Culinary Adventures with Camilla

No real recipe here, just some photos of Christmas presents that the boys received from their cousin Charley. These are FUN...and we like to play with our food. *This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the book or item of your choice.

Several months ago, Quirk Books mailed me a review copy of Melissa Barlow's Noodlemania! 50 Playful Pasta Recipes .* I had agreed to review it because my boys were on a huge homemade pasta kick. They had rallied together for a pasta machine and are quite adept with it; they are the Pasta-Making Manns . They even had a "roll-off" with friends for a birthday party. It was Team Linguine v. Team Fettucine . But I put it in the wrong stack of books and completely forgot about it. Yikes. Sorry! Melissa Barlow's  Noodlemania! 50 Playful Pasta Recipes   is heavy on the fun factor. Super duper fun. Like play with your food fun. Vivid colors and cutesy drawings grace the pages of the cookbook. And the interspersed Fun Facts are a kick. Did you know that the average American eats 20 pounds of pasta in a year while the average Italian eats 60 pounds of pasta in a year?!? Or that noodles are one of the world's most popular foods, and scientists have found noodles dating b...

 Bol Renverse (translated as Upside Down Bowl) is a popular Mauritian dish with Chinese roots. It's really versatile. You can add any vegetables you want and you can use any meat that you want. I found recipes that used cabbage; I had chard. And the boys were reading about the religious breakdown of Mauritius and noted that Hindus don't eat beef while Muslims don't eat pork. So, we went with chicken. 2 C cooked sticky rice 3 chicken thighs, deboned, deskinned, and thinly sliced 1 Spring onion, trimmed and thinly sliced 4-5 shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced 1 bunch of chard, thinly sliced 3 carrots, cut into coins 1 egg per person Cooking: (1) Make a stir-fry with all of the ingredients except the rice and eggs. Season with soy sauce and thicken, if desired, with a little bit of flour or cornstarch. (2) Beat the eggs with a splash of water or milk and cook into a flat omelette. Now here's the fun part: assembling your bol... 1. In a small serving bowl, l...