Still Sunday - Fruits and Vegetables

The Be Still theme for the week was fruits and vegetables, and following Xanthe's colour of the week - yellow.

You know when you go to the grocery store to pick out fruits and vegetables you are supposed to pick a rainbow of colours and you always admire the person in front of you for eating so healthy, well it was quite interesting to watch my parade of yellow move along the checkout belt to the cashier.  All shades of yellow with a splash of green.

The set up was done in my basement in front of south facing windows with a late afternoon light. Light was also reflected on the opposite side to prevent dark spots.  Processing was done in Lightroom, using the Auto button, adjusting the exposure and reducing noise.

This was my favorite, with the LensBaby Composer and f4 aperture ring.

A couple of close ups

And two others I liked

Thanks for visiting.

Friday finds

It's now two weeks into the two courses I signed up for, Kim Klassen's Be Still and The Studio.  Only two weeks in and I'm behind.  If I worked 40 - 50 hours a week with 10 hours of commuting, I could really understand, but I work part-time from home.  Oh well, there's always next week to catch up.

While trying to do my assignments, which of course nothing is quite right, I found this week that I have rediscovered my love for my camera.  I love to take photos and I'm working on getting to like the processing.  I have also found my lost love for taking photos of food. This of course means I must cook more, which I am sure is why I'm behind on my classes.

I've taken to making a lot of soups this winter (and the bread to go with it) and I've never had Italian Wedding Soup.  I've always assumed that this was a special soup served at weddings, but apparently not so, it's a reference of the marriage of green vegetables and meat.  Who knew.

Wednesday's soup was so good we decided on soup again on Thursday. While chopping the vegetables for a cabbage soup and putting them into little piles, this photo came to be.

Not ready to put down the camera quite yet

I'm luck to live with a patient man, as he has come to learn that dinner isn't served until the photos are finished.

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Learning to Relax and Breathe

I've always thought of myself as a fairly relaxed person until I tried to sit still and breathe.  The first time I tried it, I got in three deep breathes and then panic set in. My body was telling me "enough", get up and get moving.  A couple of days of practise and I can now get in five.  A ways to go, but practise does make perfect, right?

On to my Friday Find of the week.  I was cleaning out the fridge and found a few lemons, some in great shape and a couple not so.  I drink a lot of water and when I have the time, love to have a few lemon slices with it.

I thought after looking at the lemons through the lens, I needed a little bit more color and added a bit of chopped basil.  The basil added a bit of a twist to the flavor and it might be my new go to drink.

 Thanks for visiting. Hope your week has been good and have a great weekend.

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The little board nobody wanted

While working on clearing out my Dad's house, a certain board would always catch my eye.  My Dad was a woodworker and a great hoarder collector of boards.  This one particular board was spalted, possibly maple and about four feet long.  The reason it wasn't wanted is that it was so bowed that when it was laying flat, the middle was almost 3/4" higher than the ends.  I must admit I picked it up many times, admiring the discoloration of the wood, then put it back down.  On our last trip to the house I picked it up knowing it might just be something special.

The board has sat in the garage for the past six months, still bowed.  A couple of days ago I thought if I cut off a piece, the bow wouldn't be so bad and perhaps it could make something useful for photograpy.  If nothing else, it would make a good practise piece for me to work on.

I cut it into a shape of an old fashioned bread board, shaped the edges and sanded and sanded.  When it was smooth enough I gave it a coat of hemp oil and oh my, the grains and the spalting gobsmacked me.  I don't think I've ever seen such a beautiful piece of wood.

Instead of "just" using it for photography, I had to bake bread to shoot with it.  I used the no-knead artisan bread recipe, quite easy to google, with 1 cup multigrain flour and 2 cups white flour.

And the bread turned out quite tasty as well.

The moral of the story? Well, with most of you being photographers and creative people, appreciating the beauty in old objects and crooked wood, I'm sure you know the moral of the story.

Kim's texture kk_ugglove was used in all three photos to add a little texture to the background.

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Such a busy week

You know how I told you last week we don't go to the city often, well last week was a little different.  It started on Friday when I helped my daughter set up and work her booth at the Royal Bison Craft and Art Fair.  My grandson also came to help so this was the easiest way to keep working and keep him safe.

And here's my daughter's table when we were finished.

It wasn't a large show but the people were in the mood to buy so she did very well.  The show was on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,so all three days were trips into the city.

Monday we took a trip back to the city to pick up a few things we needed and Tuesday I drove back in for a haircut (sorry no picture) and a shopping trip to Costco.  That's where I found this snow mountain made from snow collected from the roads.

