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
For more information, click here.
Techniques Archive
-
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 [...] -
Foil-baked potatoes on the grill
It was fairly nice out this afternoon, so I decided to grill out on the back deck. I won't go into details about everything you see on the plate above (the buttermilk biscuits were left over from breakfast, and I warmed them up on the top shelf of the grill - delicious), but I was really pleased with the steak and potatoes. -
Easy steak in brown ale sauce
I’ve been extremely busy with work lately, and haven’t had as much time to experiment in the kitchen as I’d like. I’ve mostly just been sticking to my tried and true favorites. But tonight I decided to try something new again. We had some beautiful grass-fed flat-iron steaks from Amish country, and I thawed them [...] -
Pork with Riesling and shallots
I’ve cooked a lot of pork in my day, and this might be my all-time favorite creation. This was an ad-libbed meal using what we had sitting around in the freezer and the fridge, and I can’t wait to try the sauce on other proteins (especially chicken). If you’ve ever made Bifteck Bercy (see “Mastering [...] -
Sweet corn with pea shoots
For the last week I’ve been delicately tending to my pea shoots as they sprouted from seeds on the kitchen windowsill. I just recently tried “sprouting” for the first time, and wanted to find an interesting way to try the first of many sprouts to come. Right now we have snow peas, broccoli, mustard and [...] -
Spicy, cheesy burger on a pretzel bun
It was 37 degrees here today, so I started thinking about summer. And of course thinking about summer leads to thinking about burgers. This recipe calls for a few "specialty" items, but you should be able to find pretzel rolls at your local grocery store, and you can order the special pickles I use online, or find another generic brand of spicy pickle if you can. -
WTF do you do with a Cornish game hen?
Every time I walk down the frozen meats aisle in the grocery store I see this cute little vacuum-sealed Cornish game hens. They seem like they should be so simple to cook and prepare — after all, they’re so cute and tiny, and certainly a pre-plucked, pre-cleaned bird sealed in plastic should be as easy [...] -
Plank Grilling
Summer is finally here and the grill is open for business at HouseOFoodies. We’ve been experimenting with planks and have grilled a few tasty meals. It is important to soak the planks for the recommended time on the package. Otherwise, your planks will burn up instead of providing the hint of a smokey flavor. Bryan [...] -
Duck fat
Yes, to many Americans, cooking in duck fat somehow sounds…wrong. But in reality, it’s a traditional cooking medium in many parts of the globe. When I moved back to the U.S. from Belgium, I found sautéed veggies in restaurants somehow tasted less exquisite. The reason, I’ve now learned, is that they’re either sautéed in olive [...] -
Dinner for four
We had some friends over for dinner last night, and everything was a smash success. Jessie started by serving a delicious blue cheese and bacon dip with crackers and toasted pieces of baguette. For the main course, we served one of the best recipes we’ve found on Epicurious so far, sauteed chicken breast with pear, bell pepper and cilantro [...]