Culinary Adventures with Camilla

   This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of  Melissa's Produce . I received complimentary product for the purpose of review and recipe development, but all opinions are honest and they are my own.  This page may contain affiliate links. Can you believe that February is already over? And we even had a bonus day in February. But with the advent of March, I begin to see the steady parade towards the Vernal Equinox and Spring which is my favorite season. Last week I noticed that  Melissa's Produce *   shared a photo of yellow dragonfruit on one of their social media channels. So, I reached out to my contacts at Melissa's Produce to see if they would want to sponsor a series of posts. I had my eyes on making some Spring-y, sunny dishes. And they did! I received a selection of yellow produce and set out to make some #SpringOnThePlate recipes. Because the finger bananas were perfectly ripe when they arrived, I knew that they would...

I initially tracked down a bottle of wine labeled - through an online vendor - as coming from the Jura in preparation for David's, of Cooking Chat ,   French Winophiles October event. Then I paired it with a new-to-us dish. Upon further reading, however, I realized that while the wine was from the wrong region, the dish was from the region where the wine was made. Boo. At least the dish and the wine matched! So, now, you don't have to wait till October to get this recipe. It's perfect if you're still in the throes of winter where you live. Plus I was able to locate two bottles of wine from the correct region. Stay tuned for those... In the Glass In retrospect, I should have known that the wine was from the wrong region as I just poured a bottle of Quenard wine for our focus on the Savoie earlier this month. You can read that post A Taste of #vindesavoie: Älpermakkaronen + 2018 JP & JF Quenard Vin de Savoie Chignin  where I write about both Savoie ...

It's time for Fish Friday Foodies' February event. W e are a group of seafood-loving bloggers, rallied by Wendy of  A Day in the Life on the Farm , to   share fish and seafood recipes on the third Friday of the month. And t his month Karen of  Karen's Kitchen Stories  is at the helm, while the group serves up Fish Friday Pies. Karen provided a little guidance by saying we could make "pies, tarts, quiches, hand pies, pot pies, mini pies.... etc." Before I get to my pick, here's the line-up... British Fish Pie from Making Miracles Charleston Shrimp Pie from A Day in the Life on the Farm Greek Inspired Scallops, Spinach, and Caper Puff Pastry Appetizer Bites from Goats and Greens Jambalaya Pot Pie from Palatable Pastime Magical White Fish B'Stilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla Norwegian Flaked Salmon & Potato Mini Tarts from Sneha’s Recipe Sheet Pan Seafood Pot Pie from Karen’s Kitchen Stories Smoked Salmon Tarts from Sid’s ...

Here we are the February edition of the Cake Slice Bakers. For 2020, we'll be baking from  The New Way to Cake: Simple Recipes with Exceptional Flavor  by Benjamina Ebuehi.* In this group, we are given a selection of three cake recipes. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes! Follow our  Facebook ,  Instagram , and  Pinterest   pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details. The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called  The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends ...

I love the Fantastical Food Fight coordinated by Sarah of  Fantastical Sharing of Recipes . For more information about the event, click  here . I haven't been very good at participating every month, but as this is the final installment, I knew I had to jump in .   Sarah shared: "I begin my Masters program in February and need to try and give it my undivided attention and decided that February's Red Velvet Food Fight will be the final food fight. I feel like we just started but we've been food fighting since November 2016. Isn't that crazy?! Thank you all for joining in and sharing recipes each month! It has been such a fun journey!"  So, I started planning, even though Red Velvet is sort of my Moby Dick. Let me explain. But first, here's the #FantasticalFoodFight final line-up... You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter The Pale, Pale, Pale Red Velvet  Layer Cake That Almost Wasn't Here's...

After I read a book for a future Cook the Books event -  Kitchen Chinese: A Novel About Food, Family, and Finding Yourself  by Ann Mah  -  I was interested in reading something else by the same author. I found  The Lost Vintage by Ann Mah* at my local library. On the Page The Lost Vintage reminded me of The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel . You can read my post about that book: here . Thank goodness I never tire of historical fiction, especially when set in wine country! The Lost Vintage  is told in two timelines - present day and World War II - and is set mostly in the Burgundy wine-making region of France. We meet Kate Elliot who is struggling to pass the Master of Wine examination. Her mentor suggests she leave San Francisco and head to her family estate in Burgundy to immerse herself in Burgundian vintages. "'Your Achilles' heel is always France. And not even all French wine. Just the white,' Jennifer observed a few months ago...

This month for our Lit Happens book club, Amy of  Amy's Cooking Adventures  picked  Stargirl  by Jerry Spinnelli.* Though that is not a cook-from-the-book kinda group; I always find some kind of inspiration to create an edible of some kind! But first, the book... On the Page This book is a celebration of individuality and nonconformity set in a time - adolescence - when popularity and inclusion rely on conformity. Narrator Leo Borlock tells the tale of Stargirl Caraway's arrival at Mica High School where the tacit rule is: do not stand out under any circumstance! "We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past 'weird' and 'strange' and 'goofy'. Her ways knocked us off balance. A single word seemed to hover in the cloudless sky over the school: HUH?" (pg. 11). Stargirl was born Susan, then, she explains her evolution during her interview in the Hot Seat, a school-produced program. ...