A centerpiece to impress

I found this while browsing through the Thanksgiving section of allrecipes.com

I hosted my first ever Thanksgiving this year and had 9 guests. So, since I don't really do Southern food, I thought I would try my hand at this thing. Everyone loved it just as I loved it in the picture online, and really, it is as easy as can be. Much easier than making a homemade pie crust. And, this is edible or you can spray it to keep it for later uses (but don't eat it if you spray it, ew).

Just, please ignore the trash can in the background in the second picture, I promise, it's far away from the table and come on, it was Thanksgiving day cooking.

Link to the directions here.

How to photograph food

As I am cleaning out this month I am going through magazines and ripping out pages I want to keep and setting them aside in a box, then sending on the magazines to local areas who could use them. As I was goint through my May 2008 Rachael Ray I found a brief note as part of an article that was..."How to...Photograph Food" and I thought I would put it on here for others too.

From Rachael Ray magazine May 2008 p. 30
It's easy to take photographs as tasty as the dishes themselves, especially with these tips from food photographer Lou Manna:

Reflect Light. Prop a mirror or foil up next to the plate to aim light onto the dish; to diffuse light, prop up wax paper instead. AVOID DISTRACTING BACKGROUND PATTERNS. Stick with solid-color plates and fabrics. GET IN THERE! Most beginners shoot from too far away, Manna says. The food should actually look huge in the camera's viewfinder. (And don't shoot straight on-angles are more interesting.)


Well, maybe I can get better pics of food now that I have these tips of info.

Strawberry picking and making strawberry jam

Yum!

After reading about inchmarks Friday night strawberry jam making session, I decided I needed to give making jam a shot.  

We went to the strawberry patch and picked some deliciously sweet fresh strawberries, this place just has the best strawberries ever.  

Came home, made the jam the next day (minus the pectin).  It was so much fun

 making jam that I decided to try a bit of inchmarks comments to add some blueberries to the jam mix.  

Found some fresh blueberries, used the remainder of the strawberries I had, and made some "heavenly hash."  This time I used the pectin. :)-

I think in total we have about 8 jars of 

each, plus some for eating right away. Now, what to do with all that jam I made in a family of infrequent jam eaters?