The amazing backwards word girl !

Sounds like a circus act, but I think this is pretty amazing. In fairness she could be getting a large percentage of them wrong and I’m not about to start checking, even if she is its still impressive.

DSLR Cheat sheet = Genius

One of the reasons I got into blogging was to share my thoughts and successes with photography.  I’m not going to lie, the initial buzz I had surrounding the purchase of my shiny Nikon a couple of years ago has long faded and now I don’t take it out randomly like I used to, and that should change.

If been meaning to take a course, mainly just to get back in the mindset of photography, but also for swapping ideas and points of view with other people in the same position as me, which is that they have a camera with enormous potential they just aren’t making the most of it.

In lieu of taking a course I am always on the lookout for articles, or advice with suggestions that can make my life easier, and that’s where this link comes in.

I think this is a fantastic idea, a very user friendly, intuitive cheat sheet to help with photography.

 

It takes a series of selection options and let’s compare them on a sliding scale, so if you are taking too much time fiddling with the settings, or even if you are quick but then can’t remember what combo you picked for a certain shot this should help jpg your memory.

Kudos to Miguel Yatco for putting it together.

 

So I guess I should have emptied the rainwater tank…..

One of those jobs I meant to do before old man winter rocked up was empty out the water butt. Thing is I’m new to this gardening game and instead of doing that I was probably doing something far less important, but way more fun.

Now the temp has dropped considerably and I was walking round the garden and noticed this;

Whoops

Yep, its pretty much just one giant ice cube.

Lamb curry success

The lamb curry I mentioned in my last post was a success. The 5 others that shared it with me became tasters and not victims, which is always a good thing, and they all went back for more.

I was supposed to be going out for dinner tonight but due to a change in plans I’m now eating at home and have very little in, not even any left over curry due to its triumph.

Looks like it will be a store cupboard lottery tonight!

Slow cooker baked beans

I had a stab at cooking baked beans in the slow cooker again today, the result was ok but not amazing. I think I have being trying my hand at recipes now that when I go wayward and start making up my own stuff, just being ‘ok’ isnt enough.

The background recipe for this one came from Craig Flinn’s recipe in his book “Fresh & Local“,  which I have made before, but this time I mixed it up a bit. For example where the recipe calls for smoked ham hocks, I only had plain ham hocks so to give it a little kick and a bit of a different flavour I added some adobo chillies. It now has plenty of kick but not really much in the way of depth of flavour.

I think that the real problem for me, plenty spice but not enough depth. At least the cornbread is good…….

Tomorrow I am sticking with the slow cooker but trying my hand at a lamb curry, I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

Nope,not much in the way of photo ops

I went to the beach, but unfortunately I didn’t find much in the way of photo opportunities, maybe I just wasnt looking right, or in the right frame of mind.

I did find a couple of sand dollars and I guess in hindsight I should have been creative and taken a photo of those before picking them up, I may have come up with something like whats below.

Winter beach walk on the cards

Despite a decent dusting of snow covering the garden, and a thick fog hanging in the air I’ve decided to head to the beach. No. not for a swim but because I’ve been walking the dog pretty much exclusively in the woods for a while now (granted different woods but still..) I’m off to the beach.

I’m taking the camera in the hope that the weather will option up some decent photo opportunities, if it does you can expect the results to follow.

Ellie Goulding on Nike+?

In a manner which isn’t exactly unique at this time of year I’ve been hitting the gym a little bit harder and making the most of Nike+, think is today Ellie Goulding came on to congratulate me in managing a run 3 days in a row.

Ellie Goulding? How is that in anyway relevant?

When the Dark Knight met the Lion King

Someone with enough foresight, imagination and sense of humour to make me jealous put this trailer together using the audio from the new The Dark Knight Rises trailer and images from Disney’s the Lion King, and all credit to them.

It made me smile.

Christmas Stollen Pudding

A new dessert (new to me) is now in my cooking repertoire, Christmas stollen pudding.   A little while ago I posted about how I was going to make stollen, which I did. The recipe I used produced 2 loafs one of which I used today to make Christmas stollen pudding, its a kind of bread and butter pudding but using stollen.

Its ridiculously easy;

• take you loaf and cut it into chunks
• mix together 2 eggs, 300mls (1 1/4 cups) of milk and 300mls of thick cream
• Pour over the stollen pieces and bake for 40mins at 350f (180c)

Then enjoy.

Here’s how mine turned out;