Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Almost two years ago, we watched a documentary about beer. And  Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales  was one of the featured breweries. They have been a favorite of ours ever since. Their flavor combinations, especially their Ancient Ales line, are outrageous. I have found them at Post No Bills ...and, then, I saw this, this week, at Whole Foods:  Midas Touch . Cheers! The Ancient Ales formulae were created from the chemical analyses of residue found on pottery and other drinking vessels from different archaeological sites. Sweet! A little archaeology and chemistry with my ales. I love it. As of 2014, I think that six such brews have been crafted, and only one - Midas Touch - is produced year round. The others are produced on a limited basis. I've only tracked down two of them. Both are spectacular. Midas Touch Tasting Notes Strong honey on the nose with strong fruit flavors and the lingering hint of yeast and saffron Food Pairing Recommendations Spicy food such as a I

Earlier this week I posed a question. And this was my social media-conversation with a friend from high school. What's on your dinner table? Jill Chicken taco casserole! Nothing you'd ever make (too easy and too many canned foods involved) but I'm pretty sure it'll be a crowd pleaser! Camilla @Jill, that sounds like something my boys would LOVE...well, not the canned part...but they love chicken tacos. What else goes in there? Jill Chicken, salsa, black beans, cream of chicken soup... then layer with cheese and tortilla chips Camilla Okay, Jill. I'll give it my own twist sometime. Maybe this weekend. I'll keep you posted. Jill Forgot to mention sour cream mixed in too. I'd love to see your version! The discussion took just a few minutes, but had me mulling over possibilities all week. And it resulted in the birth of this recipe - Camilla's Chicken Taco Casserole! I got it down to 1 can, 1 jar, and a bag of chips...not bad. ;) Ing

Pi Day is coming up. Pi Day? you ask. You know. March 14. 3/14 = 3.14159265359 or pi. Also known as a great excuse for Cam to make pie. Over the holidays we were invited to a pie tasting party. In preparation, discussions began around our dining room table:  What makes a pie a pie?  Sensibly, my precise Kitchen Elf said, "A pie has no frosting."  True . My Love declared, "It's the crust."  Okay . And my sweet, Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf asserted, "A pie has a crust...and is low to the ground."  Huh.  "You know, a cake can be tall; a pie is short." Employing all three of those criteria - no frosting, a crust, and low to the ground - a galette can qualify as a pie. So can a tart, right? I'm looking to all of you for some pie inspirations.  Feel free to link up to three pie recipes. Think sweet. Think savory. I'll post a round up in time for you to create some of them for your Pi Day celebration if you wish.

Ingredients 1 pound baby spinach, washed at least three times to remove the grit 1 medium onion, peeled and diced 1 medium tomato, diced 2 cups  homemade paneer , cubed 1/2 teaspoon black cumin seeds 1/2 teaspoon fennel pollen 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric freshly ground salt freshly ground pepper lemon juice from 1 lemon Procedure In a large saucepan, add a splash of oil and toast the cumin seeds and fennel pollen. Once they are aromatic, add the onion and cook till translucent. Stir in the tomato and cook until softened and beginning to break down. Season with turmeric. Add the triple-washed spinach to the pan. One pound look like a lot, but it shrinks as it wilts. Remember not to overcook the spinach as it will go from that gorgeous bright green to a murky olive if cooked too long. Squeeze in the juice from the lemon and if you have an immersion hand blender, use that. I don't have one, so I use a traditional blender to puree t

I have had Laurey Masterton's  The Fresh Honey Cookbook: 84 Recipes from a Beekeeper's Kitchen *  on my bookshelf for an embarrassingly long time. After my cover and article on honey -  Bee Yourself  - was published in  Edible Monterey Bay 's Summer 2013 issue, a few publishers sent me honey cookbooks to review. Storey Publishing was one of those and this is one of the books. The photos - by Johnny Autry - are vibrant and make you wish you could stab your honey-dipper straight into the scenes. And Masterton's recipes? Well, read on. I procrastinated on cooking from this book not because it wasn't inspiring, but because it was too intriguing. Is there such a thing? Yes. Precision procrastination. Is that a real thing? No, I just made that up; but after months of holding on to this book, considering the recipes, and drooling over the photos without ever taking out a pan, that's what I'm calling it. Masterton guides the reader through an entire year o

