Culinary Adventures with Camilla

After some heavy reads that I will get to soon, I picked up The Car Share by Zoe Brisby. This was a quick, breezy read though the characters themselves were not particularly fluffy. Alex (male) picks up Max (female) as part of a ride share. I indicated genders there, because both thought they were meeting the same gender as themselves! In any case, Alex is depressed and is looking for something to take his mind off of his troubled life while Max is headed to a country that allows assisted suicide. And so their car share adventures begin. Maxine is a hoot. She doesn't understand how to order coffee at a fancy cafe. "'I’d like a coffee.' The barista looked puzzled and waited for the rest. Seeing that nothing more was forthcoming, he was obliged to ask, 'What sort of coffee? A latte? Mochaccino? Cappuccino? Frappuccino? Macchiato? With caramel? Vanilla? Soymilk?' Maxine turned to Alex. 'When did it become so complicated to order coffee? What’s all this gibber...

  Today the Sunday Funday group is writing about and sharing international cookie recipes. 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. This week Wendy is hosting and asked us to post cookie recipes from around the world. She wrote: "I love learning traditions of other countries through cooking and baking. Share a traditional Christmas cookie from somewhere around the World that is special to you and tell us why it brings you fond memories." Here's the line-up... Sneha’s Recipe presents  Cashew Cherry Cookies   Palatable Pastime serves up  Chinese Almond Cookies   Culinary Adventures with Camilla gives us Hojarascas (Mexican Shortbread Cookies)  Mayuri’s Jikoni shares  Karachi Biscuits   A Good Life plates  Mexican Tea Cookies   A Day in the Life on the Farm discovers...

These will be included in our July Food'N'Flix event, so you can read why I've gone down the JAWS rabbit hole soon. But I wanted to make some shark-inspired sugar cookies to start. This is my go-to recipe for sugar cookies with just a little bit of vanilla and cardamom to keep them from being too plain; and the icing has just the right amount of tartness with freshly squeezed lemon juice. If you don't have ground cardamom, you can substitute ground cinnamon or leave it out completely. It will be just as delicious. Also, I used vanilla paste in this cookie; feel free to use vanilla extract if that's all you have. I just love the flecks of the vanilla seeds in this light-colored cookie. Ingredients Vanilla-Cardamom Sugar Cookies 2-3/4 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup butter, softened 1 cup organic granulated sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon pure vanilla paste or extract 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom Also needed: shark cookie cutters* Royal Icing  (you ...

Two weekends ago I finally was able to have a dinner with my best girlfriends. In. Person. We haven't spent any significant amount of time together since the Before Times, as in before the COVID pandemic began and we  sheltered-in-place. And in between mouthfuls of amazing food, conversations about our kids, and every other topic you can image, recipes bubbled to the surface. Jenn mentioned a recipe for Hawaiian butter mochi and promised to send it to us. Thankfully I always have a box or three of mochiko rice flour and cans of coconut milk in my kitchen. I even had a can of evaporated milk, so...this happened! It's slightly adapted from her version and reminds me of my grandmother's bibingka. Ingredients makes two 8" square pans   1/2 cup (1 stick) butter 3/4 cup organic granulated sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon pure vanilla paste (or extract if you don't have paste) 1 box mochicko glutinous rice flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 can evaporated milk 1 can coconut milk  ...

   This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Quail & Olive . Complimentary product was provided for this post and this page may contain affiliate links. However, all opinions expressed here are my own.   I learned something new today and thought I'd pass along my culinary enlightenment. I wanted to play with these co-pressed olive oils from  The Quail & Olive * to make some citrusy Easter cookies for this weekend and started to do some reading about the products.  I had always thought that these oils were infused. Nope . These are co-pressed which means that - at the time of milling - the grower take the olives and whatever is being used for flavoring and mills it at the same time! These aren't infused and don't use an essence; they use the real fruits. Wow. So, I decided to use the Lemon Olive Oil , Lime Olive Oil , and Blood Orange Olive Oil . The Blood Orange is the newest line-up from the Sciabica family in Modesto. Fresh blood ora...

When I was doing some research for a collaboration with Dineen Vineyards, I came across their recipe for Peanut Butter-Miso Cookies . All of those words make my little foodie heart go pitter-patter. But I didn't have white miso and tried it with red miso.  Even for this savory-leaning gal, it was too much. So I ended up dipping the cookies in chocolate to mask the overpowering miso flavor. Then I set about testing different proportions for peanut butter to miso. I even added in some tahini in one batch.  Even though I liked this version, my peanut gallery still responded: Why do you have to try to put together peanut butter and miso?!? Those really don't go well. Maybe I should get some white miso and try that. "Maybe you should just stop with the miso cookies!"  Well, fine. Some people might like them. So, I'm sharing the recipe because I like them.   Ingredients makes approximately 20 cookies 225 grams (or 1-1/2 cups for volume measurements) flour  1/2 teaspo...

I recently breezed through The Restaurant by Pamela M. Kelley,* finishing the book one evening after I had done and put away all the dishes. So, it's not a particularly deep or difficult read. But it was a nice way to spend the evening. On the Page photo from amazon.com I have already mentioned that it wasn't a particular deep read. But it was well-written albeit predictable. A grandmother passes away and, in her will, leaves a restaurant that no one knows she owned to her three granddaughters.  "My girls, I know this will come as somewhat of a shock, but I am the sole owner of Mimi’s Place and have been for forty-three years, since I won the restaurant in a bet. A game of poker actually, but that’s too long of a story to go into here. As you know, Mimi’s Place is special to me and always has been" (pg. 34). They must, however, work in the restaurant for a year or the restaurant will belong to the head chef. It was mildly amusing that none of the three women have...

  This month, for Food'N'Flix, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm is hosting. She asked us to watch Knives Out * and you can read her invitation here . On the Screen Filled with a solid line-up of Hollywood heavyweights, this clever whodunit harkens back to the days of Agatha Christie. You have Harlan Thrombey, played by Christopher Plummer; Linda Drysdale, played by Jamie Lee Curtis; Ransom Drysdale, played by Chris Evans; Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig; Marta Cabrera, played by Ana de Armas; and more! Harlan Thrombey's family is at his estate to celebrate his 85th birthday. The following morning, his housekeeper finds him dead, with his throat slit. The police declare it a suicide, but Blanc is hired to investigate and determine what actually happened. Throughout the course of the interviews and investigation, Blanc learns that Harlan's relationships with his family were strained. And nearly everyone had a motive! On the day of his death he had threatened t...