Hi, I’m Chef Jacker when your food connections host.

On this episode we’ll be making brunch, including an incredible egg bake.

Stay with us.

Hi, today here with us is Diane Nas from Alamo Annie’s Homestyle Eatery in Brownsdale, Minnesota, and she’s going to show us some wonderful creations from her restaurant in Brownsdale.

So I’d like to introduce Diane.

Hi, welcome.

Thank you.

I am so anxious for for you to show us what you’re going to make today.

I’m going to be making um a Denver egg bake, which has ham, peppers and onions in it.

And I don’t know where that name came from, but that’s where it is.

Probably Denver.

Yeah.

this time of year, there’s lots of people who have different peppers are trying to give away and onions.

And uh it’s kind of for everybody it’s kind of for everybody.

Anyway, so you take like a nine by 13 pan and you can use any kind of potato you want um in the bottom.

If you have some leftover hash browns, if you have some leftover tots, or you have some leftover fried potatoes.

And just kind of And you’ve got tots today.

Yep, just gotta put them across there.

Oh, okay.

And I’m gonna go and grab my gloves.

So those aren’t packed in there hard.

No.

because you want the the eggs and everything to get around it so it all kind of cooks together.

Sure, that sounds that sounds perfect.

And then I like to use like a cheddar jack and then I put some cheese on the bottom.

Okay.

Then you go and um don’t be afraid to put lots of onions.

I they smell good.

So then you got your onions.

Hey.

Then we do a pet peppers and I had um uh just different colored peppers, just for pretty.

That’s very pretty.

Makes it pretty, makes it nice.

Okay.

And then I like to put a little salt and pepper, not much..

Okay.

Now, is that seasoning salt or what or is that is the Himalayan pink I was gonna say it got a color to it, so, we just we really like it for I don’t know, I just like it.

Sure.

And then we don’t like to skimp on any of the ingredients, especially the ham?

Right.

because you want to have you want people to get what they’re you know.

Now if you wanted to change this up anyian, you could there’s a lot of alternatives you could do, is that right?

Oh, yes, you can make you could put mushrooms in here.

You could do another popular one.

We do is sausage, onion, mushroom.

You can do ground beef, onions, peppers, tomatoes.

Bacon bacon.

Bacon and cheddar, bacon and Swiss.

yep.

Oh, good.

So then we put more cheese on top.

It doesn’t have to be super covered.

Right, you’re not loading it, just kind of coating.

And then in here I have a dozen eggs.

And we’ll just uh wh whisk these together a little bit.

I want to mention something about your eggs.

We cracked these earlier.

These are the eggs you use at Alamoanies in Brownsdale, right?

And just tell us about those and some of your ingredients.

So we do as much we as we can farm to table.

so a local local farm, we get our eggs from him.

and in exchange, we have a little thing going all of my leftover peelings and everything.

We could go to him.

his animals.

And oh, here I forgot.

Now we got to put a cup and a half of um half and half.

You can use just regular milk, but I feel like half and half gives it a little richer better texture.

And then you just kind of pour it all over.

and our vegetables, like those peppers, they came from there’s like a local farm that she grows all organic things and all summer long, that’s where I get my produce.

That is just great to know.

Yeah, so it’s Alamo Annies with because you want to support your local farmers and they support me.

So that’s that’s that’s just great.

Then it looks like this, and you put it in the oven.

I like to start out with about 45 minutes, see how it’s going.

And then but it usually takes about an hour.

And your oven is set to 325.

And that if you have a convection oven like I do, um I put it on a low fan, but if you don’t just put it on a regular fan.

Yeah, with eggs you’d probably want if you have the convection, you want low fan, so it doesn’t disturb the.

That sounds good.

We’re gonna put it right here.

it doesn’t really matter.

I put it like right center oven.

And then we’ll set a timer and it’ll be ready in about 45 minutes.

We’ll check it.

minutes.

All right.

On 325 Now, how did you get started?

and how did you happen to be the proprietor of Alamo Annies in Brownsdale?

Well, I’ve waited table since the dawn of time, literally it’s like around 40 years.

And I bought the building I bought the building in Brownsdale and I lived upstairs.

and I had a little, uh we’ll just call it a little junk store downstairs, because I like old, old stuff.

All right.

And the building was white outside and kind of shaped like the Alamo, and my nickname is Annie, so We named Alamo Annie, so it would be like, you know, like Calamity James or Alamo Annie.

