Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Today kicks off a week long event, hosted by Sue of Palatable Pastime . She's wrangled a group of blogers to share Mexicn recipes for the whole week. What fun! Happy #MexicanRecipes Let’s have a fiesta of Cinco de Mayo inspired recipes all week long! Papusas de Queso from A Day in the Life on the Farm Mexican Restaurant Rice from Palatable Pastime Posole de Camarones (Shrimp and Hominy Stew) from Culinary Adventures with Camilla Enchiladas to Feed a Crowd from Tip Garden Mexican Street Corn Barley Salad from Cooking With Carlee Conchas (Mexican Sweet Bread) from Amy's Cooking Adventures Avocado Paletas (Mexican Avocado Ice Pops) from Caroline's Cooking Churro French Toast from Jolene's Recipe Journal Beef Tacos from Books n' Cooks Easy Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms from Feeding Big One Pan Chicken Enchilada Rice Bake from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks Mexican Strawberry Cheesecake Chimichangas from All that's Jas Check back e...

It's been a bear of a week. But, on Wednesday, I needed to take a deep breath, slow down, and celebrate my Love! He turned 42 this week. Thank goodness my Kitchen Elves are well-trained. They commandeered the breakfast menu, declaring that we were going to make birthday crêpes with three kinds of berries! We found fresh organic raspberries and blackberries...and I had just made fresh strawberry-tarragon jam last weekend. Done! Ingredients 1-1/2 C gluten-free all-purpose flour 3 eggs 2 C organic whole milk dash of cardamom splash of vanilla butter, for cooking For serving: fresh berries, jam, and unsweetened whipped cream Procedure Whisk all of the ingredients together until lump-free. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. Heat a large flat-bottom pan and rub the bottom with butter. Pour the batter in the middle of the pan and quickly make a tilting motion to distribute the batter all over the pan. The goal: have as thin a batter layer as possible. Cook...

This month, it was my turn to host  Food'N'Flix   where we watch movies and head into the kitchen and cook or bake or make something based on a recipe they actually make in it or just something we were driven to make after watching it. And I've selected  A Touch of Spice* . Truth be told: I hadn't actually seen it yet, but I'd read about it. And I'm always game for something about food, family, and history.  We had a nice selection of dishes submitted, but I want to formally apologize to those bloggers who had a tough time finding the movie to watch. I didn't realize it would be a challenge to find a copy. Mea culpa.  Some suggested the library and some bloggers shared their copies, shipping them to others who couldn't find it locally. That's one of the many reasons I love food bloggers: they are a generous community! To those who joined me, thank you. To those whose efforts were twarted, I'm sorry.  I decided to divide my round-up into ...

Here we are at the April Food'N'Flix event and I'm hosting! You can read my invitation: here . I invited the bloggers to watch A Touch of Spice .* And, truth be told, I had never watched the movie myself, but I knew that I would like it. I was correct. What a beautiful movie! On the Screen Okay, so you already know that I was quite taken with this movie. The scenes in the past were filmed in muted colors, not quite sepia-toned, but softer than usual. I loved that instead of spraying their correspondence with perfume, they rubbed the postcards in spices. How fun...and fragrant. The movie is structured like a dinner, divided into three parts: appetizers, main course, and dessert. We see Fanis as young child in his grandfather's spice shop; as a Greek citizen being deported out of Turkey; as young adult, still in Greece; and as an astronomy professor who has returned to Turkey when his grandfather is gravely ill. "Grandpa said the word 'gastron...

When I was trying to decide on a dessert for our Easter brunch, I was inspired by the bounty of beets I had just picked up from Serendipity Farms . I wanted to make a naturally bright pink dessert and settled on panna cotta . That is definitely my go-to, easy-to-make-ahead-of-time dessert. Some of my other versions include Espresso Panna Cotta , Cardamom Panna Cotta , Salted Juniper-Dark Chocolate Panna Cotta , and Matcha Panna Cotta . It's so easy to get creative. And the beets added that lovely pop of color. Funny story - I purchased PEEPs with the thought to use them to hold our place cards. Look right! The Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf was insistent: "Mom, PEEPs are not for decorating. They are for eating." Well, I'm not sure I agree with that. But he plunked them on top of my beet panna cotta and citrus mousse. And I can admit: they were cute. Beet Panna Cotta And Citrus Mousse Ingredients  makes eight 4-ounce servings Panna Cotta 3 envel...

Welcome to the April version of  Improv Cooking Challenge . This group is now headed up by Nichole of  Cookaholic Wife . The idea behind Improv Cooking Challenge: we are assigned two ingredients and are challenged to create a recipe with those two things.  This month's items: bananas and coconut. It just so happens that I made a dessert from Tuvalu for our Cooking Around the World Adventure that included those two ingredients! And I recently learned more than I probably needed to know about bananas when I read Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World by Dan Koeppel. You can read my thoughts and see another banana recipe in this post . While this dessert is not a particularly photogenic one, it was delicious and everyone asked for seconds! I'll call that a success. Suafa’i Ingredients  serves 6 6 medium ripe to overripe bananas 5 C water 1½ C coconut milk 1 C milk ½ C large tapioca pearls ¼ C organic granulated sugar ...

I am already having a crazy week; it's Spring fund drive time. Enough said. But I get to be around these kids and their enthusiasm and love of their school is infectious. Still I am determined to stick to my schedule of traveling by tabletop to at least one country per week with our Cooking Around the World Adventure . So, here we go to Tuvalu. from ontheworldmap.com Some Facts... Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Its closest neighbors are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. Comprised of three reef islands and six true atolls, Tuvalu has a total land are of less than 10 square miles! The small island of Nanumea played a significant role in the World War II when it served as the bomber base for the Allied Forces defending the Pacific basin. 'Tuvalu', the name, refers to the country’s eight traditionally inhabited islands though there are nine islands that make up the country. For ...

So, if you've been following the #4theLoveofGarlic event, you might have seen several of these recipes already. But I wanted to give you a place to see them all together. Besides several of us posted more garlic recipes than just on our assigned posting days. Garlicky bonuses are always good! The #4theLoveofGarlic Team I love these gals. They definitely brought their garlic-lovin' A-game to the table for this event. Many thanks for your creativity. A Day in the Life on the Farm A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures Café Terra Culinary Adventures with Camilla Famished Fish, Finicky Shark Kahakai Kitchen All the Recipes... An InLinkz Link-up The Event Sponsors Again, many thanks to the event sponsors:  Dreamfarm  and  Melissa's Produce . We couldn't have done this without you! You can find Dreamfarm: on  the web , on  Facebook  , on  Twitter  , and on  Pinterest  . You can find  Melissa's:...

Last week was a ridiculously busy week. I mean, crazy. So, I only managed one dinner for our Cooking Around the World Adventure . After my second meeting with the IB consultant for R's high school, we traveled by tabletop to Turkmenistan. And this week isn't looking any better, so I hope to cook at least one country this week. Fingers crossed. from worldatlas.com About Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is one of six independent Turkic states in Central Asia and was once part of the Soviet Republic until declaring its independence in 1991. "It's one of the -stans," said R when D was looking for the country on a map. What's a -stan?!!? "You know Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and -" Turkmenistan! On Our Plates... When I first started researching recipes for Turkmenistan, I didn't find very many that were in English. Then I discovered the Twitter account for One Turkmen Kitchen and was saved! Photo...