Culinary Adventures with Camilla

  Inspired by the CSA box that David of Cooking Chat received last week - in conjunction with the podcast we recorded ahead of the Wine Pairing Weekend event on Saturday, August 13th - I made this dish to highlight his shares of summer squash, fresh corn, and cherry tomatoes. With summer produce, it's so fresh that I try not do too much to it. In this case, I seared thick slices of summer squash - zucchini in my case, from one of my CSA farms - and topped it with a fresh salad made with raw corn kernels, ripe cherry tomatoes, and sea beans which add a beautiful burst of salinity. It took an incredible amount of restraint to not just eat all the cherry tomatoes. I love popping them like candy. Truth be told: a fair amount went straight into my mouth while I made this recipe! Ingredients serves 4 Seared Squash 2 large zucchini or squash sliced into thick coins salt and pepper olive oil Also needed: griddle or skillet Corn Salad 1-1/2 cups fresh corn kernels  1 cup diced cherry...

  Today we're in our second week of a new blogging group; a fun group will be sharing recipes on Sundays. Low stress, just a great group of gals that I am happy to blog alongside. 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.   Today, we are sharing recipes with a Squash It To Me! theme. Rebekah wrote: "It's the season of winter squash - pick your favorite type and share a cozy fall recipe with anything from butternut, to pumpkin, to acorn, to spaghetti. Sweet or savory dishes, main dish or side dish - show us how you squash!" Luckily I had a bunch of squash from our CSA and our own garden. Here's the line-up of the recipes for this week... Autumn Harvest Fall Soup by Our Good Life Beef and Butternut Squash Chili by Making Miracles Couscous-Stuffed Red Kuri Squash by Culinary Adventures with Camilla Creamy Pumpkin Soup with ...

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.

Delicata squash is a Fall favorite. Whenever I see them at the market, I swoop in and buy them by the armload. They are that good. And - even better - they are so easy to to make. So, I can pop them in the oven, help the boys with homework or go for a run and dinner is done in about an hour. Serve them with a salad and you're golden. Tonight I served them with this Basic Coleslaw . This recipe made 4 stuffed squash, 8 halves. Ingredients 4 delicata squash, halved lengthwise and deseeded 1 lb organic grassfed ground beef (I used a 96/4) 1 leek, trimmed and chopped 3 T fresh tomato sauce 2 T Not Ketchup 's Smoky Date* 1 egg 1/2 C parmesan cheese 2 T chopped fresh herbs freshly ground pepper olive oil *I received a complimentary bottle of Not Ketchup for participating in a blogging event this month, #10DaysofTailgate. I love the smoky sweetness it adds to dishes. If you don't have any, feel free to sub in your favorite ketchup. Or use more tomato ...

This week the #SundaySupper crew is celebration squash. All squash - summer and fall. It's September; I think I can respectably roll out the pumpkin recipes! I roast and puree pumpkin, stocking my freezer for things such as this all year long. I haven't seen any fresh pumpkins hit the market yet. Soon, I thinking. I really wanted to call this a pumpkin 'bisque'; that sounds more sexy than pumpkin 'soup'. But then I did some reading and realized that you can't categorize something as a bisque unless it has fish stock as its base. So...this is fenneled pumpkin  soup  made with pumpkin puree. Ingredients 1/2 C diced pork belly 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and diced 1 T minced garlic 3 C pumpkin puree 5 C organic chicken stock 1/4 C freshly squeezed orange juice 1 T freshly squeezed lemon juice 1/2 t smoked paprika 1 t fennel seeds freshly ground salt and pepper to taste persimmons, peeled and julienned for garnish Procedure In a souppot, c...

Despite cooking every vegetable I can get my hands on, I have never cooked a spaghetti squash. No reason, in particular. It's just never shown up in my CSA box and I've never bought one on my own...until tonight. This is hardly a recipe... Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prick your squash all over with a fork. Place the squash in a baking dish and bake for one hour. If you can squeeze the squash and leave an indentation in the skin, it's done. Remove the squash from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes. Slice the squash in half. And, using a pasta claw, pull the flesh out of the skin. To serve, I sprinkled it with fleur de sel and grated parmesan, drizzled it with olive oil, and topped it with an oven-roasted mini-meatloaf. My only stumbling block: how the heck do you get the seeds out of the squash? We ended up pulling it out of our individual portions. There has to be a better way!

This morning when we were at the market, Riley asked if I would make a pumpkin pie today. I agreed. And he handed me a Japanese kabocha squash. Can you use this? Okay. I roasted it and made  pumpkin puree . This afternoon I had the Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf help me. The Crust 2 C white whole wheat flour 1/4 C ground almonds 1/2 C powdered sugar pinch of salt 3/4 C butter Mix the flour, ground almonds, sugar and salt; rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in 1 teaspoon of water with a fork until the mixture forms a ball. Roll out between two pieces of parchment paper. Press gently into a pie pan. Chill in the freezer until ready to bake. The Pie 3 C  pumpkin puree 1 C heavy cream 3 eggs 1/3 cup ginger syrup 3 T organic brown sugar ground cinnamon ground cloves ground nutmeg pure vanilla extract Just a note, Dylan is a spice fiend...and he doesn't measure. He just adds spices until it smells the way that ...

