Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Today the Sunday Funday group is sharing recipes with okra. 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.  And, this week, Sneha has asked us to share okra recipes. We love okra in this household. I have made  Okra Chips Two Ways . and Quick Pickled Okra . And it's an important ingredient in gumbo as that dish derived from the word 'gombo' which translates to 'okra' in many West African languages. In any any case, here's the okra line-up from the #SundayFunday bloggers... Baked Okra Fries from Culinary Adventures with Camilla Begova Corba from Bosnian Chicken Okra Soup from Pandemonium Noshery  Bhendi (Okra) Sabzi With Pickle Masala from Sneha’s Recipe  Crispy Oven Fried Okra from Food Lust People Love   Khoresh Bamia (Lamb with Okra) from Palatable Pastime  Okra Mexicana from A Day i...

Earlier this month my boys were on a cruise with my parents. While Jake and I did enjoy several fun date nights, I missed cooking with my Kitchen Elves. This one [left], the Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf, loves all things curry. So, as a welcome home present, I gave him a new cookbook. He was thrilled and, his first night back home, he made a lamb curry. Thinking about our Cook the Books assignment from Deb at Kahakai Kitchen (click for her invitation ), I wanted to play more with spices and make more curries. We did have, after all, 659 more curries to try! But first a little bit more about the assigned book. On the Page... I had read The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais years ago, but just got it back from a friend to whom I had lent it. Perfect timing. I tucked it into my backpack and brought it to the hotel when my husband and I sneaked away for a staycation on the beach while the boys were out of town. I devoured it in just a few sittings - first with wi...

Do you always have leftovers from Easter (or Passover) supper? This week the #SundaySupper crew is sharing great ways to revamp those leftovers. Ham is a family tradition - not my nuclear family - but my mom and dad's tradition. And we, inevitably, come home with slabs of it. Inspired by an episode of Mind of a Chef , my Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf and I made some pan-fried ham with okra and red-eye gravy. This recipe used not only leftover ham but leftover coffee. I know, what's that, right? I love that this recipe doesn't require measurements...and it only uses one pan! Ingredients slabs of leftover ham okra cornmeal canola oil freshly ground salt freshly ground pepper leftover coffee Procedure Slice okra in half lengthwise. Toss them in a bowl with cornmeal and turn until well-coated. Heat canola oil in a skillet. Fry okra until crisped. Drain on a paper towel. In the same skillet, pan-fry the ham till warmed. Remove the ha...

I served these at my Pickle Bar this weekend and they were a favorite. So simple and so tasty. I think that even some people who were okra-shy ended up liking these! These are ready to eat after 24 hours, but I let mine pickle for 48 hours. They were delicious. Ingredients 2 C organic okra 1/2 C white vinegar 1/4 C apple cider vinegar 3/4 C water 3 T organic blonde coconut sugar 1 T salt (I used some large-grained  Monterey Bay Garlic Sea Salt ) 3 cloves minced garlic Procedure Blanche the okra quickly. I place the okra in a medium saucepan, cover them with water, and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat and drain immediately. Place all of the other ingredients together in a medium saucepan. Bring it to a boil and, then, simmer for 3 to 5 minutes. Pour the liquid over the top of the okra. Let come to room temperature. Seal the jars and refrigerate until ready to eat. These will keep for approximately 2 weeks. Let come to room temperature before serving....

Okra seems a polarizing ingredient. 'Slimy' is what I hear most from non-fans. This recipe keeps the okra on the crisp side, so there's not much slime involved. I love the sweetness of the summer corn and the intrigue of the curry. Ingredients 2 C trimmed okra, sliced into 1" pices 1 shallot, thinly sliced steamed corn, cut off the cob freshly ground salt freshly ground pepper olive oil 1/2 t curry powder Procedure In a medium skillet, heat a splash of olive oil. Add in the shallots and cook until softened and beginning to caramelize. Season with salt, pepper, and curry powder. Toss in the okra and saute for 5 minutes. Add in the corn kernels. Stir until glossy. Let cool slightly before serving.

