Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Do you need some holiday cookie inspiration? Look no further... The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2012 is done and there are about 500 cookie recipes for you to peruse and use. Click here for the first round-up which includes my Boozy Salted Fennel Pollen Shortbread and some Salted Chocolate Stout Truffles  by Gastronomical Sovreignty that are on my list to make this weekend. I cannot resist chocolate + salt! Then click here for the second round-up where Mooshu Jenne 's Finnish Piparkkaku with Pomegranate caught my attention. Enjoy...and happy baking!

A Food52 Potluck  on the Monterey Peninsula Story and Photos by Camilla M. Mann The etymology of ‘potluck’ falls into two camps. One camp clings to the literal compound – pot + luck – and credits its first use to Thomas Nash, a 16 th  century British writer, to mean food cooked for an unexpected or uninvited guest, as in the guest gets “the luck of the pot” or whatever the cook has on hand. Another camp claims that it’s the misspelling of the Native Americans’ potlatch. Potlatch from the Chinook, means "to give away" or "a gift;” traditional potlatch ceremonies, in the Pacific Northwest, involved the redistribution of wealth within a community and were accompanied by singing, dancing, and bartering, as well as feasting. The only thing a potluck and a potlatch have in common: it’s a meal with no particular menu. Each participant brings dishes to share with others. When I agreed to host a potluck, during the month of December, for the publishers of  Food52 ...

Meet Kathy of The Cheap Gourmet , one of my The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap partners. Of all the bloggers who participated, it's funny that I was assigned to her and she was assigned to me. But, I am so glad that I was one of the lucky three who received her Potato Chip Cookies . [Click name to read her post and get her recipe.] You read that right: Potato. Chip. Cookies. Photo from The Cheap Gourmet http://www.thecheapgourmet.com/2012/12/potato-chip-cookies-great-food-blogger-cookie-swap.html The boys were so enamoured with Kathy's creation, I think this qualifies as one of Riley's chosen cookies for this holiday season. We'll be making them this weekend. Thanks, Kathy...for the cookies, for the recipe, and for the culinary inspiration.

When I was trying to decide on what cookies I would make for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2012 , I toyed around with making my friend’s family recipe for Peloponnesian Kourabiedes , an ouzo-scented version of these traditional Greek butter cookies enveloped in a blanket of powdered sugar. I also considered a gingerbread thumbprint cookie with a scoop of lemon curd in the middle because those two flavors embody holiday goodness in my mind. But, in the end, I decided to treat my cookie swap recipients to a variation of my Salted Fennel Pollen Shortbread . I added ouzo! Hence, the "boozy" part of the cookie.  I love – and I do mean love – fennel pollen. It’s the equivalent of culinary fairy dust, as far as I’m concerned. A light sprinkling of this adds a licorice zing and a honey sweetness to anything it touches. I packaged up a dozen each to Amber of Bluebonnets & Brownies ; Amishi of Naive Cook...

It's time for the boys' school's annual holiday fund drive. What does that have to do with my culinary adventures? Well, it has to do with me getting breakfast on the table and out the door 20 minutes early. Twenty minutes might not seem like a lot of time, but when your morning routine is a well-oiled machine - that sometimes requires yelling to get the boys to stop dilly-dallying - 20 minutes is significant. Even five minutes upsets my schedule.  So, I decided to whip up a batch of granola that Jake can pour into a bowl and get them to eat while I stand out in the cold, explaining to parents that art, music, drama, Spanish language enrichment, and PE are not paid for by the State of California; all of those "extras" are covered by family donations to the school. The goal this year is $80,000 this week. Wish  me luck...and let's hope the boys don't tire of granola till at least Wednesday! Here goes...no time to take and upload photos this mornin...

As part of my Food52 potluck fennel pollen trifecta, I started with the Roasted Fennel & White Bean Dip  that was posted by the Singing_Baker  and added a few touches of my own, including fennel pollen and truffle oil. For Roasted Fennel 2 large fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces splash of olive oil freshly ground sea salt  freshly ground pepper Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lay the fennel on a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Roast for 50-60 minutes - until the fennel is softened and caramelized. Remove from the oven and let cool.  For the Cannellini Dip 3/4 C olive oil 1 T minced fresh garlic 2 1/2 C cooked cannellini (white beans), drained and rinsed 1 sprig fresh rosemary, chopped 1 T freshly squeezed lemon juice 1 C Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated 1 T fennel pollen In a blender, blend the fennel, the beans, the garlic, the oliv...

As the part of my  Food52  potluck fennel pollen trifecta, I stuck fairly close to the recipe that was posted by  Cara Frank :  Carrot Top Farro Soup , but swapped out the farro for barley, added some sambuca, and left out the garlic. I still hear Maria's voice in my head in my head: Non cucinare con la cipolla e l'aglio insieme. (Don't cook with onions and garlic together.) Maria is the Italian woman who taught me to cook in Rome. I almost never break her rule. 1 bunch carrots, with tops 2 C barley 12 C organic chicken broth 1 parmesan rind 5 ribs celery, chopped 1 onion, thinly sliced olive oil 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and diced 1cup   1 T   fennel pollen* 1/2 C fennel fronds, roughly chopped 3 T sambuca *Cara's original recipe called for 1 C of fennel pollen. That's almost $50 worth of fennel pollen. I suspect that she meant 1 C fennel fronds; I only had about 1/2 C, so I added in sambuca for more licorice-y goodness. ...