Food – Page 206 – My Photo Blog

Formula 1 and a walk in the park – 23 August 2015

Posted on August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 by Zogman

If yesterday was a lazy day, today was even lazier. The ‘highlight’ of today was watching a boring Formula 1 race from Belgium. After that, I took a walk to St Mo’s where I startled a deer in the chest high grass, not two metres from me. Unfortunately it was a young deer and as the grass was thick as well as chest high, I couldn’t get a clear shot at it – with the camera. No animals were injured on this deer hunt. I walked to the small pond and found not one, but four common hawker dragonflies circling the pond edge and occasionally dogfighting above it. All were too quick to catch. Well, I did catch one on camera, on the wing, but the image just wasn’t good enough to post. I may go out tomorrow if the weather is good (unlikely it seems 🙁 ). I didn’t feel like chasing the deer today, so settled for a few flower shots and one of a hoverfly. Difficult shots to get as it was warm but very windy. More frames than normal ending up on the cutting room floor.

Dinner tonight was braised Short RIb. Similar to the Dinosaur bone and almost as tasty.

Lazy days are good too.

Forty years ago today – 16 August 2015

Posted on August 16, 2015August 16, 2015 by Zogman

Forty years ago today our son was born. It hardly seems possible that that amount of time has passed. I remember the day quite well, but remember the previous day, the Friday even better. Where have all the years gone? Is it only us old folk who say things like that?

Today, after the obligatory phone calls and singing of “Happy Birthday”, we settled down to enjoy yet another day in the sun. I was cooking dinner tonight and it was to be chicken curry. It involved a fair degree of preparation as there was a curry paste to make from onions, garlic, tomato puree and half the herbs and spices in the house. Tried blitzing the paste in the little hand chopper thingy. That was too small. Tried the Magimix (other food processors are available). It was too big. Thought I’d found Goldilocks with the liquidiser, but it was too big too and I gave myself a scare watching myself put my hand in to push the mix down while it was plugged in. Swiftly withdrew my hand and counted all my fingers twice just to be sure. The liquidiser wasn’t actually running, I hasten to add, but it was still a scary moment. Finally went back to the little hand chopper thingy, which doesn’t actually chop hands, thankfully. Eventually was satisfied with the texture of the paste and it smelled like it should which was a big bonus. Tried to bake some bread and dropped the loaf just as it was going in to the oven. Baked it anyway into a shrivelled loaf. Said “OK, I’ve had enough” and went outside to take some flowers pictures. Liked the Gladiolus stem which looked like the Gladius, the Roman sword it’s named after. Gave in to the pleas of the Violas and took their picture too.

Dancing at the Garage in the late afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. Worked out with Steven and Jess (!) how to do the move ‘Lunes‘ from last week. That’s not its real name of course, it will change this week I’m sure.

Came home and cooked the curry. The agreement is that there is too much coconut milk in it, it’s too watery with too little chicken, but otherwise it’s fine. Oh yes, and the curry paste is a keeper!

Coffee and a scone – 14 August 2015

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Zogman

I was up early(ish) this morning and managed to get a few photos of the dunnock searching the garden for food. There was plenty of birdfood there, but the dunnock is shy and won’t feed when there are other birds around. I looked it up on the RSPB site and it confirms my observations.

Gym and a swim later in the morning and a painting done – a very quick one. A monochrome sketch totally done in paint with no pencil sketch. A time limit too of 30 mins. Like most of these ‘works’, it had it’s good points and its bad. Also as usual, to my eye, the bad outweighed the good. Strictly not for publication, but a useful practise piece.

Couldn’t find anywhere to go for lunch, so we had a swift sandwich, then went out later for a coffee at the ice cream shop in Muirhead. Real old fashioned cafe. Old fashioned coffee too. Bought some ice cream to have with our dinner.

All in all, not a bad day. There’s been worse.

