Culinary Adventures with Camilla

If you have been following my blog for even a little bit, you know that I gravitate towards the unexpected...and I really tend to be attracted to odd-ball foods such as black garlic , black tahini (here's my Black Tahini Chocolate Bundt ), and more.  So, when I went to the farmers' market last night and saw these - beautiful, midnight-hued heirloom beans - at Serendipity Farms ' stand, I had to have them. I am not sure exactly what they are. They look similar to the Royal Burgundy Bush Bean (thank you, internet), but they were just identified as heirloom beans.  Whatever they are, they are gorgeous! They are almost black on the outside, but bright green on the inside. Unfortunately, they lost that beautiful coloration when they were blanched. But they were so tasty. With beans as fresh as these, they need little more than a quick blanch, some sea salt, a squeeze of lemon, and a drizzle of olive oil. Not much of a recipe but here's what I did... ...

This is one of D's favorite desserts; apparently he makes it at my parents' house. I've made it a few times it's definitely a spoonful of childhood for me. And it's relatively easy. It just takes time because it has to soak for a minimum of 12 hours. Ingredients 1/2 C pearl tapioca (we use a medium size) 2 C whole milk 2 C coconut milk 1 T pure vanilla extract 1 C organic granulated sugar 1/2 t sea salt 3 eggs Procedure Place the tapioca in a medium bowl, covered with - at least - 1" of cold water. Allow the tapioca to soak for at least 12 hours. When ready to cook, use a strainer to drain off the water and set the soaked pearls aside. In a large saucepan, combine the milks, vanilla, sugar, and salt. Set aside. Place the eggs in a large bowl and whisk until they are combined. Whisk until the egg mixture is a pale yellow color, approximately two minutes. Set aside. Place the saucepan over low heat and bring to a sim...

While you already know that we are pumpkin fiends, this - beautiful seasonal delicata from our High Ground Organics CSA - is probably my real favorite squash. And I really love that it's three ingredients beyond the squash and about thirty minutes in the oven. Ingredients delicata squash olive oil freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper Procedure Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Halve the delicata and scoop out the seeds. Destem, then slice into 1/4" to 1/2" wide pieces. Lay out the slices on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes or until the squash is softened and beginning to caramelize. Serve immediately.

This is my first post for #WeekdaySupper. I've been part of the #SundaySupper group for a little while and decided to take the plunge on this. Hope you enjoy it. Lamb lollipops are a favorite of ours and I love that it takes me about 3 minutes of active time plus the time for Jake to grill it. It's on the table in less than 30 minutes. And while he's grilling I blanch some broccoli or asparagus and toss a salad. Easy, easy dinner! Ingredients rack of lamb 2-3 cloves garlic, minced 2-3 T sea salt Procedure In a small mixing bowl, blend together the minced garlic and sea salt. Rub the mixture on a the rack of lamb, taking care to coat all sides. Let sit for at least 10 minutes before grilling. Grill till desired doneness. Once cooked, slice the rack into separate pieces - with the bone like a lollipop stick - and serve. Here's what the other bloggers made, or are making, this week...links will all be live by Friday. Monday -  Stuffed Orzo S...

This year - 2014 - started our adventures in cheesemaking. We're not very accomplished yet, but we are trying! We've made homemade marscarpone , homemade ricotta , and homemade labneh korat (a yogurt cheese). Tonight I decided to give homemade paneer a whirl while the boys were asleep. Paneer is an Indian cheese with a a mild flavor and slightly chewy consistency. It holds its shape well and doesn't melt; so you can saute it, grill it, or crumble it into just about anything. And it's a must for classic Indian dishes such as palak paneer . One of my friends gave me one of her recipes: Paneer Pizza. "Sauté the paneer in tandoori spice, spread over flatbread, bake, then drizzle with yogurt and chopped cilantro." Yum, Priya! I can't wait to try it. Paneer is so easy to make, requiring nothing more than milk and lemon juice. I added a little bit of salt. 8 C whole milk (make sure it's not ultra-pasturized...best is raw milk, if you can f...

