Culinary Adventures with Camilla

I really wasn't cognizant of how much the boys motivated me to cook - multiple dishes, appetizers, and even desserts. Now that it's just me and Jake, a salad has sufficed for dinner and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was all I made for lunch the day after we dropped off R. Yikes. I am in need of empty nest cooking motivation! Jake wanted to invite a departing co-worker over for dinner and it was a great reason for me to create multiple dishes in one evening. It turns out the friend never showed up - he had broken his foot! - so we had lots of leftovers and I delivered dinner to my parents the following day. The last time Andrés came over for dinner, I served a Kimbap Sushi Hybrid along with Hawaiian Saimin. When I asked Jake what I should make, he said... Butter Chicken Done. Here's  a previously posted Butter Chicken recipe .  Palak Paneer Whenever I make Indian food, my favorite is Palak Paneer . But for the centerpiece of the table, I decide to make a biriyani. Us...

I don't remember when I ordered this book - Serving Crazy with Curry: A Novel by Amulya Malladi* - but I read it this week as a diversion from thinking about the heavy responsibility of re-opening a school in the middle of this on-going pandemic. That is a tale for another time... On the Page I wanted to like  Serving Crazy with Curry  more than I did. The characters were initially interesting and reminded me very much of some families I knew when I was in college...at the same place Shobha attended. (Go, Bears!) The parents were immigrants from India; the kids were either American-born or very Americanized. And the clashes of the cultures were palpable in both my memories and this novel. In the book, Devi is ravaged by immense pressure to marry and become a traditional Indian wife. Her sister, Shobha, had an arranged marriage and, from the outside, has a charmed life. She's a CEO of a company in Silicon Valley with a husband who is a professor at Stanford.  So, Devi dec...

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of  Le Creuset . All opinions are my own. You can read about how I ended up with these lovely mini cocottes from  Le Creuset  in this post: Utility and Beauty . As soon as I opened up the box and my Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf saw the cocottes, he squealed, "I'm going to make biriyani in those!!" Okay. A couple of years ago, when the Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf and I were watching an episode from the second season of  Mind of a Chef,  we watched Chef April Bloomfield make lamb biriyani with Chef Stevie Parle. Here's a link to the  Venison Biriyani   on his website. We loved the presentation with the naan on top of the pots. We've been making it that way every since. Beef Biriyani Quick Note: This recipe was made over a period of two evenings. On the first, we seasoned the meat and made the curry which cooked for over three hours. On the second, we assembled the pots, baked, and en...