I get it.

And I had that and I waitress and wait just in right.

then during the pandemic, my husband said to me He said, "What are you gonna do with that building?

He said, why don’t you just make it into the cafe that you’ve wanted to for a long time?

So uh we started that we started that process.

And actually, the furnace went out in the building.

And uh it they we got a $20,000 quote to read to replace the furnace.

and Chris is like, well, let’s just, you know, make it into a restaurant.

So you think your waitressing led into you wanting to own a restaurant?

Yeah, I think so because um I I call myself a career waitress.

I like there are certain things I really like things done.

I like to greet my customers.

I like to take care of them from start to finish.

I like that.

And um I’ve never worked in a chain restaurant.

I’ve always worked in small town, you know, like cafes.

um but it’s getting harder and harder to find those small town cafes.

And um I got to the point where I know how how I want things done, and so if I want them done, how I wanted to do it, I was like, I’m just gonna have to work my own restaurant.

And I’ve always loved cooking and I always love having parties and stuff like that.

We’re making some pumpkin apple muffins.

Oh, boy.

So, here I have flour.

sugar, pumpkin pie spice.

under my salt.

You will be able to find these recipes later, by the way, uh measurements.

um do Alamo Annies and um probably will have a link up for you to find these recipes later.

Okay, and then you mix this all.

You mix that all together.

So ake it all good and mixed up, and then we put some uh a teaspoon of baking soda.

Oh, okay, all right, sure.

Then, um, these are for our scrucle topping, but we’re gonna do two of our eggs.

Oh shit, my suck.

I should have put my gloves on.

Oh, that’s all right, you’re just touching the shells.

that’s not bad.

And now explain real quick why you cracked them into a side bowl first.

So that you don’t get any shells in there?

Or sometimes you might get a little blood in an egg, you know, from the store or anywhere else.

And that way you’re not, you know, you’re can get it out there.

And then, okay, so then and then you look at them, I gotta get my glasses, you look at them, looks good to me.

Then we’re gonna add it’s about a half cup.

It’s some oil.

That of oil... And then pumpkin.

Justuree pumpkin out of the can.

Yep.

It’s about a 15 ounce can.

All right.

So it kind of mix this all together.

Now we’re gonna add um, it’s about a little over 2 cups of apples, chopped apples.

And if you have picky eaters, or you don’t feel like chopping up apples, you can use appleauce, gives the same flavor.

Oh yeah.

I see you have these dice nice and small.

That’s perfect for muffins.

Perfect size, I believe, for muffins.

I, they’re they’re gonna cook for about 25 minutes, and so you want the apples to be able to be through.

So now you have your wet ingredients, I guess you could say.

We’re gonna combine them over here with our smells good.

With this.

Okay.

And then you just with muffins, you mix it enough to make it mixed, but not you don’t wanna use a blender or not a blender.

You don’t wanna use a mixer or anything like that.

You just wanna mix it all up together.

If it’ll mix up, come on.

It always takes longer when you’re not alone, doesn’t it?

It always will.

And then uh these are these are um I like these muffins because you can taste the apple, you can taste the pumpkin, and they’re not overly sweet.

Because otherwise, if you it’s too sweet, then it’s like you’re eating a cupcake.

Which is’t I mean, you know, that’s not the worst thing in the world.

Okay, so that’s probably good.

Okay.

See, she’s got that incorporated.

You can kind of see it’s quite thick.

Mhm.

Then we’re going to here, and then um can I have the muffin?

Let use this pan again.

So then, I have best luck mining, muffins, um, rather than spraying them, because then I know they’re gonna come out.

Sure.

And then you just put it in here about 2/3, 3/4 of the way up.

Doesn’t have to be measured in or anything, huh?

No.

You could use a scoop, I suppose, if you wanted an ice cream scoop or something like that, and the recipe probably tells you to use like a quarter cup or whatever.

I just put it These are homemade.

So it doesn’t matter.

That’s where the home style comes in.

Yes, that’s for sure.

And there’s, you know, there’s always, uh I call it a home sal eatery because sometimes you might come in there and the macaroni salad has tuna in it and someday you might come in there and it has chicken.

because it’s just like going to your greys, whatever she happened to put it that day.

That’s what we’re having, right?

Okay, that makes sense.

And uh you know, the concept at first was a little bit hard for people because we’re not we do not have a grill, and we do not have um uh any kind of a deep fryer.

