A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

food

Food Photo Challenge (March 2020): Lunch

So this month has been a whirlwind of everything. And I’m sure most of you are feeling it as well. That being said, despite being later in the day, the challenges go on and I hope that it somehow helps you with the current situation throughout the world. 

Mmmm food. 

The first month was breakfast. And this much is lunch. I’m sure you can see the direction we are heading. If you are new to the Food Photo Challenge, check out this post, which explains everything. Also, the linkup for this month’s theme will stay live for about a week. 

Food Photo Challenge logo

Simply put, though, each month there will be a theme (announced at the end of this post) and on the 28th of each month, come back and link up.

Onward we go!

I’m sticking with my quest for using my iPhone more and learning different things about it. This photo was done with my iPhone 11 pro. I also again used a light box, which I think really helped. 

Let’s check out this month. 

Theme: Lunch

I do love lunch. The thing is, though, I am pretty zoned in with lunch. By that I mean I truly love sandwiches and subs. I would eat them most of the time if I could, but .. bread. That being said, most lunches I do have them. 

So a sandwich is a part of this photo, and I knew I needed a little more to it. 

What accompanies a sandwich? Well, often chips of some sort. And a pickle!

This was a fantastic lunch. A mixed-meat sandwich on rye. Some regular potato chips (I had thought about Doritos for color, or even veggie straws, but I went the traditional route), and a small pickle. I took a few different angles and distances, but this I thought captured it well. 

And it was tasty!

That’s my submission for the month and I am looking forward to seeing who else is taking part in this challenge and what they have to offer!

If you took part in the challenge, please make sure to link up below. Also, make sure you visit everybody else’s posts (and do come back to see who may have linked up after you!)! 

Let’s, too, try and grow this challenge. Tell others and invite them. And, as always, one can check out the Facebook group for this challenge and others as well. You can access the group here. 

The linkup is below, but how about March?

The theme for April is: Dinner. Come back on April 28 to link up!

Food Photo Challenge: March 2020

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

Food Photo Challenge (February 2020): Breakfast

Welcome everybody to the first linkup of the Food Photo Challenge. This monthly challenge is to work on doing some food photography photos with blogging.

If you are new to seeing this and it’s something that might interest you, the whole aspect is explained in this post. Also, the linkup will stay live for about a week, so if you post in the next couple of days, come on back and link up!

Food Photo Challenge logo

Simply put, though, each month there will be a theme (announced at the end of this post) and on the 28th of each month, come back and link up.

So, on with the show!

I’ve wanted to get better with my food photos. I enjoy it, but I also want to try new things and angles and all that. I always take snaps when out and about, but I want to learn about the editing and everything else. This month, I already learned a lot, which I will explain later. The best part of this is that each theme will be a new way to challenge yourself with food photography.

Further, I’m starting to really push toward using my iPhone for a lot of my photography. I invested in some Moment lenses and, so far, I really love them. For this month’s theme, I used the moment 58 lens, as well as the Moment app on my phone. I have a lot to learn with that app, but so far… love it.

On top of that, I opted to go with a mini light box, which, in the end, was probably good. However, I learned a bit about the light box and the lighting of it, and in the future, hopefully I can utilize this better. The light box is pretty small, so I might have to use a bigger one for this challenge.

For now, though, let’s get on with this month’s post.

Theme: Breakfast

I love breakfast. I mean, truly love it. I have certain things I always get when traveling, but when home, I’m quite consistent on the things I eat.

A lot of that is because of having diabetes and knowing what things do to me etc. I’ve had to cut back on a lot of things I love for breakfast, though I do still indulge in things on occasion. 

Still, a plate with eggs or something along those lines didn’t work for me with this one. Instead, I wanted to do cereal. Espcially being I had some fruit loops around.

Now, I don’t eat a lot of cereal anymore. With the carbs and the milk and everything else, it tends to be too much for me in the morning and my blood sugars go up a bit too high. 

But colors!

Looking back, I kind of wish I had used a different background color, or a different color bowl. The colors here are just a bit too powerful. But I do like the overall look and feel of this photo. 

And yes, for the record, I did eat this when done … 

That’s my submission for the month and I am looking forward to seeing who else is taking part in this challenge and what they have to offer!

If you took part in the challenge, please make sure to link up below. Also, make sure you visit everybody else’s posts (and do come back to see who may have linked up after you!)! 

Let’s, too, try and grow this challenge. Tell others and invite them. And, as always, one can check out the Facebook group for this challenge and others as well. You can access the group here. 

The linkup is below, but how about March?

The theme for March is: Lunch. Come back on March 28 to link up!

Food Photo Challenge: February 2020

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

Announcing the Food Photo Challenge

I know, I know … just what we need. 

Another challenge. 

But this is one I’ve been thinking about for a long while. It’s one that I think could be a fun addition to the challenge circle and it will be monthly. 

The rules, much like other challenges I run, will be simple. 

