Remember about 6 weeks ago I told you about my new film camera? The Nikon FM, a fully manual camera. This camera is not only manual exposure, but manual focus. I know that I’m comfortable shooting manual exposure, because I shoot almost entirely in manual during photoshoots and at weddings. One of the really cool things about getting the roll back was realizing I do “get” exposure (or at least how to use my light meter). Other than the “accidental” shots, the roll was mostly perfectly exposed (I like a wee-bit of overexposed in my images).
My biggest problem: focus. This image of the hubs is a perfect example.
You can see that I just missed it. The plane of focus is across his shoulders and his wrist. What would have been an awesome portrait of my hubby (probably my favourite image from the roll) turned into something a bit unusable :( But it is good learning. And, quite honestly, by the end of my black and white roll, which won’t be ready until tomorrow, I was feeling a lot more comfortable with the focusing features of my camera! So, I’m excited to get that one back! For now, I leave you with some of my faves! Thoughts, critiques, anything else?
This soup is delicious. It’s creamy (without using any animal products), it’s flavourful, and its warm. When making the soup, I roasted 5 lbs of tomatoes and planned on using the excess for her Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto… I’m sure that would have been delicious, but in an inattentive couple of moments I used a bunch of spinach instead of a bunch of basil for the Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto. Flavour fail :( But all those roasting tomatoes made for a pretty picture!
But, back to the soup. It served us well on as a warm dinner on a cold fall day, and then kept well in the freezer in mason jars for a couple of weeks and we recently had it for lunch. Delicious.
3 cups roasted tomatoes [Note: Roast more if you want to make the pesto … with basil … at the same time!]
2 tbsp roasted garlic flesh [Note: I roasted a whole head of garlic and used the excess as a spread on toast for "carb group"]
1 roasted sweet onion
1 can light coconut milk (reserve 2-3 tbsp for garnish)
3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth [Note: If you aren't a vegan, go ahead and use chicken broth. I did. It was delicious.]
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp garam masala or make your own [Note: I didn't have garam masala so I used a sprinkle of cumin and red pepper flakes. Yum!]
1 tsp salt or to taste (you may have to reduce amt. if you used full-sodium broth)
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
for garnish: garlic croutons, toast, coconut milk, pesto, herbs, garam masala, pepper, etc.
Directions
Preheat oven to 400F and line 2 baking sheets with tin foil (note that parchment paper will burn). Wrap up a head of garlic in tin foil. Lightly drizzle oil onto onions and season onions and tomatoes with salt & pepper.
Roast for about 30 minutes and then check on the vegetables. You might have to remove the onions early as they cook the quickest. When the onions are golden and lightly blackened on the edge, you can remove them. Continue roasting the garlic for about 60 minutes or so (check it after 45 mins), and the tomatoes for about 1 hour and 20 mins. Your oven times will vary though, so keep an eye on them!
Add 3 cups roasted tomatoes, 2 tbsp roasted garlic flesh, and all the onion into a large pot. Add coconut milk, tomato paste, and broth and stir well.
Stir in the seasonings and spices to taste. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 5-10 minutes.
Carefully transfer into a blender, processor, or use an immersion blender. Pulse for just a few seconds until chunky (or smooth, your choice). Serve immediately and garnish with reserved coconut milk, a sprinkle of garam masala, croutons/bread, and fresh black pepper. Or serve with roasted garlic on toast, like I did!
On Sunday afternoon, I noticed that three bananas were getting a touch overripe on my counter. Usually I deal with overripe bananas by peeling them and tossing a ziplock in the freezer for future smoothies. However, over the period of the juice obsession (more on that fizzled obsession to come) my freezer got inundated with unused bananas. There is only so many blended and juiced beverages a girl can take. So this time, this time I opted to make banana bread.
I’ve only attempted banana bread a handful of times before, it is one of my favourite things in the whole world and I’ve managed to fail at it. Repeatedly. But, never one to let failure knock me down on Sunday, October 23, 2011, I tried again. And I’m oh. so. glad I did.
The difference between this time and the last time I made banana bread? Allrecipes.com. Seriously, this recipe for Banana Banana Bread has about 4.6 stars after (wait for it) 6,573 reviews. Six thousand five hundred and seventy three reviews. Six thousand, five hundred and seventy three people have taken the time out of their day to spend a few minutes reviewing this delicious bread recipe. Holy cow!
The other thing about allrecipes.com, the reviewers generally leave helpful tips! Specifically this one: from reviewer Nicole:
I have to say that if the bread seems dry and dense, chances are you stirred it too much, which is easy to do without even thinking about it. With sweet breads and muffins, you should always just stir to moisten. Never over-do it or else you will end up with a drier and denser bread or muffin.
