Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Foodie Extravaganza is where we celebrate obscure food holidays or cook and bake together with the same ingredient or theme each month. Posting day for #FoodieExtravaganza is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page  Foodie Extravaganza . We would love to have you! If you're a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our  Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board ! Since October is National Pasta Month, I decided to ask the bloggers to share their favorite recipes or cooking tips. Here's the Foodie Extravanganza's pasta-filled line-up... Baked Mostaccioli by Palatable Pastime Blue Evolution Penne + Farming the Ocean by Culinary Adventures with Camilla Casunziei All'Ampezzana (Beet Filled Pasta with Poppy Seeds) by Tara's Multicultural Table Chinese Pickled Mustard and Noodle Soup by Pandemonium Noshery Grain-Free Garbanzo Beans Pasta and Paneer Sou...

Today the Sunday Funday group is celebrating umami. Thanks to Stacy of  Food Lust People Love , Sue of  Palatable Pastime , Rebekah of  Making Miracles , and Wendy of  A Day in the Life on the Farm  for coordinating this low-stress group. Today Sue is hosting and she's given us the prompt of making recipes with umami. Then she shared this link to help guide our umami explorations: Getting to Know Umami Powerhouses . Here's the #SundayFunday umami line-up... Chorizo Chickpea Tomato Pasta  by Food Lust People Love Easy Vegan Pad Thai by Cook with Renu Fried Chicken Wings - Korean Style  by Sneha's Recipe  Patatas Bravas  by Mayuri's Jikoni Steaks with Gouda Sauce  by Amy's Cooking Adventures Tomato and Blue Cheese Salad  by A Day in the Life on the Farm Umami Bomb Tomato Sauce  by Making Miracles Umami from the Sea: Sea Palm-Kale Salad and Uni Handrolls by Culinary Adventures with Camilla Umami I was already pret...

Today I met Ian O'Hollaren   of  Seaquoia  and was immediately a fan of his hand-harvested wild sea vegetables. I picked up 1/4 pound of his dwarf rockweed and 1/4 pound of another type. A quick rinse and a scant few ingredients made for an iodine-rich sidedish. Ingredients 1/4 pound dwarf rockweed (or substitute your favorite seaweed) 3/4 C diced organic tomatoes 1 T soy sauce 1 t sesame oil Procedure Place the rockweed and tomatoes in a small mixing bowl. Toss with soy sauce and sesame oil. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Remember, I'm teaching a Bizarre Foods SEM this term? Today, we traveled by tabletop to the Philippines. Don't worry, I didn't make the kids eat balut. Considering I won't even eat balut...I figured that wouldn't be very fair. But we did talk about balut . For our make-project today, I decided that eating seaweed was bizarre enough for some of the kids. Besides this dish has special significance to me. My grandmother, my dad's mom, used to make the most amazing seaweed salad. I remember when I went to Oahu with her as a child, we would drive to Ewa Beach and pick seaweed. She would clean it and make a fresh seaweed salad with it.  Today, I made it with my own kids and ten other students. Reactions were varied. One student said that the seaweed didn't taste like anything, that it just had a funny texture. Another student declared, "I really hate kale."  One student said he didn't want to try it. I insisted. Just one bite....

When Heather at BenBella Vegan asked if I'd like to kick off the book tour for their new title Dining at the Ravens , I agreed immediately. I already had an advance copy of the book and was more than a little bit enamored with the recipes. Full disclosure: I am not a vegan. But I am in my 40s and - if you're not there yet, lucky you! - I'm finding that I have to be much more aware of what I'm eating in this decade. So, my husband and I are consciously eating more plants, fewer sweets, more lean proteins, and fewer grains. But no food is completely off limits. I don't do well with moratoria , so we're judicious with our portions and purposeful in our menu choices. And our two sons are hearing - probably more than they would like to hear - about why we're choosing the foods that we're choosing. "I'm not forty," the 12-year-old whines. "Why do I have to eat more plants?" Because, you live with us and you don't buy y...

This morning we went to the open house at the Moss Landing Marine Labs. As we wandered through the labs, D spied ice cream in the Phycology Lab . One of the students was scooping it. But before he handed over the cones, he asked: Do you know why we're serving ice cream in the Phycology Lab? D didn't miss a beat. "Ice cream has seaweed in it!" He got his scoop. It wasn't seaweed flavored...but it did have seaweed in it. Carrageenan, derived from an edible red seaweed, is widely used in the food industry, for its gelling, thickening, and stabilizing properties. It is a vegetarian and vegan alternative to gelatin in some recipes.

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...

   Kale is a leafy green vegetable that belongs to the Brassica family, a group of vegetables including cabbage, collards, and Brussels sprouts that have gained recent widespread attention due to their health-promoting, sulfur-containing phytonutrients.  So, dinosaur kale is good for you and has a cool name.  The name initially helped sell this to the boys who thought they were eating dinosaur skin.  Now that they've had it several times, it's just like spinach; they love it!  This is a tasty - and quick - salad or side dish that we eat quite often. I buy dried organic arame from WholeFoods, but I'm sure you can find it other places.  Rehydrate according to the package directions.  While the arame is soaking, blanch the kale till bright green and tender. In a large mixing bowl, stir together minced garlic and ginger, raw honey, and a splash of olive oil.  Add the arame and kale and stir to coat.  Season with soy sauce and sesame oil....