More baking

I love the internet for finding things. It's difficult to remember the times that you would have had to search cookbooks for recipes and then still find nothing for dealing with the two things you need to use up. The two things in this case were buttermilk and cranberries. All I had to do was google those two things and up came this muffin recipe. So that was our breakfast today. I added a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg to the recipe. I may try lemon rind next time.

Now I just need to use up these pears before a new shipment comes tomorrow in our organic box.

It's a quiet Sunday but after the last few Sundays, I'm happy with that.

Baking

Sunday started off with a lot of promise. I got the mango frozen yoghurt in the ice cream maker and then I baked this bread - soda bread with dark chocolate chunks from a Jamie Oliver recipe. And I was already to use my new tagine for the first time. But Zoe had other ideas and we ended up at the vet. She's now recuperating at home. Oh and I don't think the mangoes were ripe enough. I'm not happy with the frozen yoghurt. That's two not so great batches lately.

I've also just realized that the photos I took on Saturday were not RAW but jpeg. Hate when that happens. We had a great day walking along Queen Street East in Leslieville/Riverdale and checking out the French bakeries.

Playing with HDR

I've been meaning to see what all this HDR stuff is myself for a while now especially since I got CS5. It's pretty neat stuff (it seems late in the game to be saying this). I haven't gone for the over-the-top stuff, yet. I remembered bracketing some shots in anticipation of this when I was in Paris in 2010 so I thought I would play around with these photos.  I kind of liked playing more with the softness and creating something pastel-like. I know I could have done that in Corel Painter but not with the same highlights and shadow work.

It has certainly intrigued me and I plan on doing more especially using it to cope with differing lighting conditions like indoor photography. My DSLR (Sony A55) also does in camera HDR so it's not as crucial for compensating for different lighting conditions in Photoshop but some extra, minor adjustments would probably help too.

My muse

Zoe the cat

Well not really but she always seems to be beside me and she's great for testing out a new camera. My favourite is the lower left since she looks a bit drunk. Obviously she's not. I caught her mid yawn. I was also just playing with Photoshop, as usual, and adding a high key look with texture and border for this "collage."

A day at the beach

Well it is just beginning to cloud over but the sun was out and shining almost as much as this past Saturday when we walked down to the beach and I took these photos (I may post more when I get someone's permission). It was like a spring day in January. Bit chillier today but I should have gone down to the beaches this morning to photograph that wonderful sunrise. Sunrises are starting to happen earlier and earlier these days...

Cooking and photographing

Well I'm certainly liking the new camera and it even went to work with me today. I went out at lunch and made sure I took some photos and even discovered a new little street.

Narrow house on a short street near McCaul

But before that I, on Sunday we were cooking and baking. Here are some of the results.

Hubby-made cake with apples

Roasted dinner

I hope to continue going out a lunchtime and taking pictures while exploring the neighbourhood.

The Grange at the Art Gallery of Ontario

New Camera and the Social Networking Diet

Well yesterday was my birthday. I won't go into details as it was a bit bleak but I did get a wonderful present from hubby. So I will take more pictures but ones with higher quality (raw capabilities) than my point and shoot (but more portable and lighter than my DSLR).  I am now the new owner of a compact system camera and it's pretty awesome. So maybe expect more updates and more photos? I'm going to try to take it with me everywhere. I want to not rely on my iphone for photos anymore. Don't get me wrong, iphone is great for photos but there are sometimes that I wish I had the quality there for some images and ways of manipulating the photos without losing quality as well. Now I have the answer. Today I took some photos of the new Loblaws after buying myself a cake (a day late but that's okay).

Along College on the streetcar

love the bright colours in the store

reminders of its past

Beginning today, though, for a week or more I will not be checking facebook, twitter or instagram. I think I need a break from knowing someone went to Starbuck's and the like and maybe, just maybe, I'll focus more and take more photos. Well it's an experiment. We'll see how it goes.

Post Christmas

Well I broke with tradition this year and took the decorations down before the 5th. To fill the void I made sure to buy some flowers and some extra candles. It actually didn't feel so bad the first night without Christmas lights.

We did a lot of cooking during the holidays. Hubby made some fantastic French onion soup and I made cassoulet for New Year's Day.

Christmas Eve

Getting all prepared for Christmas day and tonight's dinner. Looking forward to that duck tonight. Yum. Christmas cookies were baked last weekend. Caneles were made this week and a cranberry pudding cake was done today. Almost there.

This year's Christmas card. Originally taken in Paris in 2010 at the store Merci.
Like that message of Thanks.

All the best to everyone out there this holiday season. Hopefully during this bit of a break I can actually post new things and get some creating done.

Decorations outside

Well it finally stopped raining a couple of days ago and the sun was out today and it was lovely so I was able to pop out to take these finally.

Daytime

My brother made the birch reindeer

the berries are from our vine in the backyard

Already a casualty of a broken ornament. Got to have one a season.

Nightime

And there are more lights going down the length of the fence

Nice day out in the morning shopping at the market and thinking about Christmas meals. After taking these pictures tonight, I think I would like a new tripod on my Christmas list. Need a better head on the tripod - one that I can trust. I watched as my camera slowing started turning in portrait format. Not something you want for doing long exposure, although that effect could be interesting.

Chicago on my mind

Still thinking about Chicago even though it was over a week ago. Had such a great time and great food. Can't wait to go back. So here are some panoramas from the trip.

Starting to look a lot like Christmas

So today was decorating day around here. We already had some lights outside (since it was raining, pics of that will come later). Just a mini tree this year but that meant more lights for elsewhere.

This is also a way to keep playing with long exposure.