Welcome, 2014...I'm back to participating in  Taste and Create . Somehow this fun monthly blog exchange fell off my radar in 2013. But I contacted Min and this month I was assigned to  Seduce Your Tastebuds . It's a gorgeous food blog written by Padmajha Sureshbabu under the pen name PJ. When she started her blog, she was full of doubt, asking herself: "What am I doing?! If I start a blog, will I be able to do justice to it?" Yes, PJ, you are doing a fabulous job and I am happy to have found your blog. There were so many of her recipe that I want to try. They are bookmarked for future dinners. Check out her: Dragonfruit Salad , Coconut Kheer , and Simple Beetroot Pooriyal . But for a quick, mid-week supper, I adapted  Seduce Your Tastebuds 's Simple Cabbage Soup . Thanks to my CSA box from High Ground Organics, I had plenty of ingredients to make this veggie-heavy. And since I didn't  need to hide the cabbage, I only blended about 2/3 of the soup, leavi...

I needed some bread to make sandwiches for the boys' lunches and really didn't want to run out to the store. So, I decided to make focaccia. It's my easy go-to. And you can even make sweet focaccia if you like. Here's a Rhubarb Focaccia that I've made...delish! 2 C warm water 1 T active dry yeast 1 T granulated honey 5 C flour, plus additional for kneading 1 T freshly ground sea salt, plus more for sprinkling 1/2 C extra-virgin olive oil Combine the warm water, yeast and granulated honey in a small bowl. Let the yeast bloom for 10-15 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and olive oil with the yeast mixture. Beat with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together. Continue to knead for 5 to 6 minutes until it becomes smooth and soft. Sprinkle with more flour if the dough is really sticky. Coat the inside of the bowl lightly with olive oil and return the dough to the bowl and turn to coat. Cover it with a dish towel and...

Some of our good friends just had their first baby. Hooray! So, for one of my meal-train offerings, I decided to bring them some baby back ribs. They can heat them up on their schedule and slather them with as much, or as little, of the sauce as they want. Here's what he posted after the dinner. I guess they liked them. Double hooray! photo courtesy Kevin B. 1 rack of pork baby back ribs Dry Rub: 1 C organic coconut sugar  3 T  pimentón  (smoked Spanish paprika) 1 t ground cumin 1/2 t paprika 1/2 t instant espresso powder dash of ground coriander dash of ground cardamom freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper Pumpkin Barbeque Sauce   (click for recipe) Procedure: The night before, or first thing in the morning, prepare the rub. Combine all ingredients, and mix thoroughly until well blended. Remove the ribs from their packaging.  Rinse and pat them dry. With your hands, pat the rub onto both sides of the ribs, g...

This round Rachel, at  The Crispy Cook , selected  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle  by Barbara Kingsolver for our October-November  Cook the Books  project. I had read the book years ago, but happily cracked the cover again for this. Besides, I was reading with a different focus than before. This time around I was searching for inspiration in these pages that would send me to the kitchen. I felt slightly handicapped in that I am cursed with a black thumb. I can't keep any plants alive. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Even the ones that people swear "can't die." Trust me, I can kill anything. Needless to say, I don't have a garden. But I do get farm-fresh fruits and vegetables weekly through our CSA box and from friends who have fabulous green thumbs. www.kingsolver.com Animal, Vegetable, Miracle  is, as its subtitle suggests, the tale of a year-long food experiment. Novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her family leave Arizona for a family-farm in Appalachia. T...

Last night, for our annual Halloween camping trip all the families brought whatever they wanted to toss on the grill. Carnivores'R'Us! They were making fun of us though as almost everyone brought sausages and hot dogs and my Love had requested a rack of lamb. Done deal, baby. And, yes, I do think that's camping food! Salt-crusted Rack of Lamb. Here's my garlic-salt version . Last night I rubbed the rack with sea salt and crushed lavender. And I didn't get any photos of the finished lamb lollipops because a friend was pouring these for me all night... Blame Paul.

Because my (mini) boys still aren't poblano fans, while Jake and I noshed on Rice-Stuffed Poblanos for dinner, I made zucchini boats for the minis...same filling though. 1 C cooked Jade rice (use whatever grains you have leftover) 1 t minced garlic 1 skinned, cubed tomato 1/2 C cottage cheese 1/2 C shredded parmesan 1 t chopped parsley 1 t chopped basil 1 t chopped cilantro 1/2 t chopped oregano freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper olive oil 1 large zucchini, halved and scooped out slightly. In a large mixing bowl, toss together all of the ingredients - except the zucchini themselves. Stir until completely combined. Spoon the mixture into the zucchini and place on a baking dish. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Cover with foil. Bake for 50 minutes, then uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot with a crisp, cool salad on the side.

