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.
Tools Archive
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Grilled pizza perfection
We’ve been on an ongoing quest to determine what method (apart from a wood-fired oven at 800 degrees, which we don’t have) will produce the best thin-crust pizza. We want cracker-crispy crust, perfectly heated and melted toppings, and the rustic, smoky flavor we get from the best pizzerias. Pizza is meant to be baked in [...] -
Grills just wanna have fun
Summer feels like it’s here, so we’ve been itching to spend more time on the back deck with our beloved grill. Sadly, the photo isn’t of our grill or our backyard — we shot it at a house party in Aspen hosted by Mario Batali — but it doesn’t matter what kind of grill you [...] -
Product Review: AeroGarden
Bryan planted basil, dill and thyme a few days before Christmas and we started picking basil within a month. -
Steak sous vide with corn-jalapeno hash
On night two of our great sous vide experiment, I decided to try using sous vide in a way that just about every contestant on Top Chef seemingly has used: steak sous vide. The benefit of sous vide cooking is since the meat comes up to temperature gradually, it maintains the same doneness throughout the [...] -
Fried sous vide egg yolk salad
Thanks to one of Jessie’s coworkers, we have a SousVide Supreme to play with for a couple of weeks. Neither of us has ever tried sous vide cooking before, and it’s a little scary. Fun, sure, but since we both have day jobs, we’re putting our dinner in jeopardy — after all, we can’t have [...] -
Perfectly Poached Eggs with PoachPods
If you’ve wanted to make poached eggs at home, but have been intimidated by thoughts of milky water, the poached eggs scene from Julia and Julia and having to try more than once, we found a solution for you. I’ve been intrigued by PoachPods since I spotted them in a store a few months ago [...] -
Matzo ball soup with carrots and daikon
First off, we're not Jewish, we just decided it was time to try different things. Secondly, this recipe uses more mixes and prepared things than I normally like to use, but since the end result was delicious, and because I included my own little touches, I decided to share. -
Beef short-ribs with veg in red wine
Jessie gave me a beautiful big Le Creuset enamel pot for Christmas, so we decided to try it out on Christmas Day by making some beef short-ribs (since it was just the two of us). I used this recipe from Epicurious as a guideline, but kind of went my own way based on what we [...] -
Tito’s + Zing Zang = Good.
While in Iowa for Thanksgiving we happened across a great brand of vodka and a flavorful, spicy Bloody Mary mix. Tito’s Vodka is handmade in Austin, Texas, and distilled six times, according to the manufacturer. The taste is smooth, especially considering how inexpensive it is. We also found a Bloody Mary mix that was just [...] -
Ikea kitchen planner tool
We’re big Ikea fans. Yes, I know the stigma attached to Ikea products – that they’re cheap, slapped-together, fall apart easily – but that’s not always true. Anyway, we’re thinking about redoing the kitchen in the House O’ Foodies, and Ikea has a great tool that I’ve been playing around with (I’ll post the results [...] -
McCormick French Grey Sea Salt
McCormick sent me a sampler pack of some of their new spices at my day job, and this quickly became a favorite. The French Grey Sea Salt is — they say — “hand-harvested in Brittany, France using traditional Celtic methods.” It’s a great finishing salt. Sprinkle it over a dish right before serving and it [...]