Sunday, August 17, 2014

PHOTOS

 
When we go on holidays we take hundreds, no thousands, of photos.
 
Tony has the you-beaut-DSLR camera with several different lenses
and I have a little idiot proof, point-and-shoot camera that I love.
 
 Taking lots of photos means we cement those holiday experiences in our memories
so the photos always include photos of the food we eat as well as the places we go and the people we meet along the way.
 
When we come home we spend a lot of time looking at them and it has become a tradition that we make a photo book - ( Blerb is our program of choice ).
 
Every year the book gets bigger and bigger - this year required two books.
 
 

The first, about Italy, filled 250 pages and it a real brick of a book
 

and the second much smaller ( thinner ) one is just about our week in Paris.
 
 
After all this studying of photos Tony has chosen one photo as the best of the holiday and it is this one :
 
 
And guess what?
 
 It is one I took !!
 
Apparently the play of light and shade in this Roman streetscape has made it a winner !
 
The one we chose for the cover of the photobook ( and coming in a very close second ) is this one of a Venice canal taken by Tony.
 
 
We've decided to have them enlarged ( a lot ) and framed to put on our family room wall.
They can take pride of place there for a time until they are replaced with the winners from our next trip.
 
These ones are photos we have had put on canvas from previous trips to England and Paris and will now gradually be replaced with this years selections.
 

 
 ( Tony has changed the setting on my camera so that it takes a photo that fills the whole screen of our new TV without distorting the image but it looks a bit weird doesn't it ?)


 
This photo below ( from this trip ) is a favourite of mine of the spectacular horses at St Mark's in Venice.
I have framed it and it already graces the wall in the dining room.

 
 
 
What do you do with your holiday photos ?
 
Cheers.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

THIS WEEK IN MY KITCHEN

Guests for lunch on Sunday meant a bit of extra effort.
 
 Chicken, mushroom and leek pie ready for a last minute trip to the oven.
 
 
Served up with roast vegies, red cabbage and peas it tasted pretty darn good !
 
 
 
Dessert needed to be something light
so Panna Cotta was just the thing.
 

 

 
 
My first attempt and they were perfect.
I topped them with berries
 - frozen raspberries and fresh strawberries gently cooked with a little sugar -
Mmmmmmmmmm !
 
 
Small Roma tomatoes oven dried .
full of intense tomatoey flavour they made a lovely lunch on buttered sour dough bread.
 
 
Other dinners this week -
 
 
 sweet chilli salmon


 
chicken and vegies stir fry
 
So today - Saturday - saw us up early and off to the Fresh Food Market to replenish supplies

This lot should see us through for the next two weeks. 

 
and now there's a pot of vegetable soup bubbling on the stove.
 
We've just bought ourselves a new " Weber Q" barbeque
to replace our big six burner which was a bit of overkill for just the two of us.
We 'll be ready when the warmer weather arrives.
 
Cheers.