Inspired by the bounty in my  WE Cooperative  CSA box from  Fogline Farm  - and some leftover Jade rice in my fridge - I whipped up a quick dinner, stuffing 3 poblanos. This is a riff on the Couscous-Stuffed Poblanos we had last week for dinner! 1 C cooked Jade rice (use whatever grains you have leftover) 1 t minced garlic 1 skinned, cubed tomato 1/2 C cottage cheese 1/2 C shredded parmesan 1 t chopped parsley 1 t chopped basil 1 t chopped cilantro 1/2 t chopped oregano freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper olive oil 3 poblano peppers, halved and deseeded In a large mixing bowl, toss together all of the ingredients - except the peppers themselves. Stir until completely combined. Spoon the mixture into the poblanos and place on a baking dish. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Cover with foil. Bake for 50 minutes, then uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serv...

What do you do on a Friday evening when the air is still sweltering and it's been a long week? You definitely don't feel like cooking, right? So, I set my grill-master to work. All I had to do for dinner was toss some lettuce into a salad and uncork a bottle of wine. It was the perfect night to dine poolside. I had a jar of garlic-salt from my visit to one of the Monterey Bay Salt Company salt houses , but you can use any sea salt and minced or crushed garlic.  Rub the mixture on a Frenched rack of lamb and let sit for at least 10 minutes before grilling. Grill till desired doneness. Once cooked, slice the rack into separate pieces - with the bone like a lollipop stick - and serve.

When I picked up almost fifty Roma tomatoes from Belle (Thanks, Randy!) yesterday, Dylan asked if we could make our own ketchup. I was thinking some fresh sugo , but we started with ketchup. You have to keep your kitchen elves happy, right? Otherwise they might go on strike...and then you'd have to peel all of the tomatoes by yourself! And I only used half of them to make the ketchup, so I'll make the sugo tomorrow. Step One: Peel the tomatoes. It's easier than you think. Bring water to a boil and submerge your tomatoes - whole - into the water. Let sit for two minutes.     Quickly plunge the tomatoes into ice water. They can sit in there for as long as you like. Now you can score the skin and easily peel the skin off! Piece of cake.   Step Two: Cube the tomatoes.   Step Three: Making the ketchup... 3 cloves garlic, minced splash of olive oil 30 tomatoes, peeled and cubed 7 T peach balsamic vinegar 4 T raw organic honey ...

Sweet potatoes are a family favorite! So, when I saw this in Matt Armendariz's  On a Stick!  cookbook, I knew we'd have to try it. These were simple and amazing...kinda like giant sweet potato fries. inspired by On a Stick! by Matt Armendariz 2 medium (or 1 large) sweet potato, boiled and sliced into wedges splash of olive oil dash of curry powder smidge of cayenne freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper Whisk together the olive oil, curry, and cayenne. Add the sweet potato wedges and toss to coat. Pierce the wedges with a skewer and grill for 4-5 minutes on each side. Remove from heat and season to salt and pepper.

*Update: I have made these shortbreads dozens of times with the same proportions...well, without the bacon and chocolate...and sliced thinner. I am baffled how these turned out so totally ugly. These are definitely brutti ma buoni (Italian: 'ugly but good'). They are buttery, flaky, smoky, salty, and chocolatey. I won't call them a flop because they taste amazing ; they just aren't photogenic at all. I'll have to try again. I'm sure my boys won't complain.* After picking up a couple packages of PigWizard  belly bacon at the INDYpendence Day luncheon at the Henry Miller Library, I was dreaming up fun ways to use it...besides just crisping it up for breakfast which I did do this morning. I wanted a bacon-laden sweet treat and, then, I remembered Fudge Ripple's Brown Butter-Bacon Shortbreads with a Bourbon Maple Glaze . Okay, I wasn't quite that ambitious tonight. So, I adapted my Salted Fennel Pollen Shortbreads , adding in both bacon bits...

I am not one of those moms who hides vegetables in things because my kids won't eat greens, but I do tend to put greens in whatever I'm making for added nutrition and fiber. And my boys really like kale! So, when I saw some leftover kale from my CSA box, I decided to add them to the meatballs I'm bringing to a potluck today. Other kids might not appreciate the kale in their meatballs. Oh, well...it's delicious! 2 t dark sesame oil 1 T crushed garlic 1 pound ground turkey 2 C kale, chiffonaded and lightly wilted in a splash of olive oil 1/4 t ground cumin dash of ground coriander freshly ground sea salt Preheat the oven to 375°. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. With moist hands, shape meat mixture into teaspoon-sized meatballs. For dinner, I make them walnut-size. For a potluck, I make them a little bit smaller. Arrange meatballs in a single layer on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake meatballs at 375° for 30 minute...