Culinary Adventures with Camilla

These are easy to make and showcase the late summer's bounty of peppers. I had a few  Corno di Toro  peppers from my  High Ground Organics  CSA and some mini sweet bell peppers. You'll see this jar on my pickle bar this weekend. Ingredients 3/4 C white vinegar 3/4 C water 3 T organic coconut sugar 1 T salt (I used some large-grained Monterey Bay Garlic Sea Salt ) 3 cloves black garlic (click to read an intro to black garlic ) 2 C sliced peppers Procedure Place all of the ingredients together in a medium saucepan. Bring everything to a boil. Remove from the heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Spoon the peppers into a sterilized jar. Pour the liquid over the top of the peppers. Seal the jars and refrigerate until ready to eat. These will keep for approximately 2 weeks. Let come to room temperature before serving.

Another main dish I cooked for Brian's Game of Thrones birthday lunch : honeyed fowl. And I didn't want to just serve chicken, so I opted for duck and Cornish game hens. I considered quail, too, but realized I would need about 50 quail to feed our hungry troops. The duck was easy. I adapted my Maple-Syrup Glazed Duck by simply swapping out local, raw honey for the maple syrup during the last 10 minutes of cooking. Easy peasy. I served it with a Pinot Noir reduction on the side. I haven't made Cornish game hens in about a decade. I don't know why. It just doesn't occur to me to purchase them. However, after the reception they received, I will definitely make them again. 2 Cornish game hens 5 lemons 2 clementines hickory salt - enough to rub the birds inside and out 5 T butter, melted honey - enough to drizzle over the top Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Take any innards from the hen cavity. Rinse, dry, and rub with hickory salt.  When your birds...

Remember how I neglected to take photos of our finished Roasted Duck with Hachiya Persimmon Glaze on Thanksgivukkah? Arrrgh. I never do that, but I was in a rush. So, I decided on a do-over. Sort of. Of course, I had to tweak it a bit. This time I did a simple maple syrup drizzle with hickory sea salt. The basic technique: 4 hours at 300 degrees, glaze, then finish it at 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes. Here's a more detailed how-to...u nwrap the bird and remove all of the giblets from the duck's cavity.  When your duck is empty, rinse it under cold water. Pat it dry with paper towels. Sprinkle the cavity with some salt. I used freshly ground hickory sea salt from the   Monterey Bay Salt Company . With a sharp knife, score a diamond pattern into the duck skin on the breast. Slice very carefully - you want to cut through most of the fat without cutting into the meat. As luck would have it, a duck’s layer of fat is fairly thick. So this process is relatively easy ...

I don't know about you, but "salt" and "processed" are inextricably linked in my mind. But a few months ago Bob Kirkland invited me to visit  Monterey Bay Salt Company 's salt house at The Carmel Valley Ranch...to see how he harvests salt from the waters of our Bay. And I realized that salt, made like this, is just about as pure as it gets. Sea Water + Sun + Wind = Sea Salt To extract the salt, Bob heads out about a mile into the deeper waters of the Bay. Using a deep siphon, he draws water from a hundred feet down in the water column, where the water is pure and fresh. Water is placed into troughs in the salt houses where the  sea water evaporates naturally from the heat of the sun and the drying effects of the wind blowing through the structures. As water begins to evaporate the salt begins to take shape.  Over a period of time, salt crystals float on the pool surface. The first salt formed is a flaky, flat Fleur de Sel. Once the Fl...

What do you do on a Friday evening when the air is still sweltering and it's been a long week? You definitely don't feel like cooking, right? So, I set my grill-master to work. All I had to do for dinner was toss some lettuce into a salad and uncork a bottle of wine. It was the perfect night to dine poolside. I had a jar of garlic-salt from my visit to one of the Monterey Bay Salt Company salt houses , but you can use any sea salt and minced or crushed garlic.  Rub the mixture on a Frenched rack of lamb and let sit for at least 10 minutes before grilling. Grill till desired doneness. Once cooked, slice the rack into separate pieces - with the bone like a lollipop stick - and serve.

A few months ago I drove over to the salt house at Carmel Valley Ranch. Bob Kirkland of The Monterey Bay Salt Company   invited me to visit, showed me around, explained how he collects deep-sea water and evaporates it in solar greenhouses until flakes of salt form and can be harvested, and gave me some samples of his salt to try. I'll detail his process more when I write a piece for WE Cooperative 's newsletter! But I cooked with one of his salt-spice blends tonight, so I figured I'd share some photos of the salt being harvested.