My Madison Bistro

When I was in 6th grade, I was obsessed with France. Naturally, when it came time to write a report on any country of our choosing, I picked France.

This was a very important report, mostly because we were really supposed to be “learning” how to do research. We got graded every step of the way.

I tend to be a research junkie now, and remembering my 6th grade project made me realize I’ve always been a junkie. Most of my classmates turned in about 25-30 note cards. I turned in more than 200.

My classmates turned in a one or two page outline; mine was over thirty pages. My finished report was about fifty pages, whereas everyone else’s was around seven or eight pages.

I think I scared my teacher.

Continue reading “Baguettes”

Tags: bread, comfort food

My grandma is quite proud of her pies.

In fact, she probably makes the best pie in several area towns, if not more. She still makes her crust from scratch, though she did give up using lard. A shame, if you ask me, but it’s pretty difficult these days to track down lard. It’s certainly been quite awhile since my grandma was able to get lard by the gallon. The containers she had looked just like the gallon containers of ice cream she bought. When I was a kid I tried to swipe a spoonful and discovered it definitely was NOT ice cream; never again did I confuse the two plastic buckets.

Short of making my own lard, I stick to all butter pie crusts. These days Grandma uses shortening, and though I know my pies are not on the same level as hers, I have figured out how to get a very flaky crust, courtesy of very cold butter, careful mixing, and a little vinegar.

My favorite pie, hands-down, is apple. It graces the table each year for Thanksgiving. It’s also the first seasonal autumn dessert that I make. My number one apple pie eater always requests a crumb topping – it’s now second nature for me to only make enough dough for a single crust pie. And really, I have to confess, it’s super easy, as long as you don’t mind getting the mixture under your nails.

Continue reading “Apple Pie”

Tags: apples, autumn, pastry, pie

I told my mom last week that I craved beef stew, but I’m not entirely sure she believed me. Why? This meal was on my “avoid” list as a kid. The only reason I started eating it was probably because it was easy to make in a slow cooker when I first started having to fend for myself in the kitchen. That was back in the days where I had to cook a pot roast for about 13 hours, 18 if the roast was big. Thankfully, I didn’t give up on using slow cookers, I just got a new one.

Nowadays, even though I adore my Dutch oven, when it comes to beef stew, I’m faithful to my slow cooker. However, for this recipe, you’re still going to put in about an hour or so of prep before you can even think of letting your slow cooker do the work. Why? Because whatever you do, don’t skip the step of dredging the beef and browning it – unless, of course, you enjoy vegetables and chunks of beef in a bowl of chicken stock. As obvious as it sounds, I learned that lesson the hard way.

Continue reading “Beef Stew”

Tags: Barefoot Contessa, beef, comfort food

For a reason I’ve yet to understand, cinnamon rolls recently became my nemesis*. How is it that I could make perfect croissants from scratch on my first attempt, chocolate and raspberry macarons, brioche, a boule…yet cinnamon rolls and sticky buns eluded me? In two of three attempts, I ended up with little hockey pucks, and in the third attempt (my pizza dough attempt), my rolls “unrolled.”

Really?

So, I did what any usually-confident baker would do. I threw out the recipes and went my own way. I used my go-to brioche recipe, and simply divided it in half. You can use the other half to make a loaf of bread, brioche rolls, or another pan of cinnamon rolls.

*Update: I discovered the reason no recipe for sticky buns recently worked for me: my oven timer had a low battery, resulting in some very inaccurate time-keeping!

Continue reading “Sticky Buns”

Tags: brioche, caramel, cinnamon, comfort food