Just a quick note to let you know that my blog has a new home: My Madison Bistro. For an index of recipes, simply click on this link: Recipes
Here is just a sampling of the recipes on the new site – click on any of the links to take you directly to the blog post and recipe.
Weekends with Julia: Brown-Braised Onions
Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream, aka the best cupcake I’ve ever had in my life!
Weekends with Julia: Beef Braised in Red Wine
Categories: Breakfast · Dessert · Holiday · Low-Carb · Main Course · Side Dish · Vegetarian
Tagged: Barefoot Contessa, blackberries, blueberries, braised onions, cake, Cheese, chocolate, comfort food, cupcakes, Julia Child, kiwi, lemon, lime, mushrooms, pasta, pastry cream, peanut butter, pot roast, pudding, raspberries, rice, strawberries, tomatoes, Vegetables
I have a confession. I pretty much refused to eat mac and cheese until I got to college. Yes, I was such a picky eater when I was young that I refused to eat what was a staple to most kids. And when I say mac and cheese, I refer to the stuff that comes out of a box labeled Kraft.
My love of cheese took me beyond the box of Kraft, though Kraft still has its place every now and then. This particular Barefoot Contessa recipe is excellent, though you may want to ignore the “serves 2″ part of the recipe, or you will likely be clutching your stomach in pain after dinner. However, for presentation purposes, I do still love to make it in the individual gratin dishes.
Categories: Main Course · Vegetarian
Tagged: Barefoot Contessa, Cheese, comfort food, pasta
My fascination with this bread was very sudden, and it seemed to come out of nowhere. I’m not really concerned with the origin of my fascination; I’m happy that it hit me over the head that fateful day, because it is now one of my favorite breads. It’s great on its own with a little jam and a steaming mug of coffee, or as a weekend breakfast of French toast, or even as croutons or bread pudding to use up stale bread. Of course, due to the richness of the bread, it’s not one I make often, but it is such a treat to have now and then.
When I first made brioche, I didn’t have a stand mixer. I tried making the dough with my hand-held mixer. As I started adding that third cup of flour, the motor began to smoke, and the mixer managed to inhale bread dough before it sputtered and died.
Categories: Breakfast · Side Dish · Vegetarian
Tagged: bread, comfort food
At some point during the past year, scones bypassed bagels and muffins as my favorite “treat” breakfast for a lazy weekend morning. Often on my way home from the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings I would stop to pick up a blueberry scone.
Then travesty struck. I discovered that my favorite blueberry scone had an ingredient list that included sugar, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup. In a scone?!?! Scones hardly have any sugar in the entire batch, yet this place seemed to think a scone needed three different sweeteners?
So Panera, your scones have been banished from my breakfast menu forever.
That presented a slight problem though. The biggest reason I liked stopping for a scone was so I could get just one. I don’t want a big batch of scones, they really aren’t any good the second day (or third, or fourth…). I decided to roll out my dough, cut my scones, and wrap each individually in plastic wrap. They are all now happily residing in my freezer, so I can bake them off on weekend mornings when I need my fix.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Categories: Breakfast · Vegetarian
Tagged: Barefoot Contessa, scones
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that whole grains are the current “it” food. I have no idea if they are the wonder food they are purported to be, as science doesn’t always have the best track record in the area of nutrition (remember margarine? low-fat diets?). However, I figure that eating a variety of foods close to its natural state is probably a good idea, so I’ll go along with it. Enter wheatberries.
Ina Garten’s Wheatberry Salad is the perfect “made-ahead” dish because it tastes better the longer it sits. I love the versatility of this salad, because you can of course serve it on its own as a side dish, or you can add a scoop or two to a large main dish salad.
Categories: Salad · Side Dish · Vegetarian
Tagged: Barefoot Contessa, Vegetables, whole grain
I’ve spent the past couple of years searching for the perfect blueberry muffin recipe. It couldn’t be too sweet, too dense, too cake-like, not sweet enough, and it had to be interesting. By interesting I mean that there has to be some quality that has you coming back for more. How I missed this recipe before, especially when it comes up on the first page of a google search, is beyond me. But the important thing is that I’ve found it now, and I’m never letting it go.
Categories: Breakfast · Dessert · Vegetarian
Tagged: blueberries, muffins
I’m always trying to figure out ways to make vegetables more interesting. Before today, I thought I only liked cauliflower in its raw state. When cooked, to me it was mushy and smelled like a gym sock.
I reminded myself that the roasting process brings out sweeter flavors in vegetables, and can change a food from so-so to delicious. And if other vegetables can taste absolutely sublime when roasted, perhaps cauliflower could too.
Categories: Gluten Free · Low-Carb · Side Dish · Vegetarian
Tagged: Vegetables
Fettucine Alfredo is one of those dishes that is very simple to make, yet it doesn’t always turn out quite the way I want it to. So I decided to follow a recipe.
What a mistake!
There are apparently people out there who do enjoy lemon cream pasta (which is what this dish tasted like), but I am not one of them. At first I wasn’t sure how this recipe could garner 4 stars, but then I thought back to some other ratings I’ve seen on Food Network’s website. Let’s see, a number of people have given a recipe five stars without ever having made it (because it looked good!), others completely change the recipe and like the results (five stars for the chef’s version!), and I’m pretty sure at some point someone gave the recipe five stars because they liked her hair that day.
Categories: Main Course · Quick Meal · Vegetarian
Tagged: Cheese, lemon, pasta
Last night, I had a lovely dinner planned. It would be simple, fast, and delicious, a toned-down version of another dish I love. It’s one of those dishes that has few ingredients, but they all just blend so well together…the sum of the components is so far superior to the individual ingredients.
So what happened, you ask? Well, allow me to back up a step. I was out of town this weekend, and I didn’t restock my kitchen when I got back. I thought the food I had remaining from last week would still be fine…but it wasn’t. I came home to moldy grape tomatoes and spotted basil. ONE leaf of basil looked good yet, so I tore off that leaf and thought about what I could do with it, given what I had to work with.
Categories: Appetizer · Quick Meal · Vegetarian
Tagged: Cheese, pesto, pita, Pizza
If you keep a stash of cheese and crackers or good bread in your house, you will always have an easy lunch or dinner option. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a meal consist of cheese, whole grain crackers or bread, and some fruit or a salad. When it’s dinner, I’ll throw in a glass of wine.
Today, I really, really wanted salt. Needed salt. Usually I’m a sugar kind of girl, but about once every month or two the salt craving hits me over the head. I’ve found it’s easiest to simply indulge it right away, before it’s done too much damage: think going through the drive-thru for some fries or picking up fish and chips for dinner. Yes, cheese and crackers seems like a much safer option.
Categories: Appetizer · Quick Meal · Salad · Vegetarian
Tagged: Cheese, Crackers, Vegetables
