P52 27/52 Chocolate chocolate chip Bundt Cake

Copyright © Deborah M Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Busy morning bakin’. Just waiting for this super rich, moist cake to cool before glazing with a semisweet chocolate sauce.

Miam, miam!

Chocolate chocolate chip Bundt Cake-unglazedNikon D300s| AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G| SB600 camera left low @ 1/4pwr

Addendum: Melissa of http://melissabluefineart.wordpress.com/  is craving a good chocolate cake and asked for the recipe, so for you Chere Melissa here’s the recipe.

This is a recipe from Taste of Home- Ultimate Chocolate Cake

I made the chocolate sauce by melting 1.5 cups chocolate chips with a 2-3 tablespoons of milk. Drizzle over the cake when completely cooled letting it run down the sides of the cake.  Enjoy!

P52 23/52 Summer is…

Copyright © 2014 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

Tomatoes!

P52 23 of 52 Rustic Tarte a la Tomate

It’s not quite Summer here yet, but my local market had some good looking Heirloom tomatoes in so I bought several for salad, and a Tarte à la Tomate.
The Tarte was so warm and gooey that the cheese and tomatoes are sliding off the crust in this image. It may not look pretty, but it was tasty!

The recipe is from Kristin Ingham Espinasse an American ex-pat living in France with her wine maker husband and their two children. She writes the blog French Word a Day which is where I found her.
I can’t find the blog post that Kristin shared the recipe for the Tarte à la Tomate…it was years ago. I hope she doesn’t mind if I share it.

Tarte à la Tomate

1 store bought pie crust to fit your  desired pie pan
2 or 3 Tablespoons of Dijon mustard
1 cup of shredded Emmental cheese (or Gruyère)
2 or 3 Large tomatoes, sliced
Olive Oil- enough to drizzle
Herbes de Provence- to taste
salt and pepper

Instructions:
Roll out the store-bought pie crust ( if rollable). Slather mustard* across its surface. Sprinkle cheese over the mustard and set the tomatoes across the top. Add salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, and a filet or swirl of olive oil to taste.
Cook the tomato pie in 425º oven for 20 minutes. Serves 4, salivates eight.

* variation: try tapenade (crushed olive spread) in place of the mustard.

Nikon D700| AF-D Nikkor 105mm f2.8 micro lens| SB910 camera left, and SB600 camera right triggered via Commander Mode in camera

 

P52 22/52 Mac & Cheese

Copyright © Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved.

P52  22 of 52 Mac & CheeseI made Lidia Matticchio Bastianich’s version of Mac & Cheese last night for dinner. It’s made with  three types of cheese; Cheddar, Fontina, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Altogether there are a whopping 7 cups of cheese in this version. It’s topped with home-made bread crumbs lightly toasted in sweet butter. It’s delicious! My family loved it.  Miam-Miam!

The recipe is in Lidia’s Italy in America cookbook. Or go here!

Nikon D700| AF-D Nikkor 85mm f/1.4| Hand-held

Strobist- SB910 camera left high at 1/16th pwr, triggered via Commander Mode in Camera

“It’s all I have to bring today.” ~Emily Dickinson

Via Flickr:
Copyright © 2013 Deborah M Zajac. All Rights Reserved

Playing with my food again. Here’s the whole poem that Emily Dickinson wrote:

It’s all I have to bring today

Be sure you count should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 @ f4| 1/200s| ISO 320| Manual Priority| Tripod| SB600 camera Left triggered with camera flash unit

 

Bacon wrapped Filet Mignon

Copyright © 2012 Deborah M. Zajac. All Rights Reserved

Image

After a full day of photographing Fall color in Hope Valley, California  7 of us stayed the night in South Lake Tahoe and planned to shoot in the area on Sunday too. We met for dinner at Riva Grill on the Lake. I was craving a steak after smelling the delicious hamburgers a camper was grilling for lunch at one of our stops, and at Sorenson’s Resort the aroma of grilled steak was perfuming the air when we all met there at 5PM.
So I ordered the bacon wrapped Filet Mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh steamed asparagus. The wine we shared was a 2010 Toasted Head Cabernet Sauvignon. I ate the whole filet and asparagus and left the mash potatoes. I did taste them…they were okay. The wine was great the company superb!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 17-35@20mm| f8| 1/200s| ISO 400| Manual Priority| SB600 1/2 power I think| hand-held…I don’t have a clue what I’m doing with my strobe!