Food Photography: Week 14 - Cinnamon Roll

And now we're back to pulling my food subjects randomly! I really wanted to try to make cinnamon rolls from scratch, but couldn't find the time to do it :(

I decided that the Pillsbury Grands! would work fine :)

Food Photography: Week 13 - Apple Pie from Magnolia Bakery

Jeff and I went to see Jurassic Park at the Lincoln Center IMAX in the city last weekend and stopped at Magnolia Bakery for a treat. We went to get banana pudding (It's AMAZING!), but the apple pie caught Jeff's eye so we had to get one of those too.

It was good. Not the best apple pie I have ever had, but good :)

Food Photography: Week 12 - Key Lime Pie

A few weeks ago we had Brandy and Marne come over for dinner. Brandy and Marne are one of my favorite couples and I'm always happy to have them over for dinner.

We made homemade ravioli. I really wish I would have taken some pictures since it was quite the process! :( Maybe next time. Marne's mom sent a Key Lime Pie for dessert. It looked so pretty I went all paparazzi on it! It was absolutely delicious!

Thanks Sister Spalding!

Food Photography: Week 11 - Hummas

I'm behind...I'm behind....I'm so behind! Sorry! I have a few post to share over the next week or two to help catch up. The past three weeks have been tough. I've been sick (you name it and I probably had it) and life has been very busy.

I'm really grateful that this weekend is General Conference! It's just such a relaxing and uplifting weekend.

Some of you may know that my second date with Jeff was watching the second Saturday session of Conference at his house. We ended up talking through most of the session and tuned in just in time for a talk by Elder Holland. I think it was on chastity. hahahaha. Funny.

I remember walking into the living room and finding a platter with veggies, bread and hummas on the coffee table. I didn't believe Jeff when he told me that he made the hummas. It was very good and I was so surprised! :)

Jeff made me humas again today! I hope we make it a tradition, because it's really good hummas :)

Happy Conference weekend everyone!

Food Photography: Week 10 - Mexican Food

I think I will have to put "Mexican Food" back in the pile since I kind of cheated. I really like to make the food I take pictures of, but due to the busyness of the past few weekends, I decided to just go to Chipotle and pick up a burrito and chips and salsa. I really love Chipotle! I usually get the tacos, but burrito was calling to me.

Does anyone have a favorite Mexican food recipe you think Jeff and I should try?

Food Photography: Week 9 - Cupcakes!

Cupcakes! I just love cupcakes. There are some really great cupcake places in Red Bank so I had a lot of options to choose from, but I decided to pick up some cupcakes at Delicious Orchards (a favorite place of ours). They were okay cupcakes, but not as good as Cupcake Magician.

Jeff liked the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake, but I thought it was a little too much. The other cupcake was a raspberry pistachio with a cream filling and I liked it better. The cake was a little dry, but I think the cream made up for it. I don't think I will ever  buy cupcakes from Delicious Orchards again, but that's okay because they have fabulous donuts. :)

Food Photography: Week 8 - Chinese

So, Jeff pulled Chinese Food for my food challenge this week. We weren't really sure what we should make since we don't really cook a whole lot of Chinese. Then Jeff recommended we go to the Asian Food Market in Middletown and pick up some Char Siu Bao (Pork Buns)! Jeff and I started buying Char Siu Bao at the Asian Food Market during our first year of marriage and it now it has become a special treat in our house.

We bought the Char Siu Bao that is made at the Asian Food Market which we don't normally do since they are generally sold out.  Jeff and I usually buy the kind that is packaged in the frozen section.

I think the meat that is in the homemade ones is of better quality then the frozen ones, but I think I like the flavor of the frozen ones better. Good to know for next time :)

Jeff ended up buying the below "thing" (I'm not sure what it's called) while we were at the market. It was wrapped in leaves and had rice, beans, and duck in it. We steamed it with the buns (We're not sure if that's what you're supposed to do). It was different, but we enjoyed it.