So everything I do, I cook it in a big convection oven.

and um so you know, people at first were like, you can’t get fries here, you can’t get this, but now they they’ve got it.

They understand, you can’t have that.

Sure.

I had a fork somewhere, but I don’t know where I did with it.

Oh, right behind you next to the stove.

Oh, I’m sorry, I think it’s in here, actually.

Here it is.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, that’s what we did with it.

All right, so now we’re making this drizzle tapping, so there’s a little sugar.

It’s a little flour.

a little cinnamon.

I mix that up again.

And then we’re gonna take about half a stick of butter.

kind of break it up a little.

And this isn’t an exact science either.

am I correct?

No.

Yeah.

But with with um the strusel topping, that’s it’s you can go a little either way.

But with most baking, it is kind of like a science experiment you do.

I’m I just meant the Stusel cir.

Now, you want your butter.

um you don’t want it having sat out on the counter all day, soft., you want a little chill so that it’s a firm, right?

Yeah.

to make this.

then you’re trying to get it crumbly.

I didn’t bring my pastry uh lender, but this will work.

So then you so it’s crumbly like this.

Let’s show off this direction a little bit.

See the crumbles in there.

Very nice.

Now I will get my gloves back on like I should need.

and then we just put a few on the top of um you want to make sure that you have some buttery part in there, because that’s what makes the crumble.

Sure.

And we just put a little on top.

And then it’ll bake up like crunchy.

Again, these things are smelling so good.

Makes you get in the mood for fall, right?

Oh, yeah.

And gets me in the mood for samples.

Yeah, that’ll be good.

And at Al Ann’s, we uh we always were we always use real butter and real cream.

All right.

There’s no margarine at Alamoyan’s.

My gosh.

See, that’s great to know.

Yeah, and there’s no calories either.

Oh, that’s even better to know.

That’s the idea.

All right, now these can go in the oven, and they same thing can go in the same oven as your egg bake.

All right.

And there again, we’re gonna put these up probably on the bottom.

And they should be in here about 25 minutes.

And if you did your timing right, you should have about 25 minutes left of your egg bait cooking.

and they should all come out at the same time and Oh, see, that’s perfect.

Yeah,.

That makes it very easy.

Yep, and then I like to serve it with a little bit of mixed fruit.

No, did you grow these in your own backyard?

I did not.

Okay, I’m just what I am very particular about the fruit, I always go buy it myself because we have a wonderful distributor.

They do a great job.

But it’s nothing compares nothing to looking at the fruit yourself without and knowing what you’re getting.

Yeah, you’re right.

because we don’t serve the hash browns, we don’t serve anything else.

This is your side, so you want it to be nice fruit.

Oh, yeah, this is just that is just a beautiful bowl of fruit.

G. We do in season, like so in the summer, we do watermeloning and um cantaloupe and you know, stuff like that and uh you know, try to we make things in season.

I make rhubarb pie till rhubarb season is over and then people are like, oh, you should freeze it.

And I’m like, nope, you gotta wait.

Oh, yeah, you like it fresh.

That’s so good to know about Alamo and he’s, gee whiz.

And then that’s about it, then you just wait till it’s done and there you go.

Well, I’m wondering if that first egg bake that you made might not be ready for us.

Okay, we can get it out over here.

My gosh, it’s beautiful.

And there you go.

Here’s the it’s got a nice brown on the cheese.

It’s not too crispy.

No, it looks perfect.

And you can see even after it’s baked you can see the colors of the peppers in there and things like that.

so it’s like, oh yeah, yeah.

So it’s a nice and it’s nice and easy and you just cut it up and um, you know, it’s just nice to serve butterf fruit and a muffin and Good to go.

Well, let’s dish one up and show people how you like it to look.

We cut them in nine.

All right.

Those are nice big pieces then.

Yeah, if you leave Alamoya’s hungry it’ your own.

because we uh we feed we feed everybody from, you know, the retired folks to these farm boys that are coming in and they’re really hungry.

Oh yes, yes.

So this is good for eggake is good for potlucks, uh things like that as well.

Oh, it’s great for like a make ahead.

um you know, like so you’re all ready?

Oh, definitely.

Oh my golly.

Then you have that, it’s got the nice layers of you know, eggs and everything.

Oh, yes.

And then you have a nice muffin.

Then you put some fruit on here.

Whoops, or you don’t miss it.

Oh, what a meal.

