Tastiness

(Image Source: Cherrybrook Kitchen)

So tonight I was craving chocolate and had this left over from a former roommate visit.  My former roommate has Celiac's Disease, hence the gluten free.  Anyway, I used Earth Balance buttery spread and it made DELICIOUS brownies.  I cannot stop eating them and no one is home to help me eat them.

This post is to share this great dairy (and gluten free) find and to start a little brainstorm of things I can make with gluten free mixes.  I love to bake and not being able to use dairy is going to be tough.  I will probably start out with using short cuts like dairy free/gluten free mixes as bases until I learn more about dairy free baking.  I am determined to be able to make things with out dairy that are just as tasty as things with dairy, but in a different way.  If anyone has recipes, share away!!

Perfectly Paradoxical

My brother posted this as a comment yesterday.  Love it.

Dairy is for the Birds!

 

Image: (Eat Real Good)

For those of you who don't know I've recently discovered that I am sensitive to all things dairy.  It may be lactose intolerance, it may be just a sensitivity, but whatever it is, I feel a thousand times better not eating dairy.  After only one week of knowing what it feels like to be in my body with out dairy my desire for chocolate, cheese, ice cream, and other delciously dairy-ed out treats has completely disappeared.  Anyone who personally knows me knows I have an epic sweet tooth, so this is kind of nuts.  I am a little sad that I can't eat certain foods, but knowing how good I can feel makes me want to avoid dairy completely.  The bad news is dairy is hidden in many, many things.  The good news is I get to experiment with recipes (or this could be bad news if you're going to be tasting these creative concoctions).

I am in the process of figuring out which dairy replacements I like and don't like.  The memory of real dairy is so fresh in my mind (or maybe just imprinted on my taste buds) that I can be a good judge, but finding tasty substitutions could be hard.  For example, I've found a vegan buttery spread that is pretty legit (Earth Balance), but my taste buds have a general disdain towards pretty much all dairy free cream cheese. 

Last week I made chili in a slow cooker (recipe coming soon).  Realizing I wouldn't be able to put cheese or sour cream on top, I decided to try my hand at Dairy Free cornbread to go along with it.  After a bit of googling I found a recipe from Whole Foods that seemed simple and easy. 

Unfortunately, to me, it came out pretty bland.  You could taste that it was oil and soy milk, not butter and real milk.  The loaf itself was moist, but the lack of savoriness and creamy flavor left my tongue feeling like it was just to dry.  I'm not going to give in so easily, though, on this one.  The comments from reviewers on the recipe page suggested using a vegan butter spread instead of oil and maple syrup instead of sugar.  Since I have plenty of baking ingredients, I'll be trying this one again. 

I'm not the best cook in the world, so any one with any substitution suggestions should leave them in the comment area.  I'll follow up when I get to try again and let you know how it goes.

Recipe after the jump:

Ch-ch-ch-chaaaages (Turn and Face the Strain)

What a great song by David Bowie, who, by the way, just turned 65. I bet he knows a thing or two about change.

I am about 2 days shy of it being a full year since my last post, and my, how things have changed. Two and half years ago when I started this blog, I was struggling to be creative so I started a Photo A Day Blog. Confining my posts to photography helped to get me started, but it hindered my progress and growth.  What I discovered is that I need a place to document and nurture my whole creative self...

Like most people I thought "I'll start a new blog! I'm going in a new direction and I want a fresh start." But life is a process, adventure, journey, etc. ... and it's always in flux.  Everything waxes and wanes, the moon, the ocean, seasons, happiness, sadness, relationships, hairlines, waistlines...  As a creative person I must learn that I have to fail to succeed, because learning from failure is sometimes the most meaningful.  Thus, I will be keeping the 'fotos in flux' part of this blog even though it wasn't even close to my best work.

SO! Today, January 12, 2012 is the first day of the rest of my creative life... And I'm bringing this blog and all it's failed glory with me!!!

As a programming note, the blog name has changed, but the URL address is still the same.  I now plan to post recipes, crafts, DIY ideas, and whatever other thoughts fall out of my erraticwannabecreative brain. It will basically be like my pinterest, but with more words. YOU ARE EXCITED, DON'T LIE!!!

I expect a lot of crap and a lot of failed attempts at things that I think are totally great.  I am hopeful that for every 50 craptastic blogs, I will be able to produce 1 thing that will potentially inspire something in someone somewhere.

And speaking of inspiration... I am signing off with two thoughts:

1 - I saw this picture on someone's facebook, and did a little right click, save so I cannot give credit to it's creator, but it's exactly the message I am trying to convey above.

2 - My Brother, also a creative person, works at Weiden + Kennedy and recently told me about one of the mantras that floats around their company

 "Fail Harder" 

I couldn't put it better if I tried. Mostly because I haven't failed hard enough or long enough yet...

So let's get started!!

Digital Rejuvenation

So now that I have access to Photoshop it is driving me nuts that all these pictures from last year are so flat and colorless because my point and shoot is just not good. I went back and color corrected a few more of my old shots. I'll include the originals so you can see the difference.

I've also changed my blog layout to accomodate larger pictures. This is a photoblog after all... big pictures are important.

Check out the photos after the break

Happy Santa

The ISO was probably at 1000 and I most likely had the aperture wide open, but I don't know what the shutter speed was. I should get better at remembering or writing things down. It was Christmas Eve, though, so I was having fun. This Santa has a great face, I couldn't resist a close up. I think I should have isolated him, ie. not have all the clutter around him. Oh well. Now that I'm comfortable with photoshop again I'll have to take more time to practice/work on composition.

Christmas

ISO was 1000, F stop was 5.6, and shutter speed was probably 60. I color corrected this, but didn't have to do much. I just upped the exposure a hint. We put lights inside the branches and then around the outside, too. It made for a great lighting effect (affect?) on the tree.

The Snowman

I took this on my Canon EOS D60. ISO was 1000, F Stop was probably 4.6, and shutter speed must have been around 45 or 60 since it's not too blurry. I did bump up the exposure by +1 in photshop and added more green and took out some of the red to blance the colors.  This was taken Christmas Eve eve when we decorated the tree.  It's my ornament from 23 years ago.

Adventures in Photoshop

So now that I have access to Photoshop and feel more comfortable with my color correction skills and eye, I have gone back and updated some old photos. I love photoshop. All these pictures were taken on my point and shoot, which has terrible color balance and doesn't do well adjusting shadows and highlights, and photoshop has made them so much better. Anyway, below I've put the color corrected versions and links to the originals. You can also see them in my photostream on my flickr page.

Click on "read more" to read more :)

Lagoon

I haven't posted anything in just over 10 months, but I was photoshopping pictures to give as Christmas gifts and decided I'd upload some to the website. A lot has happened over the last 10 months - my arm is fully healed, my thumb gets tired and I have a few limitations here and there, but it's at about 98% of what it was which is good enough for me. I also got moved on to a new project team at work which is the other reason I haven't really posted - my life is infinitely busier. Anyway, I think my winter despression has set in, so I thought I'd take the negative energies and focus them elsewhere.

I took this with an old Canon EOS that my brother so graciously gave me. This was one of the first few pictures I took with a DSLR and it was the first time I had used an SLR of any type in a while. I don't remember the f-stop or shutter speed, but it was about sunset at my step-family's beach house in September. I love the view. I love the light. I took the photo into photoshop to boost brightness and contrast a bit and to straighten it out. I am pleased with the final product. I put a few copies in frames and gave it out a Christmas present because the house may be sold soon. We may not always have the house and the view, but we will always have the memories.