sauce into the veggie patty, and tops it off with more of this savory green stuff, along with tomato, onion, and tofutti cheese. SV says the recipe is still a work in progress, but this one already looks like a winner.

Moving to the top right, Eat Air is hoping to take down yet another meat-worshiping TV star with their veganized version of Paula Deen’s Big Mike Burger. The Big V replaces Paula’s butter burger/pecan burger double patty with an amped up seitan burger that includes shittake mushrooms and vegan cheese, along with a tempeh-pecan patty complete with maple syrup and liquid smoke (!) Complete directions here.

On the bottom right corner is a beautiful pic from 101 Cookbooks, whose use of eggs may turn off you vegan voters, but these garbanzo bean-cilantro-sprout burgers are so tasty looking we had to include them. Most originally, 101 C loses the bread buns altogether and uses her two patties as the buns, filling the inside with avocado slices, cipollini onions, and more. Full recipe over at 101 Cookbooks.

In the bottom-left corner is a great-looking burger from The Accidental Vegetarian, which looks most like a real burger of anything we could find, even though instead of fake meat, the AV goes for a mix of eggplant, zucchini, onion and garlic, kicked up a notch with an inventive almond paste concoction. Full recipe here.

Your votes and thoughts please…

[poll id=”9″]

ps – did we miss any of the best? Let us know!

in TV / Veggie 16 comments

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