One of those days – 12 August 2015

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Zogman

It may be the Glorious Twelfth to some, but for me the day started OK but gradually and inexorably slid into crap. That’s the way it is sometimes, but it doesn’t help me when it happens. Drove to Falkirk to have lunch in COW coffee bar. Coffee was OK, but Scamp’s was not hot and she does like hot coffee. Mine was fine. Lunch was a burger for me and macaroni cheese for S. Burger was a bit thin and cooked medium rare, which I don’t mind in a steak, but am not so sure about in a burger. Scamp’s Mac was not advertised as containing bacon and as a veggie, she was a bit put out by that. Worse still, the macaroni was overdone and textureless. So, some work needs to be done on the lunches COW. The folk that were in there were all having coffee and cake, so perhaps that’s a safer way to go. Other coffee shops abound in Falkirk, so we may be giving them a try rather than taking the COW route in future.

The rest of the day was vanilla. Just the usual Wednesday. Went dancing at night and again faced the nightmare that is the M8 westbound. It really is becoming a pain driving in to Glasgow at night. Personally I’m getting fed up with trying to find new and less congested routes every week. Maybe it’s just me today. Today’s pic was taken at the STUC in Glasgow and although the face and the background is good in this painting, the hands and the tartan, oh that tartan, are awful. How could someone do that?

Surely tomorrow will be a better day.

It’s all about settings – 2 August 2015

Posted on August 2, 2015August 3, 2015 by Zogman

A couple of days ago I was ranting about timing. Today I’d ranting about settings. The first thing I did when I got up this morning, after getting breakfast for Scamp and before getting my own, was to fry off the ox tail that was to be my dinner tonight. Once that was done and in the slow cooker, I chopped up and fried off the veg and covered the meat with it. Set it to cook for 7 hours and then had my breakfast. It was a dull day, but not really raining, just dull. What’s become summer in Scotland this year. It’s not all that cold, just boringly dull. No texture in the sky and no directional light to give form to anything. Very disappointing for all the poor kids and teachers on holiday. Even worse for the parents of those kids who need to devise some form of entertainment for them. However, we shouldn’t complain. That’s what we signed up for when we chose to live (or stay living) in Scotland. We get the scenery, but not the weather.

After the meat had been cooking for about about five hours, I decided to decant it into a cast iron Le Creuset casserole pot and continue to cook it in the oven as we were going out later and the residual heat from the cast iron would keep it cooking nicely. Set the gas to 5 and went for a walk to St Mo’s with the Nikon and the Tamron lens. Got what looked like a good shot of a common blue damselfly and then a dragonfly posed on top of a knapweed flower. Just after that I startled a young deer and added that to my tally. Light was low, but I was still getting 1/250th with a decent ISO reading.

Came home and switched off the oven and got ready to go out dancing. I’d deal with the photos when I got back. Came home and found that the meat was dried out and the veg frazzled. Gas mark 5 was not the right setting. Ox tail in the bin. So it was potatoes, cabbage and bacon for dinner – not a bad meal. Checked the photos and discovered why I was getting such a good shutter speed and ISO rating on such a dull day. The aperture was set wide open. Instead of my usual setting of Manual, I had the camera set to Program. Out of the 30 odd shots I managed to get about 8 ones that could be worked on and further reduced that to 4 that were worthwhile posting.

It IS all about the light, but the settings play a big part too, both in cooking or in photography.

Pretentious Nosh – 22 July 2015

Posted on July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Zogman

One of my friends had waxed lyrical about the Tipsy Coo in Strathaven. It’s a cafe in a gallery. Us being foodies and me being interested in painting and photography, we decided to make it our Wednesday Jaunt this week. Getting parked in Strathaven (pronounced Stra’ven by the way) was a bit problematic to start with. The first place we parked was in the Common Green which is not Common (nothing is ‘Common’ in Strathaven darling!) and it’s not Green. It’s a wide street with parking in the middle. Got parked no bother then Scamp noticed we were only allowed 30minutes there, presumably that’s why we had no bother parking. From there we went to see where the cafe/restaurant was and found it without too much trouble. Couldn’t get parked anywhere near it as its carpark was full. Then we had to negotiate Strathaven’s warren of narrow, congested streets to get back to the Common Green where I now remembered there was a bigger carpark. Found it and parked.