  The original recipe is rice with fritanga , or chayote squash. I didn't have chayote, but I did have an opo which is just as delicate. So, I substituted that in this dish. I also used leeks and parsley, instead of the traditional onions and chives. And the tomatoes were fresh from our High Ground Organics CSA box. So amazingly flavored! I must say: this is now a family favorite! 2 T olive oil 1 medium squash, pared and cut into 1/2 inch pieces 1 leek, trimmed and chopped 4 C cooked rice 3 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped freshly ground pink Himalaya salt freshly ground rainbow pepper snipped parsley Heat oil in large flat bottom pan. Cook and stir leeks over medium heat until they begin to soften. Add the squash and continue cooking until they start to become translucent. Stir in tomatoes and cook until those are hot, approximately 3-5 minutes. Add the rice. Add a splash of oil and stir till the rice is glossy. Sprinkle with parsley.

Welcome to the brand-new Food Matters Project , the brainchild of Sarah of 20somethingcupcakes and Kate from Cookie + Kate . When I read the mission - cooking through The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman who espouses eating more plants, fewer animal products and processed foods, and the positive impact of those choices on us and our planet - I was in. Each week we will all - here's the ' we ', just over a dozen fellow foodie bloggers - cook the same recipe, posting our interpretations and adaptations. This week we were assigned Mark's Chipotle-Glazed Squash Skewers. [Recipe is below.*] Click here for our hostess's post. I took some liberties, lots of liberties; I used carnival squash, added purple Hawaiian sweet potatoes and went with the miso-glaze option. Sort of. Oh, and I deconstructed the 'skewer' to create appetizer-sized skewers AKA a toothpick. Enjoy my take on this delicious dish! 1 carnival squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inc...

If you've been following me for awhile, you'll know that I recently joined the Secret Recipe Club . In addition to the monthly blog explore-and-execute, I also signed on to be a volunteer cook in the event that someone can't complete their assignment; they don't want any bloggers left out. This month my name came up in the rotation to take on an orphan blog. And I was pleased to get acquainted with Jayasri Ravi's Samayal Arai Cooking is Divine blog. I actually wasn't able to find much information about the culinary genius behind that mostly Southeast Asian blog, but the recipes and photographs made me want to reach a fork - or spoon - into my screen.   Because I was stepping in less than a week before reveal day, I decided to peruse the blog immediately and look for some thing or some things I could make with what I already had on hand. I came up with two recipes and called it a perfect dinner for a chilly Autumn evening. QUINOA DINNER ROLLS The first re...

On this dark Autumn night, I decided to whip up a warm soup for dinner. The leftover roasted sweet potatoes in the fridge were the perfect base. While the soup cooked, I baked a batch of quinoa dinner rolls to go with it. Ingredients 6 leftover roasted sweet potatoes, skinned and mashed 6 carrots, sliced 2 summer squash, sliced 1 T minced garlic butter 5 C chicken broth dried oregano fresh cilantro smoked sea salt freshly ground pepper Procedure Cook the carrots, garlic, and summer squash in a pat of butter and a splash of olive oil until fork tender. Add mashed sweet potatoes, oregano, and chicken broth. Stir till combined and heat to boiling. Add 2-3 T of cornstarch to 1/4 cold water. Add a ladel-full of the hot soup, to the cornstarch mixture, then add all of that to the boiling soup. Keep stirring as the soup begins to thicken. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve hot. Garnish with fresh cilantro.

For my contribution to the Halloween camping potluck dinner: a creamy, bubbly fragrant soup full of lots of autumn veggies. I started with a recipe I found from online but added my own kitchen-witch touches. My recipe relied strongly on what I had in my High Ground Organics CSA box. Feel free to use whatever you have on hand. The base... 1 T whole coriander seeds, toasted 2 t whole cumin seeds, toasted 1 t whole black peppercorns, toasted 1 t coarse salt 1/2 C fresh cilantro 1/2 C fresh basil 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, trimmed and chopped 8 garlic cloves, minced 2 scallions, chopped 2 T chopped, peeled fresh ginger 2 T fresh lime juice 1 T finely grated lime zest The soup... 2 leeks, thinly sliced 1 onion, thinly sliced 1 fennel bulb, cleaned, trimmed, and thinly sliced 1 C baby spinach 2 C thinly sliced red Russian kale 1 head of purple cauliflower, trimmed into bit-sized florets 2 can coconut milk 6 C chicken broth 1 medium zucchini, quartered lengthwise and...