Food Photography: Week 7 - Omelet

Yes, another breakfast food. I'm a little over taking pictures of eggs and hope I get a break from it for awhile.  I just find it really hard to take good pictures of eggs! It's really hard getting the color right.

Jeff and I made omelets with red and orange bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and mozzarella. They were pretty good.

Food Photography: Week 6 - Eggs and Sausage

And here's the eggs and sausage. I think the sandwich turned out better. :) They were good eggs. The little black bits in the eggs are sautéed onions, which were very good.

Food Photography: Week 6 - Breakfast Sandwich

This week I drew "Sausage and Eggs" for my food photography challenge. I was thinking of just making scrambled eggs with breakfast sausage, but Jeff had something else in mind...a breakfast sandwich. Since the breakfast sandwich sounded so good, I decided to do both this week :)

Jeff made a breakfast sandwich with sausage, swiss cheese, avocado, whole grain dijon mustard and a poached egg. I requested the poached egg because I thought it would look prettier than a fried egg. While the egg did look good it was a little tricky to eat on the sandwich (kept slipping out) and I ended up eating it with a fork and knife. It was still really good. Jeff said he would make it again but serve it as an open face sandwich.

 Jeff insisted on me taking a picture with the yoke broken. He said that that's what people want to see with a poached egg. I thought it didn't look as good, but he was the cook and I didn't want to mess with his masterpiece.

Food Photography: Week 5 - Ravioli

Ravioli! I really didn't eat a whole lot of ravioli when I was growing up, but I have made up for it over the past few years :) Ravioli is now one of my favorite meals. I personally love lobster ravioli best and get it whenever I see it on a menu at a restaurant. Jeff and I discovered that Costco sells fresh ravioli and now buy it all the time. It is now one of our go-to meals. I was delighted to find that they had heart-shaped ravioli for the month of February! I thought they were a must for my little Food Photography challenge. I will admit that shooting ravioli was a lot harder then I thought it would be. I think I will have to give it another go sometime.

Food Photography: Week 4 - Pears

Ok, this is my last January fruit post. :) I decided to do another pear shoot (inspired by an assignment I got in my Digital Photography I class). I will admit that I thought it would go better than it did. I only ended up with two pictures that I thought were ok.

Thanks to Home Depot for the boards they gave me! Jeff and I went in looking for something I could use to make some different table tops or backgrounds and a nice worker there gave me these boards for free since they were a little chipped and they were going to throw them away any ways!

Food Photography: Week 3 - Jumping Fruit

You're going to be getting a lot of food pictures this week. I'm trying to catch up for January so I can get back on schedule for February. :)

A couple of week ago I took a few pictures of "Jumping Fruit." I saw some pictures of this online and thought it was really cool. No, my pictures didn't turn out anything like the ones I found online, but I feel like they are a solid first try. I think I will try this again when I have better equipment :)

Food Photography: Week 2 - Pomegranate

So, I decided to focus on fruit for the month of January for my Food Photography challenge. I know it's kind of odd that I'm picking a winter month to do fruit, but I was so inspired by some photos I saw on pinterest and I couldn't wait!

I found several pictures on google images of pomegranates that inspired the pictures below. We didn't eat a whole lot of pomegranate growing up, but it's a new found love! I can't believe how messy it is to eat :)

Linking to Simple As That, Weekly Top Shot, and The Long Road to China: Favorite Photo Friday

New Year's Resolution 2013: Food Photography (Week 1)

One of my New Year's resolutions this year is to take more pictures of food to help improve my food photography skills. My plan is to take at least one food photo a week, and snapping a picture of my dinner before I eat doesn't count. I have to plan out the photo: subject, style, setting, etc. The idea is that I'm setting up everything to take a picture and not to eat it. Eating it is just a benefit :)

Will I be able to do it? I don't know, but I'm going to try.

To help me out I'm going to make a list of food items (example: fruit, veggies, desserts, fast food) to take pictures of and randomly select one each week. If you have any challenging ideas let me know!

For my first post I decided to try to replicate something I found on another blog. I don't know if they turned out quite as good, but it was sure fun doing it. :)