Culinary Adventures with Camilla

One of my good friends makes amazing butter chicken. Really outstanding. It's sort of legendary in our circle of friends.  D will come home, gushing that his friend - her son - brought butter chicken for lunch. In the lunchroom, her butter chicken holds the highest value. And K leverages it well in their mid-day food bartering. "I think you need to give me one more strawberry since it is butter chicken." She even brought some over last year on April 26th which is Jake's birthday and he opted for that instead of the dinner I had planned. No worries...I have thick skin. And, over the years, all of us have asked for her recipe. She finally assented and printed out copies for us in June. It has taken me this long to actually make it. I bought the chicken this weekend, but time got away from me. Then, yesterday, I swore that I wasn't going to turn on the stove - it was 95 degrees in Monterey - but the boys insisted. This is my version with slight ...

Summer’s Best Potluck Dishes Memorial Day kicks off summer. Some kids are already out of school; mine aren't...not quite yet. But summer means cookouts on the beach and lots of fun, casual potlucks. Often my husband will drag our lil' grill out to the beach and friends will just bring whatever they want to throw on the grill and a dish to share. Today the Sunday Supper Movement tastemakers are sharing their BEST recipes for summer gatherings! T.R. Crumbley of  Gluten Free Crumbley  is hosting. Appetizers Calamari salad with fennel and avocado by Caroline’s Cooking Coronation Chicken Deviled Eggs by Food Lust People Love Creamy Ranch Tortilla Pinwheels with Roasted Red Peppers by Dizzy Busy and Hungry Roasted Corn Salsa by Casa de Crews Walnut Grapes by Eat, Drink and Be Tracy Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Mint by April Golightly Sides and Salads Amish Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad by My World Simplified Antipasto Pasta Salad...

It's time for Group B's  Secret Recipe Club   October reveal. This month I was assigned to   Searching for Spice , penned by Corina .  Corina shares that Searching for Spice began as a way of recording some of her favorite recipes and to have a place where she could easily find those dishes when she wanted to make them again. I think we all use our blogs that way! Very convenient...except when you're offline somewhere. Some of her favorite recipes are curries, stir fries and spicy salads. And she loves Indian, Mexican, North African, Thai and Chinese food. Gotta love that. I chuckled when I read that she refers to her kids as 'Little Miss Spice' and 'Master Spice.' Mine are 'The Precise Kitchen Elf' and 'The Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf.' I think all of our kids are going to be fabulous cooks with all the time they're logging in the kitchen! Speaking of kids...while mine are not picky eaters, they both really don't c...

While I'm working on a story, the subject invades every aspect of my life - from the jewelry I'm wearing to the books I'm reading. So, beer has been on my mind. I got my hands on The Craft Beer Cookbook by Jacquelyn Dodd and started making a grocery list. I started with her Porter-Braised Pulled Pork Sandwiches with IPA Jalapeno Slaw. Her recipe called for 6 cloves of garlic; my attitude - if 6 is good, 10 is better! And she used pork shoulder; I had pork loin roast. Ingredients 2-3 pound pork loin roast 10 cloves of garlic, peeled 2 T sea salt 2 T organic coconut sugar 1 t freshly ground black pepper 1 t smoked paprika 2 t ground coffee 1/2 t chili powder 2 T olive oil 1 bottle porter beer 1 C organic chicken broth Procedure Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Using a sharp knife, pierce the roast, making ten 2" holes evenly spaced throughout the meat. Push a peeled clove of garlic into each hole until the garlic is no longer visible. ...

This week  Sandra of Meadows Cooks  picked our Bittman recipe for the week: Japanese-Spiced Roasted Beets. Here's  what the creative cookers made  (look in the comments section). Clad only in a tanktop and shorts, with my boys splashing outside in the pool, turning on the oven was the last thing I wanted to to this afternoon. So, I opted for a Japanese-Spiced Beet Salad instead. 2-3 beets, scrubbed, dried, and julienned 1 celery root, peeled and julienned 1 C organic wild arugula 1 t toasted sesame oil 2 t olive oil 1 t rice wine vinegar dash of chili powder splash of soy sauce freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper zest from 1 lemon sesame seeds for garnish Place the beets, celery root, and arugula in a large mixing bowl. In a cruet - of just a mason jar with a lid - place the sesame oil, olive oil, vinegar, soy sauce, chili powder, sea salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Shake to emulsify. Toss into the beet mixture until completely coa...