My Madison Bistro

There are two kinds of people in this world, those who like cilantro, and those who hate it. I am a cilantro lover and as such, it’s difficult for me to understand why some people have such an aversion to it. What, exactly, is so offensive about it?

Then again, I should probably keep my mouth shut, as my food aversions list is rather long.

If you’re looking for a quick weeknight dinner, give this dish a try. If you prefer starving to cilantro, simply skip it in this dish.

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Tags: chicken, pasta, whole grain

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.

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Tags: Barefoot Contessa, scones

The first time I ever cooked butternut squash, I made this soup. And since the cookbook that contains the recipe just came out in October, you could say that I haven’t been a lifelong fan of squash. I just was never crazy about it, no matter how much butter and brown sugar it was swimming in. Flavor can’t cover up texture, and texture was where I took issue with this vegetable.

I wanted to give squash one more chance, and soup seemed the obvious choice. After all, I would be roasting the squash, then taking my immersion blender to it, thereby completely doing away with the texture issue. The result? Fabulous.

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Tags: Barefoot Contessa, Vegetables

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.

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Tags: Barefoot Contessa, Vegetables, whole grain