Culinary Adventures with Camilla

  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. "They also tell how Little Red Cap was taking some baked things to her grandmother another time, when another wolf spoke to her and wanted her to leave the path. But Little Red Cap took care and went straight to grandmother's. She told her that she had seen the wolf, and that he had wished her a good day, but had stared at her in a wicked manner. 'If we hadn't been on a public road, he would have eaten me up,' she said."  ~Little Red Cap If you're wondering about the 'Little Red Cap' title, this is my version of cranberry sauce that will be served alongside our roasted Cornish game hens for our Grimm Thanksgiving tonight. You can read the rest of the food at my post: A Grimm Menu . Earlier I shared a recipe for Cran-Elderberry Sauce...

"Next to a great forest there lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and his two children. The boy's name was Hansel and the girl's name was Gretel. He had but little to eat, and once, when a great famine came to the land, he could no longer provide even their daily bread."  ~Hansel and Gretel We all know the story, right? The woodcutter and his wife abandon the kids deep in the forest. Eventually the kids find a witch's cottage - a house made of bread - in the woods, but she is determined to fatten them up to eat them! Don't worry...this one ends well for the kids. Not for the witch. We make lots and lots of gingerbread during the holidays. So, when D mentioned that he wanted a more cakey gingerbread for this batch, we opted to make a dough similar to what you use for Puerquitos , Mexican gingerbreads. Thankfully, my Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf made the dough and rolled them out while I was busy making cranberry sauce, cranberry curd, and boules and boules of sou...

  Every year I pick a theme for our Thankgiving feast. Previous menus have included Ab Ovo Usque Ad Mala, A Thanksgiving Menu ,   inspired by the historical novelist Crystal King;  A Claudia Rodin-Inspired Thanksgiving Menu: Arabesque ; A Feast from the East , featuring dishes with Asian flair; a menu with a Literary Twist ; Thanksgivukkah , when Thanksgiving and Hannukah collided; and more. Inspired by this bizarre year when we have all be sheltered-in-place as the coronavirus rages on, I have a somewhat grim outlook on the holidays. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather we all stay home so that, in the future, we are all still around. But it's mentally grueling to celebrate yet another holiday without friends and family. I miss cooking for my circle. I miss the people crowded around my dining room table. I miss the laughter as the kids run off into the other room and shoot Nerf guns or have a pillow fight. And I miss hugging my parents. Since March we have only seen them at a ...

   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 was excited to see a jar of San Giuliano's sundried tomatoes in the pantry section of The Quail & Olive .* Based on the island of Sardinia, San Giuliano's tomatoes are picked and left to dry in the sun before being seasoned with oil, capers, and herbs. Because these have such concentrated flavor, I used them sparingly and asked my trio for suggestions. When someone mentioned putting it in sourdough, I was sold. Yep, we're definitely doing that. Earlier this year, when I started on this sourdough journey - read all about that  here  - I went way off the deep-end with my add-ins to the bread. Then I backed off and solidified my recipe and my process to get consistent loaves. Now, after months of baking that  Ten-Percent Rye Sourdough , I dec...

  A friend from high school recommended this book - In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker's Odyssey by Samuel Fromartz*- so, of course, I ordered it. I am always reading. And it is usually about food. On the Page photo from amazon.com Let's start with this: this isn't a cookbook. While there are some recipes included, it's an account of Fromartz' journey to becoming an expert bread baker, or being able to bake the perfect loaf. His writing style is compelling and he conveys the reader seamlessly from memoir to food history to cookbook and back again. As he narrates his progress as a baker, you also learn more about the ingredients and the process. You learn about different grains and their resulting flours. You meet all of the experts he seeks out. And, if you're inspired as I was, you'll get into the kitchen and bake some bread. As I followed his journey I kept nodding my head as I was on this same path when I inherited some sourdough starter at the...

  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. Colder weather and upcoming holidays always puts me in a baking frame of mind. And I had just picked up a mini bundt pan at  The Quail & Olive *, so I wanted to think of something to bake in that. My first thought for holiday cakes is always gingerbread!   Seriously, I love gingerbread in every form. You might say I'm slightly obsessed with that flavor profile. My Gingerbread Obsession I am not joking when I say that I have gingerbread obsession. Really. Gingerbread is a family favorite and we love exploring different kinds of gingerbread cookies. We've made Danish  Honningkagehjerter  and Mexican  Puerquitos  (Gingerbread Pigs); I have created a  Speculaas  recipe that's similar to what I remember from the Netherlands...it...