Culinary Adventures with Camilla

This is a sponsored post written by me in conjunction with the December #Winophiles event. Wine samples were provided for this post and this page may contain affiliate links. This month, Lynn of  Savor the Harvest , hosted the French Winophiles as we celebrate the holidays French-style. You can read her invitation:  here .  Merci beaucoup  to Michèle Piron,  Vinconnexion , and  Vignobles & Signatures ,  our generous event sponsors! While I received four beautiful bottles of French wine, for the actual French Winophiles Fête I stuck with a quintessential classic: Champagne - with a bottle from one of the event sponsors Drappier. You can read my post: A French Winophiles Fête: Foie Gras, Pain d'Épices & Champagne Drappier . But I still had a few more bottles to open and explore. Today, I'm sharing thoughts about the Domaine Cauhapé 2017 Chant des Vignes – Jurançon Sec. The Jurançon is a wine region, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, in Southwestern Fran

It's time for Fish Friday Foodies' December event.  In any case, we are a group of seafood-loving bloggers, rallied by Wendy of  A Day in the Life on the Farm , to   share fish and seafood recipes on the third Friday of the month. This month, Sue of  Palatable Pastime  is hosting as we share seafood recipes for entertaining . She wrote, "Share your recipes entertaining using fish and seafood for our December event. Any type of recipe: appetizers, mains, salads, etc. that would be great for parties or as a special holiday meal." Before I get to my recipe. Here's the rest of the #FishFridayFoodies' celebration menu... An InLinkz Link-up Making rosettes with smoked fish is an easy addition to an array of amuse-bouche plates. I am calling these 'poppies' because the black caviar reminds me of these flowers. In any case, this is hardly a recipe. But I'll give you a little write up. And, because these are so quick to ma

I love the Fantastical Food Fight coordinated by Sarah of  Fantastical Sharing of Recipes . For more information about the event, click  here . This month, she challenged us to make candy! She posted: " Our theme for the month is: CANDY. Your recipe must be a CANDY recipe. This can be hard candy, fudge, toffee, truffles, taffy, etc." I sent her a quick note back, "Just wanted to confirm this is for MAKING candy, not using already made candy, right?" Correct . Okay. Thinking cap on! I'm not a big candy fan. But I have made fudge and truffles; though I guess I'm wrong in not considering them candy. That train of thought took me to Italian Torrone and I remembered that friends had brought me some honey from Spain this summer. I have always wanted to try to make  Turrón . I found two versions - Turrón de Navidad and  Turrón de Jijona - and loved the idea of a soft nougat. That would be the latter. The honeys they gave me were Tomillo (th

Deb from  Kahakai Kitchen  is our   Cook the Books   hostess for this round (December 2018-January 2019); she chose   Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers by Sara Ackerman .*  You can read Deb's invitation:  here .  I definitely needed an easy read this month. Between life, work, school, and the holidays, this was a great book to look forward to at the end of the day.  And, despite the craziness of the season, I carved out time to read as I crawled into bed each night. While I am not lucky enough - like host Deb and author Sara - to live in Hawaii, I do have ties there. My dad grew up on Oahu - after his family immigrated from the Philippines - and I spent many, many summers there as a kid. Jake and I honeymooned on Kauai and went back with both sides of our family a few years later.  My parents have taken the boys to Oahu - to see where Nonno lived, where he went to school, and to experience some of our favorite haunts. Can you say 'Malasadas from Leonard's'?!? Yep

It's the end of the road for the #KitchenMatrixCookingProject. We've been working out way through Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix*  for over fifty weeks. First, let me start off by thanking my #KitchenMatrixCookingProject gals - Wendy of  A Day in the Life on the Farm  and Karen of  Karen's Kitchen Stories  - who   cooked along with me for a year. You can read more about our project  here . But, I can tell you that committing to a year-long cooking project is no easy task and these ladies were fantastic. So, thank you, Wendy and Karen. I so appreciate your dedication to this with nothing more than my gratitude in return! You are both amazing. Second, I wanted to shine the spotlight on some of my favorite weeks of cooking. There were so many fun ingredients, but these were the three that I enjoyed the most! Whole Duck Cassolet :   I loved this week because it definitely got me out of my comfort zone...and it was delicious! Click here for the recipe. Sprin

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Sweets & Treats, LorAnn, and Dixie Crystals,  #ChristmasSweetsWeek sponsors.  I received complimentary product for the purpose of review and recipe development,  but all opinions are honest and  they are my own.  This page may contain affiliate links. Well, we're at the end of #ChristmasSweetsWeek! Much gratitude to Terri of  Love and Confections  and Christie of  A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures  for coordinating this amazing event. Not only did they keep all of us bloggers organized, but they lined up some great sponsors. Please visit  my kick-off post  for information about the prizes and to enter the giveaway. You may also enter at the bottom of this post. Good luck! And now for the final line-up of Christmas Sweets... Beverages  Eggnog Martini from Everyday Eileen Frozen White Hot Chocolate from Jonesin' For Taste Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate from Rants From My Crazy Kitchen Salted Caramel White Ho

This is a sponsored post written by me in conjunction with the December #Winophiles event. Wine samples were provided for this post and this page may contain affiliate links. This month, Lynn of Savor the Harvest , is hosting the French Winophiles as we celebrate the holidays French-style. You can read her invitation: here . Merci beaucoup  to Michèle Piron,  Vinconnexion , and  Vignobles & Signatures ,  our generous event sponsors! I received four beautiful bottles of French wine and will share all of them in turn, but for this French Winophiles Fête, I'm sticking with a quintessential classic: Champagne. This bottle from one of the event sponsors Drappier. There were more than a few discussions of what makes something 'French-style'. And you can see the outcome. If you are reading this early enough and are so inclined, join us on a live Twitter chat: Saturday, December 15th at 8am Pacific. Or search for the hashtag - #Winophiles - and read all the posts