Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Here we are the May edition of the Cake Slice Bakers. For 2020, we'll be baking from  The New Way to Cake: Simple Recipes with Exceptional Flavor  by Benjamina Ebuehi.* In this group, we are given a selection of three cake recipes. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes! Follow our  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Pinterest   pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details. The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called  The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends . Th...

Welcome to our February 2020 post for our Eat the World project, being spearheaded by Evelyne of  CulturEatz . Here's  her challenge . This is definitely one of my favorite monthly projects. For this second 2020 installment, Evelyne just wrote: "We are traveling to land full of mystery and intensity this month with Iraq!" What fun! Here's the line-up... Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Hadgi Badah (Iraqi Cardamom Cookies)  The Schizo Chef: Iraqi Parda Pulao   Amy’s Cooking Adventures: T’Bit (Iraqi Slow Cooked Chicken & Brown Rice)   Sneha’s Recipe: Potato Kubbi/Potato Chap   CulturEatz: Kahi with Gaymar Breakfast   Kitchen Frau: Tepsi Baytinijan (Meatball & Eggplant Dish)   Pandemonium Noshery: Iraqi Lamb Stew   A Day in the Life on the Farm: Tepsi Baytinijan   Making Miracles: Iraqi Rice & Potato Balls Hadgi Badah Iraqi Cardamom Cookies If you follow my blog with any regularity, you'll kno...

This weekend we had our extended family Christmas celebration. And I was thrilled to spend some time with my cousin's boyfriend, getting to know him and, especially, hearing about their recent travels to Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. I was quite envious of their globe-hopping and was happy to live vicariously through their tales. It was the first time that the larger family was meeting him - though he and Tiff had stopped by one of the boys' robotics competition earlier this Fall - and I have to say that he hung with the 'crazy' pretty darn well. My family can be loud and obnoxious. As D commented, "I don't envy any of the guys who marry into our family. But I'm glad that Daddy did." Me, too! While Tiff and Matt were in Morocco, they took a cooking class. And Tiff, who is a baker extraordinaire, brought some Moroccan cookies to the party. Actually, since they both took the cooking class, I'm not sure who baked them. Maybe both. In any cas...

I still don't remember how I ended up with  The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca  by Tahir Shah* on my to-read stack. I don't recall if a friend recommended it, or it was just one of those 'people who bought  x  also bought this' suggestions that always gets me on Amazon. Always. But, after I finally kicked jetlag from our holiday trip to Denmark, I picked this book up off my shelf. On the Page Unfortunately, I liked the idea of the book more than the actual book. British travel writer Tahir Shah uproots his family from the gloom of London and buys a house in exotic Casablanca. He has dreamt of making Morocco home since he traveled there as a child. In the same tradition of Under the Tuscan Sun  by Frances Mayes or A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle - that the French Winophiles will be reading next month! - Shah details his trials and tribulations about being a foreigner making a home in a new country. He acquired Dar Khalifa , a crumbling seaside ma...

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 and decided to create our own version with a few minor changes: lamb is not a favorite with the boys just yet, so D swapped in beef; and rosewater is not a favorite with Jake, so we didn't rub his naan with any. Oh, and I don't have a biriyani pot; I used some mini bean pots from Le Creuset. Also I didn't have any edible gold leaf, so we swapped it out for edible silver glitter hearts.* A heartfelt thank you to Kitchen IQ who was an event sponsor for a recent online blogging event I coordinated.** I mentioned that my son tried to abscond with my spice grater that they had sent. So, they sent him one of his very own! He used the grater on the nutmeg and cinnamon in this recipe. Beef Biriyani ...

Though I'm not a girl who insists on chocolates and roses for Valentines' - or anytime really - I do love a good truffle. Last year one of my best friends and I took a Truffle-Making Class with the über-talented Jenn of Rook No. 17   who I am fortunate enough to know outside of the blogosphere! So, when I received some complimentary samples of rose crystals from Gourmet Sweet Botanicals , when I ordered some edible flowers from them, I knew that I wanted to use the crystals to garnish some Valentine truffles. I also received hibiscus, cilantro, basil, fennel, and mint. You'll be seeing those on other dishes soon. Rosewater Truffles with Rose Crystals makes approximately 30 truffles Ingredients 1-1/2 C 72% cacao chocolate, chopped 1 C heavy cream 1 T butter, softened 1 T rosewater rose crystals (click here ) Procedure Place chopped chocolate and rosewater in a large mixing bowl.  In a medium saucepan, bring cream to a boil. Pour ...