Chefs
Hi, we are Bryan and Jessie - a recently married couple who enjoys cooking at home, eating at our favorite local restaurants, and trying new restaurants and recipes. We also have two pets - Brew, a black lab, and Alton Brown, a domestic shorthair.
Foods we couldn't live without: blue cheese, potatoes, gin, popcorn, garlic and butter
Number of cookbooks we own: 57 and counting
Favorite kitchen tools: Shun knives, Le Creuset cookware
Recipes Archive
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Greek yogurt totally from scratch
OK, if you want to make Greek yogurt (think brands like Fage and Chobani), the simple way to do it is to drain plain yogurt overnight. But if you really want top-notch Greek yogurt that not only tastes better but costs a wallet-load less, you’ll want to start from scratch. Fear not – the bacteria won’t [...] -
Roasted Banana and Coconut Ice Cream
Sorry for the lack of posting recently. Our jobs have taken up a lot of time. We haven’t stopped cooking, or inventing and trying new things — far from it — we just haven’t found much time to write in the last month or so. Lately, I’ve been baking a lot, and Jessie’s been making ice [...] -
Bison tenderloin in bourbon sauce
If you’ve been eying the frozen Bison meat in your supermarket but are afraid of cooking with it, fear not. A good cut of bison is as hard to screw up as a good beef steak, and if you take a few extra steps to impart as much flavor as possible, it’s a great “special” [...] -
Open-Face Pizza
After a crazy day at work for both of us, neither of us wanted to spend too much time on our feet in the kitchen, but we were still hungry. Ordering pizza from one of our numerous pizza places was tossed out, but a decision on where and what couldn’t be reached. Instead, I went [...] -
Mint Ice Cream Recipe Review
We planted mint in our garden last year and quickly learned how delicious, and invasive, it can be. Fresh mint smells great and, let’s face it, who doesn’t like picking fresh mint from their garden for mojitos in the summer? We haven’t made ice cream in quite some time. In fact, it has been almost two [...] -
Take that, Double Down.
I didn’t intend to cook a take on the KFC Double Down sandwich the other night, but about midway through I realized I was. One of the things I love most about cooking is that you can improvise as you go, as long as you know the basic techniques. This recipe is far from technique-intensive, but [...] -
Fresh take on grilled corn: Tequila
Jessie and I grill flank steak on a regular basis, and almost always grill sweet corn with it. Tonight, at Jessie’s prompting, I tried something a little different with the corn. First, here’s my typical procedure for grilling sweet corn: Peel back the husks, making sure to not remove them completely. Remove the silks (I use [...] -
Leeks, Garlic and Ginger, Oh My
We both got home from work a bit late tonight and we didn’t feel like cooking up a complete meal. After searching through our pantry, refrigerator and freezer for inspiration, I found some chicken and vegetable potstickers and decided to pan-fry them and create a quick rice dish. The rice dish turned out better than [...] -
Lettuce Eat
Making Dutch Lettuce sounds quite simple, but it was delicious. -
Stuffed peppers that go to 11
One of our local grocery stores had some gorgeous, huge Anaheim peppers fresh yesterday, so Jessie and I decided to throw together a quick and spicy take on chiles rellenos. The end result was just about right for our tastes, especially with a squeeze of lime juice, tablespoon of sour cream and a few dollops of [...] -
Real ‘popcorn’ chicken
Tired of using breadcrumbs for the breading on your fried chicken? Try popcorn. Jessie made a tasty rice dish last night and asked for chicken to go along with it. Since I didn’t feel like doing the same old, same old, I tried an experiment with some freshly popped large-kernel popcorn we picked up in Amish [...] -
Sauteed potatoes and toasted pine nuts
I’ve been trying to find new and creative uses for pine nuts since buying a bunch of them a few months ago. I think I’ve finally found my favorite use of them, and it wasn’t where I expected: with potatoes. Pine nuts, especially when they’re toasted, give a hearty, nutty flavor to a dish. They’re a [...] -
Mood Cooking – Hot Stir-fry
I came home from work the other night as, what some of my coworkers would say, an angry bird. For some unknown reason, I was in a bad mood and I decided to take my mood out on some stir-fry. -
Fear not the chorizo
I don’t know why Mexican chorizo isn’t a staple in the typical American household. After all, it’s a versatile protein that can add wonderful heat to any dish. Want to make great tacos without buying expensive (and generally tasteless) taco seasoning? Just saute up some Mexican chorizo. Want to replace ground beef in (some) recipes [...] -
One-recipe review: ‘Cooking Know-How’
In honor of Jessie’s birthday, I wanted to cook a grand meal tonight. I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to try a meal (and, hence, do a traditional one-recipe review) from Cooking Know-How by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. We were fortunate enough to meet the authors and attend a cooking demo of theirs [...]