That was my “ah ha” moment. Cream your sugar, butter and banana mixture, but when the wet ingredients hit the dry ingredients… barely mix at all. If you follow that sweet, sweet tip, sweet bread perfection will be in your future!
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas [Note: This was about 3.5 large overripe bananas for me!]
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan. [Note: I lined mine with parcement paper instead. I don't know why I did that but it worked!]
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. [Note: This is super important! Don't over mix!!] Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. [Note: It took me 75 minutes, but my stove is a tad unreliable!]
[Note: Bread will keep very moist in a ziplock bag for (at least) 3.5 days!]
P.S. It’s been a bit of a baking bonanza here on the blog, funny thing is – I don’t tend to bake much! Regular recipes coming soon, I promise :)
This picture was taken on August 23, 2008 on our self-drive safari through Kruger National Park, South Africa. I’ve been thinking about sharing this photo since they went to South Africa on the Bachelor way back in February. But then I forgot. You know what they say, time flies when you are having fun. If you have the means to take one big trip in your life, I highly, highly recommend you take that trip to South Africa. You won’t regret it.
On that note. Travel Tuesday – as we currently know it – is coming to a close, at least for the time being. I’ve got lots and lots and lots of trips that I haven’t blogged about yet (Montreal, in May… embarrassing, the tulip festival (yes… another spring thing) in Ottawa, Paris, the south of France and Barcelona, Suter family extravaganzas to New York and Fredericton, my first time in PEI, and an upcoming trip to San Francisco to shoot a wedding. So, you won’t be longing for travel features over the next 10 weeks friends!
This photo was taken on March 10, 2009 at the end of a grueling four-day hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, Peru. Despite the rainy season, we were very lucky to have an almost rain-free four-day hike as well as a rain-free day at Machu Picchu. This was one of the few super dooper famous sites I have been to (along with Angkor Wat) where the old happiness = reality/expectations equation didn’t come back to bite me in the butt. However, I have heard of other traveler’s who have found the whole thing much ado about nothing. I don’t really know what’s with those guys, I just want you to be forwarned. Oh, one more thing, while there was lots of good in Peru, there was lots of bad and ugly, especially in Aguas Calientes, just down the mountain from Machu Picchu.
We spent Canadian thanksgiving in Fredericton with my in-laws (the hubs’ mom & dad, his two sisters, and our nieces and nephew). (Actually, the previous weekend we spent in New York with some of the same people, however, my images from that weekend were all b&w film and I haven’t got them developed yet!). We had an amazing two days spending time with these awesome people with whom we don’t get to spend nearly enough time.
A couple of days before we left, I came across a recipe for the “world’s best buttercream icing” on (you guessed it) pinterest. Since Kate, my sister-in-law, and I had enjoyed some delicious buttercream frosted cupcakes the weekend before I thought it would be a fun idea to make cupcakes with delicious icing!
Stephanie, my other sister-in-law, handed over her kitchen and her daughters and it was really a super fun Saturday afternoon activity!
This really was the best buttercream icing ever. It comes from The Kitchen Magpie – a fellow Edmontonian! The recipe is simple, easy, and delicious (and a bit of a mess… what with mixing the icing sugar and all)!
We put the world’s best buttercream on these cupcakes brownies. They were delicious, but were too brownie like and not fluffy enough for my taste! In all honesty, next time I would use a box of cake mix, making these seriously the easiest cupcakes ever!
1 cup of salted butter (This is the secret ingredient. Whatever you do, don’t use unsalted butter!)
3 teaspoons of vanilla
4 cups of icing sugar
3-5 tablespoons of coffee cream (18% and up) (No milk allowed, it is buttercream icing after all!)
Directions
First, a quote from The Kitchen Magpie on using salted butter.
Trust me on this one and use salted butter. I haven’t come across a single recipe that uses salted, and I think that is what made the difference. I don’t do unsalted butter. Ever. I don’t even know where it is in the store, to be honest.
About 1/2 or so before you make your icing, set out your cream and butter so they warm up to room temperature. I’m not sure why or where I heard that, but just do it!
When everything is room temperature, use a paddle beater to whip the butter (if you have one). We didn’t, we used a hand mixer, we had no problems with that! Once your butter is whipped up, add in the cream. We used about 3 tablespoons, because we wanted a stiffer icing. More cream = less stiff! You’ll need to do some taste tests and monitor as you go! Next up, vanilla (again, to taste). Then whip away! Once it’s whippy, it’s ready!
We wanted coloured icing – blue, pink and purple. Not very “thanksgiving”, but oh so pretty!
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