Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: Master Chef

  • One-Bowl No-Mixer Pumpkin Muffins

    So it’s no secret that I’m enamored with pumpkin, and I have dozens of pumpkin recipes that get busted out in the fall.  But for many folks, the idea of setting up the stand mixer to cream butter and sugar…or having multiple bowls and measuring cups to clean up afterward…it’s just too much to contemplate…

  • Perfect Homemade Fortune Cookies

    Makes 12-18 fortune cookies depending on size and thickness. Fortune cookies are remarkably easy to make…IF…you have the right recipe.  Many of the recipes on the net call for fat in the form of butter or oil.  The problem there is that you end up with greasy fortunes.  The remaining recipes, at least the ones…

  • Hatch Green Chile Peach Pie

    It’s that time of year again!  Grocery stores all over Texas have the unmistakable spicy-smoky aroma of roasting Hatch chiles out front, and the big chile roasters are rolling almost nonstop during open hours.  It’s my favorite culinary time of year. While most recipes for Hatch chiles are savory, I decided to post a sweet…

  • Regarding the Daily Post Article

    I awakened Saturday morning to a barrage of media and harassment regarding an article published by the Daily Post, followed by countless other gossip rags, about how I’m coming clean about MasterChef being fake.  This was news to me! I want it made clear that I have NEVER spoken to ANYONE from the Daily Post…

  • A FRANK Tale: REAL Mexico

    (Most photos in this blog appear courtesy of Stephanie Casey at Frugal Foodie Dallas, who live-blogged our menu for us!  Thanks, Stephanie!) We’ve been wanting to do Mexican FRANK for a very, very long time.  Since the beginning, in fact.  BUT…when you live in a place like Texas, which is oversaturated with both TexMex AND…

  • A FRANK Tale: Eggs Galore

    I’m vastly behind on FRANK blogs…well, because we’ve been doing FRANK so often recently.  And each one has truly been epic enough to deserve its own blog.  This past April we celebrated our 2 year anniversary, and we decided to revisit the theme of our very first FRANK back in 2012…”The Egg.”  We had chosen…

  • Josh Marks: In Memoriam

    For those of you who don’t know, Josh Marks, runner up from MasterChef season 3, died last week at his own hands.  This tragedy is too awful to process, even for those of us who didn’t know Josh.  I cannot imagine what his family is experiencing. I haven’t addressed this issue earlier for several reasons. …

  • Crispy Fish Tacos

    I’ve had quite a number of requests for the recipe for fish tacos that I served as my “signature dish” on MasterChef.  It’s certainly not my signature dish, but it’s one of the only things I make that could be made in an hour, so that’s what I made!  Fish tacos are one of the…

  • Guest Post: Do Food Shows Have Ethical Obligations?

    My supremely cool fan Josh O’Connor, who interacts often on my blog posts, got to thinking about the issues of food waste, and the treatment of reality TV contestants with dietary restrictions, after one of my recent MasterChef recaps where many dozens of eggs were thrown in the trash, as well as shattering the plates…

  • Masterchef 4 Recap: Paula Deen 2.0 and Fancy foods (S4E22)

    For the second time this week, hello, Starr-struck citizens of the internet! Since Ben Starr is partaking in his annual pilgrimage to Burning Man, I am doing a temporary takeover of his blog in order to write the MasterChef recaps that so many of you are so fond of. For those of you that don’t…