Thursday was back into the city to pick up papers for work and to finish my Christmas shopping.

My favorite part of my days at home was doing Christmas baking.  I've alway said that if I wasn't so busy working I would finally do some Christmas baking.

Started with Acorn Squash Bread.  Not for Christmas, but I had half a squash that needed to be used. The recipe I used was from Eva Bakes. Definitely a keeper, moist and tasty.

First up for Christmas baking was sugar cookies.  I've never done these decorated ones before and not sure if I will again.  Next time may be sprinkles.

After reading a post of Kim Klassen's about food photography, I decided to try the Butter Tarts with a dark background instead of a light background.  I must say, I like it alot and will definately be trying this again.

It's Friday again and we're off to the city tonight to meet up with good friends for dinner.  Hope you all had a great week and thanks for visiting.

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Time for a healthy change

We have a little white box on the bathroom floor, which to be very honest, I have avoided the past few months.  I stepped on it today and oh my, no more puddings for me.  I did join Weightwatchers 5 months ago and paid for a 6 month membership.  The six months ends a week before we leave for a vacation in Maui and I thought at the time since I paid for it, I would use it.  Wrong.

Signing into Weightwatchers and entering my weight, I find I've gained a few since my last visit to the page in August.  So time to get serious.  There's no way to lose what I want before vacation, but time to get serious.

A recipe for baked oatmeal on Pinterest from greenlitebites caught my eye a couple of days ago.  I love oatmeal.  Doesn't really matter if it's cooked for breakfast, baked in a cookie or on top of a crisp and I love muffins, so the recipe was the best of two worlds.  After the scale episode this morning, time to bake oatmeal.  I basically followed the recipe posted but made a few tweaks, so I'll post mine.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Mix together in a large bowl and let sit 5 minutes.

2 mashed bananas
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup Splenda
2 beaten eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
3 cups Oats (I used large flakes)

Stir in 2 cups frozen berries, still frozen.

Divide batter into 18 muffin cups.  I lined mine with paper liners and high recommend this.

Bake 20 - 30 minutes or just the edges just start to turn brown.

Ready for the oven

Fresh from the oven

Best eaten with a spoon if eating while still hot

Oh my, these were so good.  Will I make these again?  You bet.  Best of all only 2 ww points.  I think they're going to be a perfect part of a breakfast-to-go or a mid morning snack.  Now that I've made my "healthy eating" declaration, I figure I'll be accountable.

A New Year

It's 2014 and a new year.  Last year my "word" was "create".  I'm afraid I didn't do so well with the word, so this year I've decided not to have a word.  It will be a free year for me, trying to find my creative side again.  No words, no rules.

Lately on Facebook and the cooking channel I've been seeing a lot of puddings.  I did not grow up with Bread Pudding and I don't remember ever having it before.  Deciding to create something new for the new year I did some searching and came across this website mountainmamacooks with a recipe for Brown Sugar Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce.  Looked to be easy enough so I gave it a try.

I thought if raisins were good, then apple might be as well.  I had a few slices of Granny Smith apples in cinnamon left over from Christmas Eve, chopped them up and added them with the raisins. Bread, milk, eggs, raisins, apples and yogurt = a well balanced meal.

Oh my, it is delicious.  Not sure how I've survived all these years without eating bread pudding.

Instead of the Caramel Sauce, I had it with frozen Vanilla Yogurt.  Yum.

I hope that you all have a  very happy, creative and prosperous 2014 and may you find a way to make your dreams come true.

Devonian Botanic Garden Luminaria

For years I have wanted to see this event.  It was either too cold, no snow or bad highways.  Yesterday was perfect.  A little cold (minus 17 Celsius) but no wind so I spent the evening at the Devonian Botanic Gardens with my two photo buddies.  Both of them being so polite, neither would tell me it might be a tad too cold for this.

First a stop at an Indian restaurant for a fabulous meal.

Ice cold water was served in beautiful hammered copper cups.

We had the most delicious mango milkshake with dinner.

After dinner back to the truck and the drive to Devon.  At the Devonian Botanic Gardens we were greeted with thousands of luminarias leading the way to the Japanese Garden.

Lanterns and luminarias adorned the trees.

During the summer a large pond and bridge are the focal point of the garden.  Seeing this in the winter I sure want to make a trip back in the summer.

Ice sculptures along the paths were plentiful.

Looking back at the end of the trail through the five acres, it was a beautiful sight to see and certainly worth the frozen fingers and camera.

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