My Madison Bistro

When asked what his choice for his last meal would be, this was Anthony Bourdain’s pick. Well, Bourdain would have Fergus Henderson of St. John restaurant roasting his marrow bones, but marrow is surprisingly easy to prepare, though a little daunting at first if you’ve never encountered this delicacy.

Prepared with brown sugar and ancho, spread over toasted slices of baguette, marrow is a delightful marriage of sweetness, richness, spice, and crunch. The ancho and sugar will alter the color of the bones and the upper marrow a bit, but in a good way.

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Tags: ancho chili powder, baguette, bread, marrow bones

Wow. I just realized that my macarons post was my 100th post. I suppose it’s fitting that I included a more temperamental dessert in a milestone post, rather than the flop I’m posting today. I’m quite embarrassed to post the picture, as everything about the dish turned out that bad. But, flops happen. And I promised to post what I did with the leftovers of Project Chicken, so there was no getting out of this one.

I confess that I usually buy a gourmet spicy peanut sauce from a local specialty shop. The sauce is delicious, the price is decent, and I don’t have to stock 10 bottles of various Asian sauce components in my fridge. I make these sauces so rarely that the ingredients always seem to go bad before I get around to using everything up. The purchased peanut sauce, however, gets used up every time.

Well, this time I made my own sauce, following a recipe I found here. I had all of the ingredients, but I chose to forego the pasta and just do chicken with vegetables. At that point in the week, I really needed to use up that chicken, and having a bunch of leftovers was not ideal, since I wouldn’t be able to eat them anyway.

Um, I didn’t like this sauce. I only tasted peanut butter, and even though I thinned it not once, but twice, and only used some of it, it still was just way too overpowering. I’m curious as to whether anyone has a go-to spicy peanut recipe that actually tastes good…

Continue reading “Spicy Peanut Chicken and Vegetables”

Tags: chicken, peanut butter, Vegetables

I’m in love. And perhaps slightly obsessed.

I’ve caught macaron fever. I’m even posting twice in the same day, I’m that excited to tell you about my adventure.

The time had come to tackle this little treat. I’ve heard how finicky and temperamental they can be, and I’ve even experienced it first-hand. You see, this was my second attempt at macarons; the first didn’t go so well. They did develop their little feet, but I had overmixed the batter a bit, piped them too big, and underbaked them slightly. I was so afraid of doing something wrong that I ended up doing everything wrong. This time, I took everything I learned from that first attempt, and applied it to my second.

How did things go this time around? A quick look at the pictures will probably let you know that I did just fine. Not perfect, but they’ll get better with practice. I actually relied much less on instructions and just kind of went by instinct. I also went crazy with making adjustments to the remaining ingredients based on the weight of my egg whites. Better safe than sorry, right?

I haven’t been this excited to take a bite out of a treat in a really long time. They’re everything I hoped they could be, and the sweet chocolate macaron pairs perfectly with the salty peanut butter filling! Now all I want to do is make more and more macarons. I’m already thinking about flavor combinations, upcoming holidays, practicing, and more practicing. But what on earth would I do with all of those macarons?

Continue reading “Chocolate and Salted Peanut Butter Macarons”

Tags: chocolate, macarons, peanut butter

The next installment of Project Chicken involved using up the leg and thigh meat. These are by no means traditional enchiladas, but they’re fast & easy, and you can assemble everything the night before and just bake them for dinner. Served on top of a bed of lettuce, and you have a nice meal. Add a margarita, and you can even invite people over for dinner.

Continue reading “Chicken Enchiladas”

Tags: Cheese, chicken, comfort food, Mexican Food