New Sous Chef in Town

So many good dishes and major happenings since we last checked in. Wow, has blogging fallen to the bottom of our list! Since we last posted, Head Chef Andy and I got married...in Mexico. Ole! We were so lucky to have our families there with us. We stayed at an amazing all-inclusive resort, the Gran Caribe Real (GCR). Head Chef Andy is a vegetarian, and breakfast tends to be the best meal for him when we're traveling. Since eggs are a breakfast staple, he knows he can count on some protein. This proved true at the GCR. Breakfast included a "build your own egg station." Head Chef Andy, me and his son, S, all enjoyed various types of eggs and fixings several times during our stay.

As you can imagine, we have GREAT memories of this trip. As a way to reminisce,  we decided to have a Mexico weekend. Given it is December in Wisconsin, there was no way we could base the celebration on weather, so we opted for food. Our Saturday night dinner included things like steak., guac & chips, stuffed peppers, etc. We couldn't let it end with dinner, so Sunday morning we set up an egg station a la Mexico. And Head Chef Andy's eight-year-old son was in charge. Wow, did he do a good job! I think my days as Sous Chef are numbered. I'll be relegated exclusively to dish duty before you know it. Wah wah. Although I shouldn't complain, because these were some of the best eggs I've ever had! Thanks much to Head Chef Andy and Sous Chef S for their hard work this morning. And props to Head Chef Andy for taking on clean-up duty too. I'm getting so spoiled!

Here are a few pics of the Egg Station A La Mexico. Notice those cacti - such attention to detail!

Fancy Schmancy

We've been remiss with the blog again. Hoping to get into a better rhythm with posting. We recently combined our households (officially), and it feels like we got a whole lot of new stuff! Which has brought to light a huge lack of storage (or too much stuff, depending on how you look at it). In any case, it's been fun to put some of our "new" items into circulation. Friday night was just such a time. It was just the two of us, a bottle of our favorite sparkling wine (which is served at Epcot, one of our favorite places) and lots and lots of cheese. A lot more cheese than two people can reasonably eat in one sitting. But it looked pretty fancy, as did our new table and chairs - see for yourself!

A few recent dishes

Like most New Year's resolutions, mine didn't last. I've been very lax with blog posts. But here's a few pics of what we've been up to. Enjoy!

Goat cheese & tomato pizza.

Homemade pasta sauce.

Banana pancakes

Banana shakes

Banana shakes

Bonjour! Voulez-vous un beignet?

After a long hiatus, the Burleigh Bistro is back in operation! To our two loyal readers, thanks for your patience. It's New Year's Eve as I write. The Bistro's resolution is more regular posts in 2011.That being said, on to the food!

Recently we spent a long weekend in New Orleans. It was a balmy 70 degrees when we arrived. Overnight, temperatures plummeted to high 30s/40s with intense winds. In a city full of open-air establishments, this was a formula for misery. Since we weren't too inclined to spend time in the outdoors seeing the sights, we ate our way through NOLA. The restaurants offered shelter from the elements, at least a little heat and tasty local cuisine to warm us from the inside out. Sous Chef Mary Ann sampled all the local fare - from jambalaya to etoufee to a po' boy. Head Chef Andy was more limited in his options - NOLA is not a vegetarian-friendly city. One NOLA specialty that we could both take part in were beignets. We took a break one afternoon at Cafe Du Monde at the French Market in the French Quarter. YUM!

Cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter.

As luck would have it, a few weeks later Head Chef Andy received a Fry Daddy for Christmas. It was clearly a sign that we were meant to bring some of this sweet, tasty, deep fried doughy goodness to our home. We picked up a box of Cafe Du Monde beignet mix at Cost Plus World Market. We followed the recipe/instructions on the box. We found a few ways to sup 'em up, of course:

1. After frying, we sprinkled the beignets with white sugar and powdered sugar. The plain powdered sugar just wasn't sweet enough.

2. We thought filled beignets would be tasty, and we had some jelly handy. Head Chef Andy put jelly in a bowl and whipped it, then warmed it in the microwave for 40 seconds to thin it out more. He then took a knife and gently turn it in a cooked beignet in order to create a small hole. Finally, he used a small syringe to inject the jelly. It was futsy but TASTY!

Here's a look at the process.

Mmmm,. jelly.

Jelly filled beignets.

Fried and sugary. Could you ask for more???

Toad in a Hole, One Eyed Monster, Rocky Mountain Toast

Get you're mind out of the gutter. We're talking about breakfast. Some may also know this as Eggs in a Basket. We stumbled on this dish a couple weeks ago. We had a loaf of cheap white bread thanks to one of my Saturday morning escapades to "coupon the hell" out of the grocery store. Saturdays are double coupon days. Yes, I'm that woman you hate to be behind in line, and I get great satisfaction in paying 39 cents for something that is $4.99 full price.

Back to breakfast. So we have this random loaf of cheap white bread and nothing to do with it, when Andy remembered a scene in a movie where they cook a dish where eggs appeared to be cooked in bread. This set us off on an internet search to figure out what the dish/movie was. He remembered who was in the movie, which eventually led us to V for Vendetta, which eventually led us to Eggs in a Basket (aka Toad in a Hole, One Eyed Monster, Rocky Mountain Toast).

It's simple enough:

• Take white bread and tear a hole in the center (reserve the centers - trust me, you'll want these).
• Butter both sides of the bread.
• Preheat your griddle to 400 degrees. Or use a frying pan on high. The bread is already buttered, so no need to grease the surface.
• Put the slices of bread on the griddle.
• Cook the bread for less than one minute.
• Crack an egg into the center of each piece of bread.
• Season the bread/egg pieces with salt (or garlic salt if you're single/married for more than 5 yrs) and pepper (or pepper medley) to taste.
• Take the centers of the bread and dip them in melted butter. 
• Place the bread centers on the griddle.
• Watch the bread/egg pieces. You'll notice the eggs start to whiten up (see photo #1). When it looks like they're whitened about halfway through, flip them. Be careful with this step because the top is still going to have the consistency of a freshly cracked egg. You need to flip it quick. If you're slow, the egg will fall out of the hole. If you're coordination is off, you're going to send wet egg flying across the room. Proceed with caution. 
• Repeat seasoning combo on the other side of the bread/egg pieces.
• Keep an eye on the removed bread centers. Flip occasionally. Brown/toast to your preference. 
• After the bread/egg pieces are flipped, cook to the desired yolk consistency. We make them over-easy and use the removed bread centers to dip into the yolk. 
• Plate and enjoy! You're only regret will be that you didn't make enough.

Welcome!

We live in Wisconsin. There are long stretches of time during the year when most reasonable people don't venture outside. We are reasonable people. So when we're not canoeing away the summer months, we're probably in the kitchen cooking, counting down the days to our next trip to a warmer locale or that elusive season they call spring/summer/fall. In this house, Andy plays the role of chef, and I (Mary Ann) am the sous chef. It's a good system.

Our hobbies are few and far between, so we figured why not blog about our exciting kitchen adventures. Maybe someone else can get some enjoyment or ideas out of our random cooking experiences. We also thought this might be an opportunity to capture some of the dishes that come out of the kitchen, as Andy does not cook from any recipes nor does he write anything down. We use the internet, movies, tv, etc., for inspiration, but rarely follow any step-by-step instructions.We've made everything from curry cashews to live blue crab straight from Maryland to bread pudding.

One other thing I should mention here, the head chef happens to be a vegetarian. That's right, no meat, no seafood, no poultry. Despite this, he can season and prep a steak as good as the most zealous carnivore out there.

Now you know a little bit about us. Let the cooking begin!