Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Welcome to #CranberryWeek, hosted by Caroline's Cooking and A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures . We'll be sharing cranberry-inspired creations all week long in celebration of national cranberry day. Search #CranberryWeek to keep up to date and follow the #CranberryWeek Pinterest board for more cranberry inspiration. But first, see all the other cranberry recipes being shared today: Cranberry-Apple Sauce from The Chef Next Door Cranberry Cornbread from Cindy's Recipes and Writings Cranberry Maple Delicata Squash Galette from Caroline’s Cooking Cranberry Orange Baked Brie from Books n' Cooks Cranberry Palmiers from The Bitter Side of Sweet Cranberry Rosemary Cornbread from Life Currents Cranberry Snack Cake from Cooking With Carlee Cranberry Upside Down Cake from Sew You Think You Can Cook Noreaster from Family Around The Table Pork Shashlyk and Tkemali from Culinary Adventures with Camilla Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Cranberries from A Day...

Remember that we kicked off Fish Friday Foodies earlier this year. It's a group of seafood-loving bloggers, coordinated by Wendy of  A Day in the Life on the Farm . We share fish and seafood recipes on the third Friday of the month.  This month, Sue of  Palatable Pastime   is  hosting. Here was her challenge to the group: " It's summertime! Let's "stick" to our resolutions of eating more fish and seafood this year! The event will use recipes for kebabs with fish or seafood of any sort, grilled, broiled, baked, ceviche, fish/shrimp balls...you name it. As long as you put a stick in it, it's good." Hmmmm...I had to think about this one for awhile and decided that I would do a riff on one of our favorite summer meals: a Low Country Seafood Boil. Heck, we don't even wait for summer; we did a Valentine's Seafood Boil a couple of years ago! We even did one indoors for my mom for Mothers' Day . And, then it occurred to m...

Looking for a fun, easy Halloween party appetizer? We just brought edible eyeballs to our annual Halloween camping trip. Well, Dylan's Eyes of Newt were his pickled green tomatoes and they can't be done on the fly. Sorry. Click for the recipe: Green Tomato Pickles . And, next year, give yourself at least a month lead-time to make these. They were a hit! My 'Skewered Cyclops Eyeballs' were mini-skewers of mini-heirloom tomatoes and ciliegie . I forgot to pack the fresh basil. Whoops. Super duper easy...and fittingly festive. Happy Halloween!

When I tore open the envelope from Quirk Books and revealed On a Stick! 80 Party-Perfect Recipes by Matt Armendariz*, I had to fight all three of my boys to flip through it. Literally fight. By the time I got to thumb through the pages with post-it notes and a pen in hand, there were already some pages marked as favorites. 'Please!' was scrawled in someone's messy handwriting on a scrap of paper, holding the page. Probably Dylan. The only stumbling block: many of his recipes are deep-fried and I, as a general rule, don't eat fried food. So I knocked Breakfast Pancake Dogs with Maple Syrup , Chicken and Waffles , Corn Dogs , Deep-Fried Mac'n'Cheese , and Doughnut Holes off the list immediately. They just didn't appeal to me plus I don't have a way to deep fry anyway. I really wanted to figure out how to adapt his Fried Mushrooms with Roasted Onion Dip , Molotes with Fresh Tomato Salsa , and Savory Tofu Dango into non-fried versions. I'll g...

When I was looking for a quick, easy dinner on a Friday night, after a long, hectic week, I looked no further than On a Stick!  by Matt Armendariz. I had some shrimp in the fridge and knew that I wanted to try this recipe. Plus I just needed to do some prep work; Jake did the heavy lifting on this dinner by manning the grill. Thanks, Love! These are Spanish-style bites that are easy to prepare but huge on flavor. 1 lb shrimp, cleaned, peeled, with tails intact splash of olive oil juice from 1 lime 3 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 t ground coriander 1 T sweet paprika 1 T smoked paprika freshly ground sea salt freshly ground pepper Whisk together all of the ingredients in a medium bowl. Add the shrimp and gently toss to coat. Refrigerate for up to an hour. Thread the shrimp onto the skewer - I used three - and grill for 3 to 4 minutes until just cooked through. Take care not to overcook. Serve hot!

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.

Here we go. Below are all of the submissions for the June Food'N'Flix event where I selected  Jiro Dreams of Sushi  as our inspiration and starting point. If you haven't seen this, you should! Meet Jiro Ono. His restaurant only serves sushi. As they tell one customer: no appetizers, no sake. Just sushi. The restaurant is tucked into a subterranean space and only has 10 seats at a counter. Despite that less than sexy location and configuration, Jiro has been awarded three stars, the highest possible rating, by the Michelin Guide. Director David Gelb paints the picture of a man whose relationship with sushi is passionate, vacillating between love and madness. Jiro is a perfectionist and his apprentices must strive for that perfection as well. At one point the narrator describes how apprentices spend weeks learning how to squeeze out a towel properly before ever touching a piece of food. One apprentice spent months perfecting tamagoyaki . And to prepare the octopus, so...