My Madison Bistro

Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme. The French name sounds so much prettier, does it not? After wandering around the Internet a bit this week, I saw Deb’s creation of Coq au Vin over at Smitten Kitchen. I’ve been wanting to make that dish for awhile now, but for this particular occasion, I was looking for more of a one pot wonder.

Off the shelf came Julia, and I started looking through the chapter of casserole-roasted chicken and settled on Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme. I had my hesitations, however. You see, I’m not all that crazy about bacon. I know some people consider that blasphemy, but I stand by my words. (I did Atkins for a year and ate enough bacon to cover a lifetime, ok?) Bacon had probably held me back from trying more of Julia’s recipes (including the coq au vin), but that’s all changed now.

The woman had a way with food, that’s for sure. Or maybe it’s the “boil the bacon” technique, which is supposed to remove some of the smoky/salty taste. I enjoyed the more delicate hint of bacon, but if you want to be hit over the head with bacon flavor, you may want to skip the boiling step. If that doesn’t change your mind, there’s always the look of simmering bacon. It’s absolutely disgusting, and if I didn’t place 100% trust in Julia, I likely would have given up at this point and just roasted the chicken.

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Tags: bacon, chicken, potatoes

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.

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Tags: Vegetables

I became intrigued by Red Velvet Cake after watching an episode of Throwdown (one of Bobby Flay’s shows) a couple of years back. This was right around the time I was plotting to take out Sprinkles with my own cupcakes, so intrigue soon turned into borderline obsession.

I made red velvet cake a few times over the past couple of years, mostly when the color matched the holiday. At the time, I was set on using butter in my cupcakes, and I sought out recipes for red velvet cake that used butter, rather than oil. Over and over again, I was not all that happy with the results (too dense, a little dry).

A couple of things happened over the past two weeks that had me rethinking the butter thing. First, I watched an old episode of Good Eats that talked about chiffon cupcakes, and how the original recipe came from someone looking for a lighter-textured cupcake…which was achieved by using oil, not butter. Second, I decided to test-drive Terri Wahl’s recipe from the Throwdown episode. Finally, I was reminded of my red velvet fascincation when I saw Nicole’s recipe for red velvet cupcakes on Pinch My Salt, and I decided to revisit this dessert. Terri’s recipe reviews were mixed; some thought the cupcakes were overly greasy, others said the cupcake papers absorbed excess oil just fine. I decided to take my chances, and oh my, am I glad that I did!

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Tags: cupcakes

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.

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Tags: Cheese, lemon, pasta