Remember this post - A Cookbook Swap and New-to-Me Bloggers from last month? I stumbled on the  Food Blogger Cookbook Swap   cohosted by Alyssa of  Everyday Maven  and Faith of  An Edible Mosaic . By participating in this event, I sent a cookbook to a (new-to-me) food blogger - Kristina of Cucina Kristina - and received a cookbook in return. Today is reveal day. If you are anything like I am, you probably have enough cookbooks to build the Great Wall of China. Okay, maybe not quite that many. But I used to pick up cookbooks anytime I went to a bookstore. Sadly, almost all of our local bookstores have disappeared; but there's always amazon. I have purchased cookbooks for single dinner parties. I have cookbooks that I have reviewed for publishers. I have received cookbooks as gifts. Some I use once; some I - blush, blush - have never used and probably will never use. So, I was tickled that I got to package up a cookbook, or two, and swap it with another foodie bl

from imdb.com This month I invited bloggers to join me for February's Food'N'Flix event to watch - and cook from -  Babette's Feast . It's a fantastic foodie flick that culminates in a haunting dinner: the titular Babette's Feast. Babette is a French refugee who is living in Denmark and working as a servant for two sisters. During this veritable parade of haute cuisine , and celebration of the sisters' father, we discover that Babette was once the head chef at Café Anglais in Paris. Babette spends her entire lottery winnings on the ingredients and wines for this dinner. When the sisters ask her when she'll be leaving them to enjoy her winnings, she reveals that she has no money left; a dinner for twelve at Café Anglais costs 10,000 Francs. I read somewhere that 10,000 Francs (in 1871) would equal about $60,000 in today's dollars, taking inflation into consideration. What a dinner! Speaking about an impressive dinner, look what the Food&

This year - 2014 - started our adventures in cheesemaking. We're not very accomplished yet, but we are trying! We've made homemade marscarpone , homemade ricotta , and homemade labneh korat (a yogurt cheese). Tonight I decided to give homemade paneer a whirl while the boys were asleep. Paneer is an Indian cheese with a a mild flavor and slightly chewy consistency. It holds its shape well and doesn't melt; so you can saute it, grill it, or crumble it into just about anything. And it's a must for classic Indian dishes such as palak paneer . One of my friends gave me one of her recipes: Paneer Pizza. "Sauté the paneer in tandoori spice, spread over flatbread, bake, then drizzle with yogurt and chopped cilantro." Yum, Priya! I can't wait to try it. Paneer is so easy to make, requiring nothing more than milk and lemon juice. I added a little bit of salt. 8 C whole milk (make sure it's not ultra-pasturized...best is raw milk, if you can f

This month the  Pass the Cookbook  crew - under the leadership of Kita, the culinary force behind  Pass the Sushi  - is cooking from Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from the Times-Picayune of New Orleans by Marcelle Bienvenu and Judy Walker. The cookbook was intended to connect people who lost their favorite family recipes when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. The recipes are assembled from local papers that people had clipped and saved throughout the years. After the hurricane, people were hunting for their saved recipes, submitted comments and questions, and other readers did their best to match up the recipes. This book is a collection of some of those. For that reason alone, it is an amazing publication.  As always in this group, we had the choice of three recipes. Our selections this round: Chicken-Sausage Jambalaya, Crawfish in Saffon Cream, or Bananas Foster Pie. I decided to adapt the crawfish option, making a Seafood in Saffron Cream. I

I was reminded tonight why we embarked on this culinary journey when the boys pulled out their atlases as soon as I announced dinner was from Saint Lucia. I remember someone commenting once - at a school meeting - that kids don't use atlases anymore. I beg to differ. My boys can't share an atlas; they bicker over who gets to use it. So they each have their own! from worldatlas.com Saint Lucia is an island nation in the Caribbean; it's considered part of the Windward Islands and gets its name Santa Lucia of Syracuse. A few fun facts... Saint Lucia is approximately 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC; It's volcanic and mountainous with some broad, fertile valleys; The first inhabitants were the Native American Arawaks. Then the Caribs invaded the island. The Spanish first arrived in the late 15th or early 16th century, but they did not establish trading posts until the 17th century; and The British gained control of the island in the early