Baby Jaxon

This, my friends, is baby Jaxon at ten days old.

I love it that people I went to school with still live nearby, because that means I get to spend my afternoon snuggling a widdle baby and taking photos of him. Isn't he gorgeous? I have never in my life seen such perfect newborn skin. He is the son of proud parents Patti and Curtis and little brother to Riley and Evan (Riley likes dragons, I discovered). Sigh. Seriously adorable.

Cute cute cute.

Week 21

This week's theme was "A need for speed" and I was feeling very uninspired. I was also very busy, and had little time to think about - let alone execute - a shoot. Instead, on our way back from the lake on Thursday, I took a quick shot of this bunny. It represents a need for speed on two levels; one, rabbits need to be quick on these back country roads this time of year. They're everywhere, and old pickups tend to rattle along at a pretty quick clip. Two, I had to be fast getting this shot as well, since rabbits don't tend to stick around long.



Onto some photography news.

1. My laptop is finally calibrated! I ordered Spyder 3 Express earlier in the week and it arrived on Thursday. What a difference I notice already. My photos were so yellow/orange before! Now the prints always match what I see on my screen. Sometimes they wouldn't prior to calibration.

2. My new camera (!!!!!!!!!!!!) should be arriving early in the week. They tried to deliver it Thurday but I was away. I bought a Pentax K-5 and I cannot wait to use it! I'll be sure to post some of my first shots with it once it arrives.

Hooray!

Last week's Project 52 photo (the bleeding hearts) was featured in this weeks MCP Project 52 recap. Which means it was selected as one of the top ten for the week. :) I don't know how many entries there are, but the group has over three thousand members.

Thanks, MCP Actions!

Next week's theme is 'Need for Speed', which I think will be fun. :)

Week 20

Ah, spring. This week's theme is "spring fever". Judging by many of the entries for the past month, people have had spring come and go already. Blossoms, children in shorts and sandals, leafed-out trees....

We've had a month-long rainy season here, masquerading as "spring", and while everything is greening up nice, that's about all that's going on.

We've stopped trying to outlast the rain and are just going with it now. Yesterday it stopped in the afternoon (although remained cloudy and cold) so the kidlet and I went outside for a while

(And in colour, in case you prefer colour to B&W conversions):

This is the one I submitted, though, because it does say 'spring' to me: my bleeding heart plant, flowering nicely despite the extreme lack of sun:

If next week's theme has anything to do with sun, I may have to skip it.

Week 19

This has been the lousiest winter and spring that I can personally remember.

I do not recall the last day of sun we've had. I'm guessing it's been weeks at this point. A few days ago I checked the weather forecast and actually sobbed at the repeated little icons of clouds and rain. It is cold and wet, constantly. I hate it.

It also makes for horrible picture-taking light. It finally seemed a bit brighter yesterday, so I moved a bit of furniture around to take advantage of it, since this week's theme was "window light". I changed my kid into a shirt that didn't have dinosaurs and/or jam on it. I wanted five minutes.

He gave me one shot. One. Then he started whimpering dramatically about how he didn't WANT TO. So I quit, and had my own internal tantrum.

Oh, have I mentioned I just finished two medications that BOTH cause mood swings? In case that wasn't evident.

Thankfully, the one shot I took was in focus. I went with it.

Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake

I haven't been terribly active on here as of late. I feel like I'm in a bit of photography slump, and I was also on a liquid diet and so I wasn't doing much cooking.

However, now I'm back into FOOOOOOOOOD and so I scoured my recipes for something new today. The decision: Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake, which I had cut out of a Canadian Living magazine. I have said it before on here: I love Canadian Living. Both the magazine and the act. :)

This was easy-peasy and the final verdict is pure deliciousness.

First you need four large apples. I used MacIntosh, because that's what I had on hand. I need to pause for a moment and say I was surprised that this recipe did not call for any of the spices I normally associate with apple dishes--cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. This intrigued me, and it made my husband happy as he does not share my all-encompassing love for nutmeg. Anyway, apples:




Peel, core, slice, and chuck in a pan with 1/4 cup butter. Cook and stir until tender-crisp. Mmmm, apples and butter. Sounds good already, right?

While that's happening, you can start the cake part. Half a cup of unsalted butter, softened, is beat together with 1/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar.

Next comes two eggs, added one at a time, and a teaspoon of vanilla.

In a small bowl, whisk together 1 3/4 cups flour, 1/2 t. baking soda, and 1 1/2 t. baking powder.

Almost forgot the caramel part! In a saucepan, bring 1/4 cup of water and 2/3 cup sugar to a boil. Boil, without stirring, until it's a dark amber colour.

NOTE.

The time it takes for it to go from dark amber to HOLY SMOKES IT'S BURNING is very, very short. Pay attention. I had to do this a second time because the first attempt resulted in burned caramel.

Back to the cake. Alternate adding the drys and 3/4 cup of milk to the cake batter, stirring or beating well afterward.

I have to say, I love cake batter. It's so appealing. It smells good, it tastes good (yes, I always taste it), and it just looks good.

When the caramel is done, stir in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and then pour it into the bottom of a 9" cake pan. I used a slightly larger springform pan. "Arrange" the apples on top (or, if you're me, dump them in there and make sure they're fairly uniform. I don't do fancy arrangements.).

Spoon the cake batter over the top.

Bake at 350 for...well, the recipe called for 40-45 minutes, but mine was a bigger pan, so it only took 1/2 an hour.

Let it rest in the pan for five minutes, then invert it on a plate. Let it rest again, then gently remove pan.

Verdict: yum. So good. The cake part is very simple and airy. The apple part is tart with a sweet, caramel-y syrup. We all had a piece, warm, and declared it goooood. This is major, since a) I don't particularly like most cakes, and b) my boys love cake but mainly adore it for the frosting. This has no frosting, and I still got thumbs-up and inhaled portions.

Try it. You'll like it.

Week 18

I thought this week's theme (First Thing in the Morning) would be easy.

That is, until it rained EVERY FREAKING DAY. Which meant when we got up at the crack of dawn, it was so dark I couldn't take a decent photo to save my life.

I ended up taking this of a cheery little Mayflower sitting in a glass on my kitchen window ledge while I blearily filled the kettle for my morning jolt of joe. It's the best I can do, folks.