My Madison Bistro

A couple of years ago, I had a craving for a hot fudge sundae. But not any old hot fudge sundae, you see, I had to have ice cream topped with my mom’s hot fudge. I *kind of* remembered the ingredients and amounts, but not really.

What I definitely knew was that my mom’s recipe used evaporated milk. So I searched the internet for a hot fudge recipe using evaporated milk.

All I could find was recipes using half and half or heavy cream.

So I called my mom. She didn’t answer. I don’t recall if my mom had a cell phone at that point, but even if she did, it was almost always on vibrate in those days, so she wouldn’t have heard it anyway. And besides, I needed hot fudge sauce right then! So I used a recipe similar to what I thought my mom used and was gravely disappointed.

It. Tasted. All. Wrong.

Continue reading “Hot Fudge Cookie Sundae”

Tags: chocolate, comfort food, cookies

One Saturday, many years ago, I had a craving for broccoli cheese soup. But not any old soup would do; on this particular day it had to be from Panera.

At the time, the closest Panera was about two miles away, not a big deal, right? I arrived towards the end of the lunch rush only to discover they had run out of soup. At 12:30. On a Saturday.

So I did what any sane person with a craving did: I left and continued my search for soup.

I jumped in my car, got on the highway, and drove a few miles to the next town, where I knew there to be another Panera. At this point, I didn’t even want to consider what I’d do should they run out of soup – I wasn’t even sure where the next closest Panera was, but I was desperate enough to find out, I have to admit.

“Continue reading “Broccoli Cheddar Soup”

Tags: broccoli, Cheese, comfort food

I was flipping through old issues of Bon Appetit when I spied a colorful, playful looking green cupcake topped with a mound of icing. To say it looked delicious was a gross understatement.

But would it really taste as good as it looked? Only one way to find out. . .

Frankly, I think it’s better. I made a changes to the recipe based on ingredients I had on hand, as well as just my own experience making cupcakes (Remember when I was determined to come up with a recipe better than Sprinkles? I made so many cupcakes back then that I don’t think twice about playing around with cake ingredients anymore.)

These cupcakes remind me of lime sherbet, which I had a LOT of this summer. It was just incredibly hot and humid, and lime sherbet was so very refreshing. And though I’m happy to see the extreme heat and humidity gone, these cupcakes were my little homage to the passing of summer and sherbet.

Continue reading

Tags: cream cheese frosting, cupcakes, key lime

We all have a quick go-to dish to make when we’re tired, and we wish dinner would just make itself. This pasta recipe is by far my favorite, probably because I almost always have the ingredients on hand. Oh, and by the way, it’s even better when you have some leftover chicken to throw on top.

Continue reading “Mushroom and Garlic Pasta

Tags: comfort food, everyday food, garlic, mushrooms, parmesan