Walked to the Tipsy Coo, and when we got there, it was nearly empty. I wonder where the occupants of all the cars had gone. It’s not exactly a thriving hub of activity, and as it was a Wednesday, everything seemed to close at 12.30. Oh well, the place looked decent, although I wouldn’t have called it a ‘gallery’. There were a couple of cartoon style paintings of highland cattle and some of foxes hanging at one end of the building and also a few photographs. One incongruously of Quiraing on Skye. Only about 250 miles from Strathaven. We ordered from the menu and waited in anticipation of a tasty and healthy lunch. I have to admit that we did get that. Mine was tasty, and I suppose it was healthy, in as much as big meals are unhealthy. Three slices of warm overdone bacon on some leaves mixed with maybe three very small pieces of avocado on a slab of toasted bread. The bread was spread with chilli jam – that was the tasty part. I couldn’t believe this had cost me £7.00 give or take 5p. Scamp faired no better. She said her quiche was lovely, but she had even fewer leaves than me (they call that a salad in Strathaven, by the way). I thought the days of ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ were gone, but it seems they are just reaching Strathaven. We left feeling unfulfilled and disappointed. Even the paintings were rubbish.

We wandered round the town allowing our disappointment to dissipate and I got a couple of shots of the East Church which is a bit of a Strathaven icon. Camera started overexposing again. It did that while we were on holiday and I looked it up when we got home and found that a few people had had that problem too. No solution as yet, but I’ve changed the metering mode from my usual centre weighted to ESP which sounds very clever. I think it reads your mind and sees what you want the photo to look like and then compensates the exposure to suit. Maybe it will improve my photography too. We can but hope.

Talking about hope, I was hoping to drop in at Decathlon in The Fort at Easterhouse to spend the last of my Decathlon voucher, but when we got there, it had gone! Shutters down, sign gone, vanished without a trace. Now I’ll need to go to Braehead to get a saddle bag and a lock for the bike as my old angle bag won’t fit when I put the bike on the carrier. At least I don’t have to go to IKEA, that’s a little bonus.

Another busy day – 17 July 2015

Posted on July 17, 2015July 18, 2015 by Zogman

Visitors from Larky today, so up and get started. I’d made the risotto for the arancini last night, so up and get started on the rest. Put the mixer on and made some bread dough. Froze half and set the rest to prove. Had breakfast than started to clear my junk from the living room before I was told to do it. After that it was time for the messy job of hand moulding the arancini from the cold stodgy risotto rice. It’s not nice stuff at this stage. Next you have to form a hole in the ball of rice and push some mozzarella cheese into it before plugging up the hole with more rice mixture. The next stage is to coat the balls in flour then egg, then breadcrumbs before putting them into the fridge to chill until it was time to deep fry them.

By now it was past lunchtime, so we stopped for lunch and I chose to take an hour out to start a painting. It wasn’t very successful. I may try again with oils. While I was struggling with the acrylics, Scamp was making the pudding (I was on starter and main). By the time I was finished with my artwork, she was finished in the kitchen and as the oven was still hot, it was time to bake the bread, then prep the veg – Sweet Potato with Chilli, Coriander and Mango Chutney. Next, deep fry the arancini so they could go into the oven to dry out and keep warm after the bread was done. The veg joined them a little later. Good planning and use of resources, eh? Scamp’s planning of course, not mine 🙁

There was a little hiatus at this point, so I managed to slip the leash for an hour and fled to the relative quiet of St Mo’s. There was very little of interest but in one or two of the sunny spells, I managed to get some pics of the wild flower and those tree climbing snails. No other wildlife to be seen apart from mini froglets that were too quick for the 70-300 I had with me today. I’m still not convinced about the Tamron. It just doesn’t seem as sharp and certainly not as quick to focus as it was. The sharpness might be due to a misalignment in the focus system. I’ll have a go at re-calibrating it soon.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Scamp had the table set and we were good to go. Visitors arrived a little later and it was showtime. The arancini went down a storm. Got the sea bass cooked and the veg was fine. Scamp’s choux pastry, profiteroles were as light as a feather. After dinner, much drink was taken (too much perhaps), many stories were told and jokes were laughed at.

A busy day, but great fun.