It's time for Group B's  Secret Recipe Club   June reveal. This month I was assigned to   The Tasty Cheapskate , a blog written by Jean. She humorously writes about the name of her blog and how cheapskatery was a major theme of her childhood. She admits that she cooks now. And eats. "Though--for the record--I'm still really cheap (not margarine cheap, my friends, but cheap). It's in my bones." Too funny. Glad to have gotten to know her...and her glowing liver! Jean has a Cheap Eat Challenge where she's attempting to feed 6 people on 6 dollars a day. Click to read more about that: here . These Balsamic Strawberries cost just over $1; Dal with Tomato and Cream is just less than $2; and her Skillet Lasagna was $5. I wanted to try something completely new to us and settled on her Okra Chips . But I will definitely give her Dilly Beans  and Quick Pickles a try this summer. We, as a family, as not anti-okra, but I have never made them this way. Enj...

Grenada is an island country comprised of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. It's located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Some fun facts: Grenada is also known as the "Island of Spice" because of the production of nutmeg and mace crops of which Grenada is one of the world's largest exporters. Its capital is St. George's. And the national bird of Grenada is the critically endangered Grenada Dove. When I was searching for traditional Grenadian recipes, I kept coming across variations of the Oildown; it's considered the national dish - a onepot meal cooked in coconut milk until all the milk is absorbed, leaving a bit of coconut oil in the bottom of the pot. Some recipes call for a mixture of salted pigtail, pigs feet (trotters), salt beef and chicken, dumplings made from flour along with brea...

We headed to West Africa for a Beninese feast tonight. Present-day Benin was the site of the African kingdom of Dahomey and, then, a French colony. And its cuisine reflects both its location on the African continent, on the Gulf of Guinea, and its historical ties to France. Riley cooked, Dylan folded laundry (to stay out of the way), and, for his part, Jake had Benin-born Angélique Kidjo streaming on pandora. A full family affair on this Friday night... Riley and I created a Benin-style Crab Stew that was a mixture of a few different Beninese recipes. Slow-stewed okra and tomatoes were a delicious base for this seafood concoction. "Mushed" and "smashed" seem to be the texture of choice for Beninese food. They have a dish called 'Pâte Rouge' which translates, literally, as "red paste." Not a very appetizing name, in my opinion. I opted to cook cassava and plantains until 'mushable' and then I put Riley to work with the potato masher. ...

This wasn't a real recipe I found from Benin, but rather a combination of a few different recipes. I liked the flavors of  sauce gumbo (slow-stewed okra and tomatoes) and ago glain (crab seasoned with pili-pili ). So I combined them and came up with this. Pili-pili most often refers to African Birdseye peppers, but since  pili-pili simply means "pepper-pepper" and is a generic term for any African chile, I used a poblano chile I had in the fridge. I learned this today: the name for okra sounds like 'gumbo' in several African dialects. For something to be called a gumbo, it should contain okra. Interesting. okra poblano chile minced garlic sliced tomatoes chicken boullion crab meat, cooked and cleaned paprika smoked sea salt In a large flat-bottomed pan, soften the garlic and chile in a pat of butter with a splash of olive oil. Add the tomatoes, okra, and chicken boullion. Cook until the okra is cooked through. There's a reason Peace Corp volunteers...

I sauteed diced onions in a pat of butter and a splash of olive oil.  Then I added cubes of chicken and pancetta and cooked them completely. Next I added all the seafood (a combination of fish, oysters, mussels, octopus, shrimp, and squid), a can of tomatoes, red wine, a few saffron threads, a couple of bay leaves, two crushed tepin chilis, ground ancho chili powder, and ground cumin. Finally, I brought that pot to a boil, reduced the heat, added sliced okra, and simmered till everything was completely cooked.  Before serving I stirred in cooked brown rice and topped it all with rough-chopped parsley. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

In honor of Mardi Gras, I searched for traditional recipes for gumbo...only to discover that there is no canonical recipe for gumbo. It seems there are as many recipes for gumbo as there are cooks!  The only two constants in a gumbo: variety and okra. The term 'gumbo' likely comes from an African dialect whose word for okra is ki ngombo .  Gumbos can have meat, seafood, just about anything.  In Mark Huntsman's "The History of Gumbo" he refers to written mentions of using muskrat and owl in gumbo recipes.  I embraced the unlimited potential of ingredients and opted for a combination of fish, chicken, pancetta, oysters, mussels, octopus, shrimp, and squid...and lots of okra!