Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Elizabeth from  The Law Student's Cookbook  is hosting  Food'N'Flix  this month. And her pick - Elf  - is one that completely escaped my radar. So, when I saw her invitation  here and heard it mentioned on NPR as a top holiday movie, I knew I had to see it. Finally. On the Screen If you haven't seen it, do. It's fun. Just imagine a human raised by elves - North Pole elves, not Lord of the Rings elves - who goes to New York to find his biological father who has no idea he exists. Oh, and add to that Will Ferrell, James Caan, and Zooey Deschanel and hilarity ensues. I was tempted to create something with the Elf Food Groups - candy, candy corn, candy canes, and syrup - but my teeth ached just thinking about that. I thought about spaghetti and meatballs, minus the maple syrup, but that's a already household staple. So, I went a different direction. The bowl of soup that Jovie (played by Zooey Deschanel) is eating when she sees Buddy (Will Ferrell) o...

This week's challenge for the  Food Matters Project inspired a dinner teeming with Asian flavors with the assigned Vietnamese-style rolls with peanut sauce as the centerpiece. So delicious! Mark Bittman describes these as "nothing more than salad wrapped in moistened rice paper." Taking that to heart, I used whatever fresh veggies I had in my fridge. What I used... spring roll wrapper / rice paper green leaf lettuce, rinsed and dried carrots, julienned cucumbers, julienned enoki mushrooms, rinsed and rootball trimmed avocados, peeled and sliced extra firm tofu, cut into long strips fresh mint, chopped fresh cilantro, chopped What I did... Submerge the rice paper in cool water until softened and pliable. It took about a minute or two per piece. I made two rolls per person. Lay the salad on the softened rice paper. I did lettuce, carrots, cucumber, enoki mushrooms, tofu, avocado, mint, and cilantro.  Fold the ends...