025 - Panna Cotta

Well, food photog I am not.  The important thing is that I tried.  Right?  Feel free to back me up on this.

My sister in law loves panna cotta.  She often orders it for dessert when we are out to dinner.  It always seemed like such a daunting endeavor.  I have been meaning to make it at home for her for years.  I've always found an excuse not to.  I decided to bite the bullet and just do it.  Now, we've not eaten it as of the time of this post.  But I did taste what remained in the pot after pouring it into the individual dessert cups and it was mighty tasty.  After refrigeration, it has just ever so slightly stratified, so I know I didn't get it exactly right.  Either that or almond milk isn't the best option.

My rambling point is it was a super easy, I mean super easy recipe to make.  It just takes ingredients that I normally don't have around the house, ie whipping cream.  And Mister and I don't really do dairy ... I do on occasion, but Mister doesn't stray from that rule.  So, there are many reasons I may never make this again. If in the future someone asked me to make it, I wouldn't find an excuse not to.

Panna Cotta

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 pkt (1 Tbsp) unflavored gelatin
• 3 cups whipping cream
• 4 T sugar
• 3 T honey
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 vanilla bean, sliced lengthwise

Place milk in heavy saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin over milk and let stand for 5 minutes to soften.  Turn on heat to medium and stir until gelatin dissolves, about 5 minutes. Make sure not to boil the milk.

Scrape the insides of the vanilla bean and put into milk mixture together with the vanilla bean pod.  Add cream, 3 Tbsp sugar, honey and salt.  Stir until sugar dissolves, about 2 - 5 minutes.  I whisked lightly until the vanilla seeds were dispersed evenly.

Remove from heat.  Let cool slightly then pour into 1/2 - 1 cup dessert cups.

Refrigerate until set, at least 5 hours.

Serve with fruit topping, or other topping, or no topping of your choice.  I plan to serve it with fig compote (as seen above) and strawberry compote (which will really just be my homemade strawberry freezer jam thawed) letting each person decide which flavor topping they desire.

Buono Appetito!!

024 - Another Angle

Seeing things from a different angle isn't always my forte.  Something of which I endeavor to be more cognizant.  I take many morning photos from the deck outside my office.  I rarely take the 27+/- steps to the other end of the building, turn around and face West.  When I do, the world is transformed.

Happy Friday.
Ciao

023 - Beyond Reality

I snapped this photo of, well, I'll not say just yet.

When I saw what I saw, my mind went other places than where I actually was.  I "saw" not what was before me, but, an image of something completely out of the realm of possibility.  Surely this is what Rorschach had in mind when the tests were invented, contrived.  One thing is perceived as actual reality while at the same time, it is perceived completely differently, and as actual reality, by the person standing next to you.

When I looked at this, thing, I saw a sea creature.  An octopus maybe.  Something from the depths of the ocean.  Something soft and flowing and alive.  I had to capture it immediately.  So immediately, that I picked up the cell phone sitting on the counter (not mine) and figured out how to get past the security code (really, I got past someone's security code and took a photo and edited it - what is that all about) and snapped the photo.  Fortunately, it was a friend's phone and she didn't say she minded.  I'm going with that.

So, its my friend's purse, in the event you haven't figured it out yet.

No point.  Just my photo for the day.

Ciao.

PS - On deck for the coming weekend:  Fennel soup:  I had this made for me recently and lordy, may be the best soup I've ever eaten.  I procured the recipe and it will be the base of family dinner this weekend.  I will also be making, for the first time ever, panna cotta with fig.  Let's hope I remember to pull out the old camera and take some shots for you.  Oh, and possibly recipes too.

022 - Elevating the Ordinary

Well, honestly, in my book there's nothing ordinary about roasted garlic.

This garlic was destined to be turned into garlic bread for Mister.  It was worth the house smelling like garlic for 24 hours.

021 - Seeing

I sometimes don't know where my focus lies.  Is it on this plane, or is it on that plane.  I often have trouble remembering that all the planes are there, all at the same time.

Does that make sense?

I am suddenly quite contemplative.

016 - Tower

The hub of most of what we do, electricity.

015 -

007 -

006 - Through the Blinds

We've had a lot of fog it seems this winter.
Makes photography interesting.

005 - Daily Walk

004 - Water Under the Bridge

Yellow.

I like Yellow.

003 - Mornings, I can't get enough of them

A fine example of how photography, at least my photography, can't come close to capturing reality.  I'll keep at it though.

002 - Brilliant Morning

I have spent the last couple years working on my mad photography skills.  They are mad for me, not necessarily for someone like Art Wolf, but, I'm ok with that.

I can tell you that the above photo isn't this or isn't that.  I have a long list of the problems with it, trust me.   I can also tell you that I am pretty proud of this photo.  There is very little different from what you see and what came out of my camera.  My long winded point being that this photo has very few edits. I decided to focus on the positive aspects and ignore those nasty little things I see where I could have done better.  The vibrance and the light, those were camera skills, not Photoshop skills.  

On I ramble... Have a wonderful day of whatever you are undertaking.  Assert your personal mad skills and don't compare yours with others.

Be pleased with your own efforts.

It seems to me like a good way to get through each and every day.

Ciao!!

001 - Foggy Mornings ... Oh How I Adore Thee

Fog, what an amazing weather event.  This must be what it feels like to live in the clouds (literally - well, sort of).  I mean, if people actually lived in the clouds.  Which some people probably do, you know, those who live on tall mountains and those who live where there is fog often.

For whatever reason, I log me some fog, unless I'm driving and its dark and /or I'm on the freeway and its heavy fog and traffic and  Wow ..... I have a lot of reasons to really not like the fog.

I still do.   I'm mercurial and I'm ok with it.

Ciao!

001 October Morning

Sunrise this morning, bouncing off the buildings was pretty and pink.

134 - Introspection

120 -

I like the layered feeling of this shot.

And the colors.

And the textures too.

119 - Pickled

Green tomatoes which never got a chance to ripen with our abbreviated summer and cooler weather this year. Pretty and delicious!

118 - One Person's Trash ...

My artist mom-in-law was throwing out these old used frames. I snagged them and went to town taking photos and hanging them strategically around the yard.

Happy...

117 - Recycled

Glass bead, copper wire and metal and plastic beads from necklaces and bracelets that I never wore. Now, yard art and I love this little dragonfly lots.