Culinary Adventures with Camilla

  This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of  Melissa's Produce in conjunction with #FreakyFruitsFriday . I received complimentary product for the purpose of review and recipe development, but all opinions are honest and they are my own.  This page may contain affiliate links. Dragon fruits look really cool. Here's a brief introduction to the dragon fruit . I received several dragon fruit from Melissa's Produce* in preparation for an upcoming #FreakyFruitsFriday event. Starting this Friday - and for two subsequent Fridays - a group of bloggers will be sharing posts that utilize the 'Freaky Fruits' line from Melissa's. Reviews at my table are usually mixed. "They are cool looking, but they don't taste like anything really." That sentiment seemed to be mirrored by several of my friends. After I posted a photo of them, I got: Well there’s another fruit I’ve never tasted in my life—gonna have to go get one and check it out. ...

Here we are with the second post for October in our Kitchen Matrix Cooking Project. You can read more about that  here . This month, I picked the recipes and we're going with Meatballs + 4 Ways this week. Bittman suggests Parmesan Meatballs, Pork and Shrimp Meatballs, Chicken Tikka Masala Meatballs, and Spicy Cumin Meatballs. I very nearly didn't have a post because I didn't plan correctly and we were out of town at a robotics competition this weekend. But I had some ground duck. So, yesterday afternoon, I whipped up some duck meatballs and we served it with "the usual chard." Easy Sunday lunch! I am definitely going to circle back to this matrix and try the pork and shrimp meatballs. They would be delicious in a Vietnamese sandwich! Here are the other Kitchen Matrix Cooking Project meatballs... An InLinkz Link-up Ingredients 1 C soy sauce 1 C mirin 1/4 C organic dark brown sugar 8 ounces ground duck freshly ground salt fres...

After a quick hike this morning, the boys and I ran into Whole Foods for a few ingredients. While I grabbed a few quince, I heard the boys arguing about bitter greens. R claimed, "Kale tastes like it should be poisonous." What!?? Whose child are you?! D piped up, "Yeah, whose child are you? Kale is the best." They talked about what makes food bitter and how it's a defensive strategy for plants. Then they proceeded to rank greens in terms of their bitterness: mustard greens, kale, chard, spinach, and collard greens. I didn't pay attention to the ranking. I think people surrounding them were both shocked and amused at the conversation. In the end, they walked over and plunked two bunches of rainbow chard in the basket. "We agreed on chard, Mom," they informed me. Fine. First, I pickled the stems. That's a recipe for another day. Second, I yelled back into their rooms. "How am I cooking the chard?" The usual char...

I originally found a recipe for Cullen Skink when I was researching nutmeg recipes for my Spice It Up! class. But, looking at timing - only an 85 minute class - was not enough to do it justice. So, I skipped it for the dozen kiddos and made it for my family for dinner with Salt Bread. 'Red book worthy!' it was declared by two of Mann boys, after the first taste. It was the big one and the middle one, in case you were wondering; the little one reserved judgment. And I have say, it was tasty. Anyway...to the recipe...because this soup is amazingly delicious! The name of this rich soup comes from the fishing village of Cullen, in Northern Scotland. "Skink" is a soup made originally from a shin of beef; it is sometimes called Smoked Haddock Chowder.  1 leek, trimmed and thinly sliced 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and finely diced 1 onion, diced 2 shallots, diced pat of butter splash of olive oil 4 potatoes, washed and diced 2 pieces of smoked trout (I...

It's  Pass the Cookbook  time again...this was all started by Kita, the culinary force  Pass the Sushi blog . This month we had the option of cooking one of three recipes from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook  by Deb Perelman - Cheddar Swirl Breakfast Buns, Tomato Scallion Shortcakes with Whipped Goat Cheese, or S'mores Layer Cake. I opted to do a twist on her shortcakes; goat cheese is verboten. Bleu is fine, sheeps' milk is fine. But I use goat cheese and they wrinkle their little noses with disdain. I'll expand their palates eventually. For now, I'll respect their 'no goat' preference. Ugly Tomato-Scallion Shortcakes with Parmesan Cream Adapted from Deb Perelman's The Smitten Kitchen For these, I opted to make drop biscuits - instead of rolled - and swapped out the whipping cream for a heartier sour cream. All three boys have this a thumbs up! Success. Biscuits: 2 C + 2 T white whole wheat flour (plus some for dusting) 2 T bak...

When we were headed down the coast yesterday, I turned on the radio and was horrified to hear Christmas music. Already?! Well, Turkey Day was over. And when we came back up the coast at the end of the day, there were Christmas decorations hanging from the street lamps. Really. But it got me thinking about gingerbread. So, this morning, I used the last of my pumpkin puree and made four mini loaves of pumpkin gingerbread for breakfast. The "triple" ginger part = ground ginger + candied ginger + ginger syrup. This is not for the faint of palate! 3 C white whole wheat flour 2 t baking soda 3 t ground ginger 1 t ground cinnamon 1/2 t ground nutmeg 2 C pumpkin purée 1 C butter, softened 1 C organic dark brown sugar 1/2 C unsulphered molasses 1/2 C ginger syrup 4 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup candied ginger chips/chunks Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease your baking pans; I used my mini loaf baking stones. In a large mixing bowl beat togeth...

We are wrapping up the Hs of the world - in our Cooking Around the World adventure - with a simple Honduran dinner. 'Simple' because we are only making one thing: nacatamales . Nacatamales are traditionally served at Christmas time, but I loved that they are steamed in banana leaves instead of corn husks. So, off we went to the Mexican market for banana leaves and Salvadorean cream. And, because we are short on time, I made some adaptations that included cooking the meat before stuffing the nacatamales . I also skipped the lard. A bit about Honduras...at times, this Central American country has been referred to as 'Spanish Honduras' to differentiate it from 'British Honduras' which is now the country of Belize. Honduran Nacatamales First make the masa , dough... 6 C masa harina 1/2 C butter, softened 1/2 C olive oil 1/2 C lime juice 4 C organic chicken broth Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl and stir till it comes together into a ...

I've been remiss in posting about our tabletop travel recently. Not that we haven't been cooking - and eating. Just that I haven't posted. Whoops. I need to sift through my photos and recipes for our German feast and dinner from Ghana. But last night we cooked and ate Greek. Loved it! Even before I sat down, the troops were chanting "Red book! Red book!" They were digging in while I was still serving myself. My red book contains our favorite recipes of all time. In cooking Greek, the most difficult part for me was deciding what to make. A stop at Cornucopia in the afternoon made the decision for me. I smelled the Meyers lemons before I saw them. Then I noticed that they were grown in Big Sur. Local, fragrant, and so voluptuous. I had to have them. Then I flipped through my Greek cookbook until I found two dishes that deserved these beauties. We started with Greek meatballs: Keftedes . My cookbook reported, "they are always a must on the meze table....