Summer refreshments

Summer is upon us. Some of my summer favourites - white wine, patio dining, salads and ice cream! 
Here is a quick recipe from mum... a delicious and refreshing salad which incorporates vegetables and fruit. 

Easy Summer Salad

• Orange fleshed sweet potato
• Pumpkin or butternut squash
• Arugula
• Pears
• Maple syrup
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Unsweetened yoghurt (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to bake on 180C degrees. Cut sweet potato and pumpkin into 1 inch cubes. Sprinkle with olive oil, coat and bake for 15-20mins or until softened.
2. Meanwhile, cut pears into cubes. Season with maple syrup, cover and microwave for 1.5 mins. Allow pears to cool. (You may also choose to leave the  pears marinating overnight the night before).
3. Toast pumpkin seeds until slightly browned.
4. Mix all ingredients in a bowl with olive oil, more maple syrup, seeds and arugula using hands.
5. Serve with unsweetened yoghurt.

The amount of each ingredient is pretty much up to you. I love pumpkin seeds. My brother, sister and I use to snack on them when we were kids and I had not had them since, so they brought back a lot of memories!

A couple of weeks ago, I did some work for Smartbox Guidebooks where I photographed various restaurant establishments around the Toronto Downtown core, met owners and head chefs and photographed beautiful dishes. Watch this space as I will be posting some of those photos up soon!

Big steak salad!

Here's a great combination of greens and reds. The Big Steak Salad by The Pioneer Woman - Ree Drummond. 


Her marinade for the steak consists of garlic, ginger, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, chilli oil, salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar and lime juice. She suggests using a 'Mason' jar in her recipe to shake it all up- coincidently I had one lying around the kitchen.

Home made candied pecans.... yum! They were too sweet for my husband's liking, but I love them. At first, I thought I made some kind of huge mistake with this shot as I thought it looked a bit noisy. But no, thats the sugar  in the 'candy' mixture... 

Home made onion rings....

One thing i've realised in my work is that most of my shots involve at least one or two props, or some type of backdrop or background to the image. Im starting to shoot a little more 'commercial' these days to ensure I maintain that breadth in style with my photos. For example white on white. I think this is a good thing to do, especially when presenting a portfolio to a potential client. 

Ree Drummond uses blue cheese in her recipe. Im not usually a fan of blue cheese. I cringe whenever I smell it on my husband's breath (he is in love with that mouldy stuff). I must admit that blue cheese is great on pizzas and sometimes pastas, but I wasn't so sure about adding it to a salad so I substituted it for Parmigiano-Reggiano.