And that just looks like a nice presentation.

It sure is.

And then we usually serve everything with whipped butter.

Oh, yes.

That’s amazing looking for any meal.

That’s good for breakfast, brunch, lunch supper.

I don’t care.

Um, perfect for a brunch, having people over for a broad.

And and um this you can make this whole shebang up and put it in the refrigerator.

so in the morning, you just have to pop it in the oven.

That’s a good tip too.

So it doesn’t all have to be last minute.

Right.

Yep and so you can prep your fruit, you can do this, and you can make your muffins the day before and then just warm them up when you’reeeiz.

Oh, that looks so nice.

yeah, I can’t wait to taste.

Well, I hope I hope it meets with your expectation.

Oh my golly, yes.

It already has.

but and it was oh, so nice and sweet.

This is just a beautiful presentation.

You know, I’m thinking to and we had we had talked a little bit earlier, this same kind of a mixture that you made for this egg bake would be very similar to something you might make, put in a pie shell and make quiche.

Am I right?

Yep, it’s similar.

But um uh the egg bakes um by and large, guys always want the egg bakes because it’s got the meat and vegetables and everything.. And then we make quiches and you can do a little more fun things with them because like I make a Christmas key quiche, I’m just and it’s sausage, apple and cheddar.

And you would, if I said I was making an egg bake and putting sausage and apple in there, you might be going, mm not so much, but but if you put it in there or I do it with sausage, uh cranberry, white cheddar, or you do smoked gouda and ham, um bacon tomato feta.

You makeiches with this?

So you can do a little bit more, um, we’ll call them exotic.

Yeah, right, right.

Um, and but if you put it in a quiche, people are like, oh, I want to try that.

But if you if I tried that in egg bake, they’d be like, yeah, no, that’s much.

Yeah, well, I could see, especially you know, like ladies tea with quiche or ladies card cables or something like that, but, we do have tea parties.

We’re a big tea party this weekend.

Oh, you are, okay.

We do about three times a year.

Good.

Well, thank you so much.

This is just wonderful.

I can’t wait to dig in.

In fact, I got another fork in there.

Yeah, we do have another fork in here.

I’m going to dig into this, if you don’t mind, I cannot wait, okay.

I hope it meets with your expectations.

Oh my gosh, it is so perfectly creamy, too.

I think that a half a half.

Oh, and the little bit of baking soda you put in there.

Right?

Kind of helps bluff things up a little bit, doesn’t it?

Oh, my gosh, that is just wonderful.

And, you know, like um the potatoes?

Yeah, makes makes for a nice bottom, right?

And nothing I do is is complicated.

Like the only you saw the only thing I put on here was um essentially salt and pepper.

I uh um I like my grandma and my mom.

I learned to cook from them and they did very basic real food, real cooking.

Well, I like recipes that people are gonna see me make, and they’re gonna say, oh, I can make that easy.

And I’ve got those ingredients maybe already, or, you know, not well, I’ve never find that ingredients here those ingredients here, or that’s something way too many ingredients I would never attempt that.

So, you know, some recipes are like that and some TV recipes are like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I if it gets into more than two columns of ingredients, you lost me there.

So we um uh my employees will tell you that salt and pepper and garlic are like my my best friends, so.

I honestly think that I’m not going to smoke.

That is possibly one of the best muffins I’ve ever had.

I’m not I’m not I’m very, very serious.

it is so west and those apples in there are wonderful.

That is really, really a good a good muffin.

I think people really have to are gonna have to try both of these recipes.

Hi, I’ve got a kitchen tip for you.

um When you’re making gravies or thickening anything up, it is uh in my opinion, better to use cornstarch than it is flour because it comes out smoother.

um and the there’s no lumps in your gravies.

And then if you have anybody who has gluten intolerance issues, they can still enjoy your gravy or your potatoes or your stew or whatever you’re making because it’s not made with any flour.

Hi, I’ve got another kitchen tip for you.

When you’re making cookies, it’s super important the temperature of your shortening.

I always like to use real butter, but whether you’re using uh margarine or butter or some other type of shortening, it needs to be at room temperature.

You don’t need to leave it out all day and all night so it’s soup and you don’t wanna pull it right out of the refrigerator, so it’s too hard because room temperature butter will make a lovely, nice round cookie that’s stays moist.

And if it’s too soupy the butter is, you’re gonna have puddles, and if it’s too hard, you’re gonna have little bricks.