Culinary Adventures with Camilla

So, welcome to the November #SoupSwappers event. Wendy of  A Day in the Life on the Farm  started this group and I'm always grateful to have a few more recipes to try. This month, I am hosting and asked the bloggers to share pumpkin soups or stews. Here's the line-up of deliciousness... Creamy Pumpkin Soup with Tortellini and Chicken by A Day in the Life on the Farm Fenneled Pumpkin Soup by Culinary Adventures with Camilla Israeli Orange Soup by Pandemonimum Noshery Pumpkin Pakoda Kadhi by Magical Ingredients Pumpkin, Rice and Chickpea Soup by Palatable Pastime Roasted Dal & Red Pumpkin Soup by Sneha's Recipe 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. Ingredients 1 leek, trimmed and thinly sliced 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced ...

  Today the Sunday Funday group is celebrating dairy. 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 Rebekah is hosting and she's given us the following prompt: January 11th is National Milk Day, so in honor of National Milk Day let's celebrate dairy! Milk, butter, sour cream, cheese, yogurt, etc. What's your favorite way to celebrate dairy? (If you have dairy allergies in your household, feel free to use a non-dairy alternative)! In any case, here's the line-up of how the #SundayFunday bloggers are celebrating dairy... Blackberry Peach Overnight Oats by Palatable Pastime Cheesy Eggplant Pork Roast Rolls by Food Lust People Love Chocolate Pots de Creme by Karen's Kitchen Stories Creamy Asparagus Soup with Ham Stock by Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice Creamy Steak Fettu...

This month, for  Food'N'Flix , Debra of  Eliot's Eats  is hosting. She asked us to watch  The Holiday * and you can read her invitation  here . And I already shared my Gingerbread Marshmallows , but given that I watched the movie three times in the rental period - yes, really! - I was inspired to make a second recipe. After telling the family about the movie over dinner, Jake actually agreed to watch it with me. So, I didn't ask twice...I just sat down and said I was ready. Dishes could wait! In my Gingerbread Marshmallows post, I mentioned the scene in Graham's house when he serves Sophie, Olivia, and Amanda mugs of hot chocolate...with five marshmallows each.   Sophie: Daddy, she has more marshmallows than I do. Graham: No she doesn't, you each have five. Graham [to Amanda as he hands her a mug]: You have five, too. Also, in the original ad that Iris places about the home exchange, she mentions hot chocolate: "A fairy tale English cottage set in a tr...

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 ! This month Stacy of Food Lust People Love invited the Foodie Extravaganza bloggers to share their favorite nacho recipes. She writes, "November 6 is National Nachos Day. Let's celebrate by sharing our favorite nacho recipes, both traditional and creative!" The #FoodieExtravaganza Nacho Bar Beef Fajita Nachos Compuestos from Food Lust People Love Beer Brat Nacho s from Palatable Pastime Breakfast Nachos from Tara's Multicultural Table Chorizo Nachos from Karen's Kitchen...

Last weekend, we celebrated my parents' birthdays. It's funny that their birthdays are two years and five days apart; Jake and I are two years and seven days apart. So, joint parties are the norm. In any case, it's taken me a week to get this written up. I had just gotten some blue butterfly pea flower powder, erroneously named blue matcha, and wondered if the color would bake out. When it stayed blue, on a test run, I decided to make a naturally blue birthday cake of Nonno and Nonna. You can read a little bit about "blue matcha" in my Magical Blue Moon Matcha Cocktail post. Ingredients makes one 9" layer (I made four layers - two blue and two plain) Cake 2 C flour 1 t baking powder 1 t salt 1/4 t baking soda 1 C whole milk plain yogurt 1-1/4 C cane sugar 3/4 C olive oil 2 large eggs 1 t organic vanilla paste or extract  Also needed: butter for greasing pans, parchment paper, 9" cake pan For the blue layers: 1 T blue bu...

Claudia from  Honey from Rock  is our   Cook the Books   hostess for this round (June-July 201); she chose  Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise   by Ruth Reichl.*  If you want to join us, posts aren't due till the end of July. You have plenty of time. On the Page This memoir details her exploits during the first few years of her tenure as a restaurant critic for the New York Times . And when I write 'exploits' I mean fully costumed escapades in which Reichl adopted different personae in order to get an unbiased take on a restaurant. I mean, I have certainly received perks and bonuses at places when folks recognize me as a writer for a local food magazine. I can only imagine what sorts of benefits Reichl would get. Actually, I don't have to imagine; she describes it to us. So, she would go in disguise; she became her mother. "And then it hit me: I was going to dress up like my mother. The notion pleased me just a little t...

Today is our first February post in our year-long project that I'm calling the Kitchen Matrix Project, after Mark Bittman's  Kitchen Matrix  cookbook. You can read about it:  here . I'm very excited about the dishes and the bloggers who are joining me. This month, Wendy at  A Day in the Life in the Farm  picked the recipes. I can't wait to follow along with her choices. This week, She picked 'Vegetable Soup + 12 Ways' for the group which means we could make any of the creamy soups, brothy soups, earthy soups, or hearty soups he shared...along with any variations or adaptations that we needed or wanted. I opted to make a variation of his creamy spinach soup this week, but can't wait to try the others. The Other Soups An InLinkz Link-up Creamy Spinach Soup very slightly adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe I decided that I wanted more tang, so I added preserved lemon peels and freshly squeezed lemon juice into my soup and garnis...

Today, my Spices of the Souk students and I focused on saffron. You know: the most expensive spice in the world. Saffron Saffron is derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus ( crocus sativus ). The stigmas are red, but when soaked in water they render a vivid, golden hue. Beautiful! A couple of years ago, when D and I were watching an episode from the second season of Mind of a Chef, we watched Chef April Bloomfield make lamb biriyani with Chef Stevie Parle. We loved the presentation with the naan on top of the pots. We've been making it that way every since. Beef Biriyani Quick Note: This recipe can NOT be done in a 75 minute class period. So, I did the beef the night before class. In class, we assembled the pots, baked, and enjoyed. This is well worth the efforts, I promise! Also, one of my cooking kiddos is dairy sensitive, so I substituted coconut milk yogurt for regular yogurt. Ingredients Spice Blend 1 t cloves 1 T black cumin 1 T cor...