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This was REALLY good. No I mean REALLY REALLY good.
1 Whole chicken cut into pieces
Breading:
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tbls salt
1 tbls ground black pepper
1 tbls papkria
2 tps garlic powder
2 tps ground sage
3 Tbls butter
1 medium onion chopped
2 tsp dried thyme
6 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 cup apple-cherry juice
1 tbls red wine vinegar
1/4 cup cream
8 oz grated Mozzarella cheese
Place the flour and other breading ingredients in a plastic bag and mix. Put chicken in and shake to coat well. Heat 12 inch skillet over med-high add butter. Once butter stops foaming shake excess flour off chicken pieces and add to pan cook 5 minutes per side or until browned. Remove chicken and add onions and garlic cook until soft. Add juice, thyme, and vinegar and return chicken to pan. Cover and simmer one hour. At the end of the hour remove chicken and add cream Heat until sauce thickens enough that it will coat the back of a spoon.
Cook a wide pasta (we did fresh made fettuccine), drain to a platter add mozzarella cheese, pour sauce over top and put the chicken on.
The theme for this week and the rules for the next challenge are posted at photos.angrygardner.com good luck and have fun.
I am ready to start another couple of challenges. That’s right I said a couple.
The first is a 365 challenge that I started last week. In this challenge I will make a photo every day for a year. I might not post them every day, but I will try. There is a link to the right of this post that links to 365.angrygardner.com Please let me know what you think about it.
The second is the Angry Gardner’s photo challenge part 2. The rules will change a little, and I think that we are going to have a couple of additional people this time around. The new rules and themes will be up shortly, and the challenge with start March 1st.
@nicoleys I ain’t
One of the local photographers that I follow is Nicole Young. She is an amazing talent, and she is very willing to share her knowledge. If you are not blog stalking (link) her you are making a critical mistake. Lately, she has been doing food photographs with tips and methods to make better looking food pictures. So here is what I have picked up so far. Remember any problems are the student’s faults not the teacher.
36mm f/8 1/3s
1. Have your camera. This torte was brought into work, and when I saw it I could actually see a picture. Lucky for me it was the day of a Photo Walking Utah (link) event and I had my camera otherwise I would been saying what a nice picture that would have been.
2. WHITE BALANCE. Yeah it’s that important. I have started using my gray card religiously. I take and put my gray card by the item and set my WB to manual based on that. It is easy and the payoff can be huge.
3. Mind the background. Once again it was at work so the background was really cluttered. I used a suit coat on a hanger for the backdrop.
4. Depth of field. This is one place I was unhappy with the results. I would have liked to have the entire piece in focus.
5. Lighting. This also feels a little harsh to me, but once again they don’t really light my office area for great pictures. Generally, lighting should be off set slightly from what you are photographing. Not front on or directly overhead.
6. Details/Styling. Since this was a work treat I didn’t think I would be heaped with praise if started messing with their food, but I did turn it so that the best side was facing the camera (they didn’t even wait for me it was half gone by the time I got there). I was even able to remove a crack in the crust with Photo-shop (one of my BIG weaknesses).
7. Context. This is completely lacking in this picture. A fork/plate/big glass of Mountain Dew almost anything to add a little interest.
Anyways I have room to improve, but there are things that I really love, the color, about this picture. I hope you do as well.
Living life as a social “outcast” is tough. I know many of you find it hard to believe that I struggle around people. Just think back to some of your VERY first impressions of me and you should realize how easily I say just the “right” thing at just the right time. I am in constant fear of meeting new people and pissing them off for no reason other than I am who I am.
That being said I really must think that photography is important. Because of it, I leave my comfort zone I talk with people I normally never would; not because I’m a snob, but because I’m a coward.
So every month I put on my brave face and head out to hang with some amazingly talented and generous photographers. I spend the time desperately trying to pick up one pointer or trick that helps my shooting. Okay I make it sound like something horrible, but really it is something I look forward to every time. I feel the same angst over church, family reunions, meeting Christy’s friends, really going anywhere that I can’t hide somehow. BTW hiding can be done many different ways behind a computer screen, in a dark room, if it is done right even in the middle of a kitchen 
Sorry I went off on a tangent there. This post was really about just how great a group of people the folks at photo walking Utah are. Photography is a challenging art and there are many trolls out there that are willing to tell you how bad you are, not at this group. If you ever have the chance to come to one of the meet ups COME! It is so worth it. Take the time to meet one person, learn one thing, and then take the time to do it over and over again. You won’t regret it, I promise.
www.photowalkingutah.com
One device to rule them all and bind them in the BlackBerryness. There is now an app for Wordpress that runs natively on most smartphones. WOOT!!
220, 221. Whatever it takes.
My wife went to her Dad’s retirement party for the weekend so I was left home with the kids. It was a lot of fun, but it was a big “weekend”. Here are the highlights.
I slept in on Thurs. I figured I deserved one. We did the airport run around noon and after that it was just me and the kids. We went Scaddys for lunch and then hit Sam’s club, and a local restaurant supply place for my food project of the week, Roasted Garlic (post).
Friday we dropped Logan off at school and left for IKEA to get supplies for the DIY “studio” lighting projects, (posts will follow), I am working on. I don’t think there is a store that that I love/hate as much as IKEA. I get lost every time we go there and spend way too much time getting the kids off the displays, but there is alot of cool stuff there. After school was out it was off to the doctor to have my sons stitches removed, that at least went off without a hitch. Then I had to line up clothes for a photo shoot for Saturday AM, do you know how hard it is to find baby clothes without logos or designs, it’s tough.
Saturday morning we were up and going at 6:30 to go to a Movie Theater shoot that a friend (he must be a friend I don’t wake up that early for just anyone) of mine Rich Legg (link) was doing. We were part of a movie theater audience for his iStock (link) photo shoot. It was very interesting to watch a real pro at work. I learned a couple of things and truthfully the kids and I had a real fun time. That afternoon one of Logan’s friends had a birthday party at a local swimming pool. I was really not wanting to go, but Chey thought it was a really great idea so we went. I am here to tell you 3 hours of swimming seems like 20. By the end we were very, VERY, tired, hungry, and grumpy. The highlight of the trip was when I discovered that I had lost the key to the locker that all of our stuff was in. While I went to have someone from maintenance cut the lock; Chey watched the baby in the pool, SSSSHHH, nobody tell my wife, its OK she never reads this .
Sunday I realized again just how lame we are… everyone on the street was either hosting a SuperBowl party or at one. As for me and the kids, we sat at home alone and laughed at Doritos commercials. Oh well, it is what it is. we still had a good time and were able to get Mom home. It was nice to turn the kids back over to her 
For what it is worth I loved Roasted Garlic long before it became en-vogue. The Italians actually use this as a toast topping (called a crostini) I have to admit that I love it on a thin slice of a hard chewy bread with a drizzle of Balsamic vinegar. The recipe is really easy and the payout is huge. Try it sometime.
25mm f/5 1/800s
2 heads of garlic cut so the ends are exposed (for a large batch buy the pre-peel containers and put in a oven safe bowl)
1 tsp kosher salt
3 grinds of fresh pepper
3 tbls olive oil
Put in container (for heads I just use Aluminum foil to wrap it all up) and bake at 350 until brown about 45 minutes. Roasting gives the garlic a softer “sweeter” flavor it is exellent in soups and with chicken.
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