Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Excerpted from A Couple Cooks |  Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You Fall in Love with Real Food  by Sonja Overhiser and Alex Overhiser. Copyright © 2018. Available from Da Capo Lifelong Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. It's soup season! And the weather definitely took a turn towards the chilly side as soon as September 21st arrived. Funny how that works. Just yesterday I went to work with a scarf and boots! Okay, no comment on the lack of make-up, please. Moisturizer with sunscreen is about all that I manage most days. This is just to show you that Fall has hit on the central coast of California. So, as we head into Fall - and Sonja and Alex have launched their monthly Pretty Simple Cooking Club - I was excited by their pick of Chipotle Black Bean Soup that appears on pg. 175 of their cookbook  A Couple Cooks - Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You ...

Whenever it's Spring, I find myself cooking with lots of asparagus. And it got me thinking about hosting a Spring soup event for the Soup Saturday Swappers that is organized by Wendy of A Day on the Life on the Farm . I asked to host this month and I wrote: "Winter is loosening its grip on the world...and our produce. Let's create and share some soups that feature the darlings of Spring. Think fennel, peas, and whatever tickles your fancy." I decided to go with asparagus, but first... The Spring Soup Pots An InLinkz Link-up Ingredients 2 to 2-1/2 pounds asparagus, ends trimmed 4 Spring onions, outer layer peeled away  olive oil freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper 2 C organic chicken broth 2 T ground almonds organic lemon for garnish Procedure Preheat oven to 400F. Place the asparagus spears and Spring onions into baking pans. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 minutes. Turn the ...

Wine Pairing Weekend - #winePW - happens on the second Saturday of the month. And this month I'm hosting. "We're celebrating the new year with a new country, new varietal, or new vintner," I wrote in this month's #winePW invitation (click to read the invitation:  here ). Here's what the #WinePW Bloggers poured... These are listed alphabetically by post title and I'm excited to see new vintners, new countries, and wines from Turkey, Croatia, and even Lebanon. A New Vintner for #WinePW by  A Day in the Life on the Farm Exploring English Sparkling Wine by  Confessions of a Culinary Diva Something New for #winePW: Faire la Fête + Dinner to Go by  Pull That Cork It's Time to Wine Something New by  Dracaena Wines Lubyee Bi Lahmi + Château Musar Jeune by  Culinary Adventures with Camilla Middle Eastern Chicken Orzo and Croatian Wine by  Cooking Chat Out with the Old, In with the New by  Rockin Red Blog Wine and Dine: Tur...

Welcome to the October event for The French Winophiles, a wine-swilling, food-loving group coordinated by Christy of  Confessions of a Culinary Diva . We start with the Regions first and then move to the Appellations. The proposed schedule, based somewhat on the seasons is as follows: June 20 - Loire Valley (click for my post:  here ) July 18 - Provence or Corsica (click for my post:  here ) August 15 - Southwest (click for my post:  here ) September 19 - Languedoc-Roussillon (click for my post:  here ) October 17 - Côtes du Rhône November 21 - Bordeaux December 19 - Champagne January 16 - Burgundy February 20 - Alsace To Côtes du Rhône... Côtes du Rhône literally means 'hills of the Rhône', the river that runs through this region, stretching over 100 miles from Vienne to Avignon, with over 200,000 planted acres. You can see it on the map above, in blue, above Côte d'Azur. Divided into two main sections, Syrah is the dom...

A few months ago a friend asked if I would be willing to go in on donating a dinner to a local auction. I agreed. All I needed to do was secure the wine donations and come up with a menu and the recipes. Done! I am going to keep the menu a secret for now, but wanted to thank the donors for making this a success. I will be cooking with CSA goodies from High Ground Organics in Watsonville.... And we'll be pairing wines from Scheid Vineyards in Greenfield, Halter Ranch Vineyard in Paso Robles, and Holman Ranch in Carmel Valley. Stay tuned for the menu and recipe posts from the event which is happening tomorrow night. Very excited.

When Pia picked up our CSA boxes from High Ground Organics last week, there was rhubarb in it...and fava greens. I'm allergic to fava beans and didn't think I should risk eating the greens though they were very pretty. Pia must have been thinking the same thing because she handed me my produce and offered: "How about I take your fava greens so you don't die . I'll give you my rhubarb and you can make me a pie?!" Fine. She and Brian were leaving for their anniversary weekend, so I whipped up some portable pies in my heart-shaped springform pans.  Brian said, "Thanks, but what is she going to eat?" He didn't realize there were four pies in that box! I switched it up from my usual rhubarb pie by making a rhubarb compote and folding fresh rhubarb slices into it before spooning it into the pie crust to bake. Delicious! Yuzu-Scented  Pâte Brisée I started with my usual  Pâte Brisée  and added a splash of yuzu liqueur because I thought it wo...

This round  Deb, of  Kahakai Kitchen ,  selected  Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table  by Ruth Reichl  for our February-March 2015  Cook the Books   project. Click to see  her invitation . And you have plenty of time to join the party, if you wish. Submissions aren't due till March 30th. On the Page... I certainly know who Ruth Reichl is; she's a culinary powerhouse who headed the editorial desk - for years - at one of my favorite magazines in the world, Gourmet.  I did not, however, read her first memoir Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table . Though this book picks up where that one leaves off, I'm told, I don't think you need to read that before this. It stands alone. Let me set the scene. Ruth is just launching into her life as a restaurant critic, living in a commune of sorts on Channing Way in Berkeley and married to an artist who travels a lot. I'll admit - I almost put this book down several times...

Inspired Chef Sean Brock's episode in Mind of a Chef  (season two) when he and his pastry chef at Husk make hand pies. I've included an affiliate link for the Mind of a Chef  DVD at the bottom of this post ih case you're interested. The Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf and I decided to make hand pies for ourselves. But we opted to make a savory version with some goodies - delicata squash and lacinto kale - from our High Ground Organics CSA . I ordered some borage blossoms last week from Gourmet Sweet Botanicals   along with some shisho blossoms. And I thought they would add the perfect flavor component to these hand pies. Borage are a little bit grassy and a little bit citrusy. I was right...they were a fantastic addition to this dish. Ingredients   Hand Pie Dough 1 C butter, chilled and cubed 2 C flour 2-3 T water 2-3 T vodka Filling 2 C roasted delicata puree 1 C whole milk ricotta 1 red onion, peeled and diced 2 C chopped kale 3 T...