Day Thirty One: Pizza

This is literally the only picture I took today. It's our dinner .. homemade BBQ chicken pizza. I love California Pizza Kitchen, so it's a copy of that. This is only the second time I've tried to make it, but it turned out pretty darn yummy! The secret ingredient is fresh mozzarella. Makes a huge difference in taste!

Day Thirty: Unusual Point of View

This weeks theme is unusual point of view. This is a concrete wall that separates a retaining pond in our neighborhood from a creek that's in city property. I sat my camera on the wall to get this picture. I like that it came out almost as an optical illusion with the wall being a long path into the trees.

Day Twenty Nine: Ale House

My husband and I, plus 2 of the 4 girls, went looking at houses today and made a pit stop at the Ale house for lunch. As soon as the hostess sat us down next to the bar I started snapping away. Something about the colors, lights and shiny objects caught my eye and I was in photography heaven.

After taking about 5 million pictures today { it's a rough estimate }, I had my husband narrow it down to his favorites. And here they are....

Day Twenty Eight: Bees

I'm calling this, bees in trees. Or maybe Spring has almost sprung. Either way, my main goal was to capture a bee in motion and I did it! If I wasn't being so lazy, I could have had a much better picture. I just didn't feel like getting out of the car in the middle of the Target parking lot to get the perfect shot. This picture was actually really good SOOC, but I cross processed it anyway. Because I can. And I'm slightly addicted.

Day Twenty Seven: Lights

As most of you already know, taking night pictures is a huge weakness for me. Lately I've been playing around with different settings and figuring out what works and what doesn't. These first two pictures are me just goofing off in the car ... I really liked the way the lights blurred while we drove past them. I know these aren't going to win any photography awards for perfect technique, but I sure do think it's cool.

I've been wanting to take pictures of this building at night for awhile. I love the uplighting against the windows. But, of course, I was totally unprepared and had to use the car door as a tripod. It's not exactly what I was going for, but given what I had to work with, I'm happy with them. I'm especially overjoyed at the light flare in the 2nd picture!!

Day Twenty Six: Cheese

While doing some shopping today, we went to the cheese market and saw this beauty. It's a rare parmesan cheese that is made from white cows exclusive to Italy. There are only 80 of these cows in the world. The cheese was aged for 30 months and cost exactly $38.00 a pound! After Caidyn ate almost a pound in samples, we bought $10.00 worth. Even though you only get a small amount, you only use a small amount. The flavor is very strong. Apparently the piece we bought should { by there standards } last for months. Hmm, we'll see.

I thought the rind { I think that's what it's called... } was cool with all the stamps and marks on it. It's completely edible, but very salty. They suggested using it in broths and soups to add flavor.

And if your interested in this cheese, here's a tip. The longer it's aged, the more expensive it is.

Day Twenty Five: Dinner

Okay, so something a little different is happening today. Follow along, because it may blow your mind!

Tonight we're making smothered steak sandwiches by the Pioneer Woman. Sorry in advance for any unappetizing photos. It's really not as easy as I thought to cook and take pictures at the same time. All my pictures are SOOC { or straight out of the camera }. I'm not saying that as a good thing either. They probably could have used it. I'm just too exhausted today to edit them.

{ Smothered Steak Sandwiches }

A few red and green peppers cut up. The colors not really important, I just like variety.

Chopped up a few onions.

{ also minced some garlic, but that doesn't make for a great photo }

Cheated on the mushrooms ... bought them cut up because it was the same price either way, and hey, one less thing to do! And if my husband asks, these were not in the sandwiches. If he knew he ate a mushroom he would probably curl up and die.

Now the main ingredient ... cubed steak. Cubed steak is just tenderized round steak. My grandma likes to use it in her "cow fingers" or basically bite size chicken fried steak. It's a pretty cheap piece of meat and not to darn bad if you ask me!

Season, season, season. This is my husbands only cooking rule. Always season your meat. I use McCormicks grill seasoning like it's growing on trees. Or however that saying goes. Basically, I should buy stock in the company the way I use that stuff.

Now here's where the magic happens. Super hot pan, a little butter/olive oil mix and raw meat. Sizzle, sizzle and the house is starting to smell delicious!

Yeah, it's cooking. This was probably a useless shot.

Once it's browned, I take it out of the pan, leaving all the yummy dripping behind. That way I don't have to add anymore oil to the pan when I put in the veggies.

So here's the veggies. Right into the hot pan that the meat was in. How's that for easy cleanup!

When the veggies are tender, take them out and set them aside with the meat. I like to stop cooking mine while they still have a little bite to them. I hate mushy veggies.

Time to add a bit more butter/oil for the mushrooms. If my husband is reading this, please skip the next 5 pictures. I promise there was no fungus in your sandwich. Wink, wink.

Mushroom time. Yum. This is my favorite part.

Look at them cooking away. Pure deliciousness.

Now that they've cooked into mushroom amazingness, it's time to add some Sherry and worchestershire sauce. And a pinch of salt.

Once the sauce has reduced by half, the mushrooms are done and ready to be sampled a few times to ensure deliciousness. Mmm, I can taste them right now!!

Finally, it's time to start adding everything back together. First the meat.

Then add the veggies. By this point everyone in the house should have said, "that smells so good, what are you making". If not, walk away and order takeout. Seriously.

Now a little more butter. I promise I'm not purposely clogging your arteries.

Let's stop right here for a brief moment of truth. I normally don't toast my bread. I'm that girl at Subway that says, "Italian BMT on wheat, un-toasted". I'm not a fan of crunchy bread. But on this sandwich, it's a must.

Crispy, buttery goodness.

Now add the meat and veggie mix to the bottom half of the rolls. And last but not least, add cheese { I prefer provolone, but swiss, cheddar ... whatever you like will do }. Let it sit under the broiler for a minute or two to melt, then add on top half of roll. And that's it! An amazing and super easy steak sandwich. Worthy of a Rachel Ray Yum-o.

Day Twenty Four: The Pond

I'm starting to have a hard time finding inspiration .. I feel like all my picture are nature or random objects. I think it's time to step out of my natural light comfort zone.

This is a cat tail I saw while the girls and I were on a walk. Something about it caught my eye. Probably because it's so darn fuzzy.

Day Twenty Three: Bubbles

..me in a bubble..

These bubbles really didn't turn out like I wanted, but I know what not to do next time. This was actually much harder than I expected. It's not easy to focus on something flying around and popping without notice. So, the bubbles win this time. Here are the best of the worse.

Day Twenty Two: Pancakes

This was not only my picture for the theme this week, but also my breakfast! This weeks theme was compatible objects and how they are used together. I picked pancakes and syrup. I wanted to try a food picture because I've been known to make my food look horrible in pictures. I think this one turned out looking pretty yummy.

Here's the original picture:

Day Twenty One: The Girls

My grandma asked me for some new pictures of the girls so we did a mini photo shoot this afternoon. I couldn't just add one girl so I did all four. I did get a good picture of all of them together, but I went with the individual shots to show there unique personalities. These are my little girls!