Tuesday, January 4, 2011

FOOD!

I think I've figured out the way to get through this thing - all 365 days of it, and that is to take a few early random pics (today I took some of my son sleeping), and then I will always have :something" in case I dont get anything inspired.

Well, I'm sure that you are looking forward in great anticipation to see my son sleeping (specially because of how rare that is - i.e. usually if he is sleeping, he is sleeping on top of me and so there are no pictures of it), but, you will have to wait for that one.

Today, I bring you a picture of food.  I find pictures of food interesting because - at least at most places - the food always looks so mouthwatering in the pictures, and then when they bring it out, it ends up being so disappointing.  Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't be saying that right before showing you a picture of my dinner.

Anyway, I digress...

So, this is a picture of the dinner that I made tonight (and for bonus points, look below for the recipe:)):
It is curried lentils and quinoa, with spinach, Quorn Chicken, and a Tofurkey Italian Sausage in it.
As far as the picture, I've found that any time you take a picture of food, you need more light than in a normal picture, but not too much to completely destroy the details in the food.  I took this picture in the kitchen which has beige walls instead of the white walls that I'm used to bouncing my flash off of - so I had to put the Speedlite at M 1/1 (the highest power).  Shutter speed was 1/100, ISO400 (didn't want much grain since this was a big "details" picture, in retrospect, I could have gone down to a lower shutter speed and ISO and even brought out the tripod to get a better pic - but honestly, I wanted to eat it not take pictures of it:)), and f4.0.  I had the f-stop at 4.0 cause I was closeup and wanted some blur in the background, but didn't want everything but my focus point to be blurred.  I really am pleased with the blur in the picture, I spot-meter focused on the raisin in the center, and those are crispy sharp, and the back of the bowl/background is blur but not too blur - I like!

I used my 24-70mm f2.8L lens again, and my T1i...I will say that his being the first time I've taken a picture of something still, I love being able to take my time. Sigh...not really a luxury that taking pics of children allows:)

Ok, now for what you've been waiting for - the recipe (this is for 2 large servings)
A quick note about the recipe - my husband is vegetarian (I'm mostly, but not all the way), so I don't cook meat in the house, so any recipe that I put up is going to be vegetarian:
Takes 15 minutes to prepare.
1/2 cup of lentils
1/2 cup quinoa
1 tsp Everglades Seasoning
1 tsp curry
1/4 tsp Red Pepper seasoning
1 bag baby spinach
1 Quinoa Chicken cutlet
1 Tofurkey Italian Sausage
1 cup Greek Yogurt (dont use the normal yogurt, it doesn't work)
big handful of raisins

Put quinoa and water in a microwave safe dish, microwave for 15 minutes.  During this time, put lentils, Everglades seasoning, curry, red pepper seasoning, Quorn cutlet, Tofurkey sausage, and water in pot on stovetop, boil without a top for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  After about 10 minutes, cut up sausage and quorn into bite size pieces (they are soft so I cut them with a spatula), after 15 minutes when most of the water has evaporated off, add spinach, stir and cook for 2-3 more minutes.
Plate it with the quinoa first, then the lentils, then yogurt and raisins on top (the yogurt and raisins make it, trust me)...

Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. This looks amazing! We can't do the yogurt, but we can enjoy the rest of it.

    ReplyDelete