Food Photo Challenge logo

There will be a theme. Snap off one photo that fits within the theme, write up a little about said photo and then come back and link up. 

This will be the only time we do an announcement sort of thing with this. From here on out, the idea will be to put the theme at the end of the linkup post (originally, I was going to do it like the Photo Blogging Challenge, but it seems like it’s better to announce the theme when we link up being only one photo is required. 

So, let’s put it out there again for the “rules:” 

  • Get the theme
  • One photo that works with that theme
  • A small write-up about the photo
  • Come back and link up here (on the 28th of each month)
  • Get the new theme and do it again (theme available in linkup post)

I enjoy food photography and really like seeing how others approach it. It doesn’t have to be anything out of this world, just have fun with it, Use any camera you want and showcase what you like or have made. 

The theme for the first month is: Breakfast. Remember to come back and link up on February 28! Hope you will join up!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

20 Days of Chill: What’s cookin’ (Day 18)

The finished product! Yum!

Mmmmm New England clam chowder (errr… chowdah!)

This is, by far, my favorite type of soup. I don’t like Manhattan clam chowder. But New England… that’s chowdah!

I’ve made some different types of it in the past, but I had recently been scouring pinterest in the hopes of finding another one to try.

What I stumbled across was a slow-cooker recipe and, with a few small tweaks, I think I’ve found a great recipe that is well worth keeping.

If you want to see the original recipe at Baked by Rachel, click on the above link. I cut a few things out (namely red pepper flakes), and added more clams, as well as going with a shallot instead of just onion. Below is how I did it – and my thoughts on how I might change it up a tad more next time (and, mark my words, there will be a next time)!

Ingredients:

  • 3.5 cups of potatoes (I would have gone with the 4.5 in the original recipe, but didn’t have enough …)
  • 1 tsp garlic (I used minced)
  • 1 cup onion chopped (about half of mine was shallot)
  • 1/2 cup celery chopped
  • 1/4 tsp dried thyme
  • 6-8 slices of bacon (I put a bit more than the original recipe)
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tbsp bacon grease
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 1/4 cup of half and half
  • 5 6-ounce cans of clams (I used more than in the original recipe
  • 8 ounces of clam juice (basically the juice out of two of the above cans of clams

What to do

Get everything prepped. It’s the best way to do it, isn’t it? Do all of your cutting and chopping and measuring. Get the clams ready and the juice. Peel the potatoes and put them into the size pieces that you like in your chowdah! (I like them a little smaller in mine).

Prepping!

And then …

Heat the olive oil in a decent size skillet. Then drop in the veggies, cooking over a medium heat. And it will smell divine. Once those onions get translucent, add the garlic and thyme for another minute or two, or until fragrant. Once ready, put all of that in your crock pot/slow cooker.

Now drop those potatoes in the crock pot, along with the clams, the clam juice and all the seasonings. Stir it up and take a whiff (hint: it smells good) and set your timer – 5 hours on high (that’s what I did), or the original recipe noted 10 hours on low.

If it didn’t smell good enough already, well, it’s about to get better. Cook all that delicious bacon. Get it nice and crispy. Take the 1/2 tablespoon of bacon grease and add it to the slow cooker. Chop up that bacon and add that to the pot as well (though, you should keep a bit of it aside, so you can have it on top of the chowder later!), cause … everything is better with bacon! Let everything continue to cook

With about 45 minutes remaining, add the flour to the half and half and whisk it really well. Like, take the time and do it right. Once you hit 30 minutes remaining, add it to the crock pot and let it cook the rest of the time.

When done – ladle some of that chowder out, have some awesome bread and enjoy how amazing this is. I mean, it’s crazy good. It also freezes pretty well, so portion it out and pull some out any time you want this chowdah!

Enjoy!

*****

This post is part of the 2018 20 Days of Chill Writing Challenge hosted by A ‘lil HooHaa. Please check out the link if you’d like to see others or join in. You don’t have to do every theme if you don’t want! And for those participating, take a moment and check out the other participants! This is also part of the 2018 HooHaa Blogging Challenge. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

Chicago deep-dish pizza: Malnati’s vs. Giordano’s

There are no “losers” in this comparison, that’s for sure.

In late July/early August, two of us took an annual baseball trip, with this one happening in the Midwest. For a couple of days, Chicago was the base area.

Several years ago, on my first trip to the Chicago area, I had some of the famous deep-dish pizza and I had gone with the original Pizzeria Uno, and it was quite divine.

Like, truly divine. The spot felt old-school. It was smaller and tighter (at least the area we sat) and the pizza pans were worn and aged — making it perfect.

This time around, though, the chance for a comparison came to fruition. On back-to-back days, pizza was the choice for the day and it came down to Lou Malnati’s vs Giordano’s.

Again, there’s no real loser here. Both were amazing. But let’s take a look.

Lou Malnati’s

The first stop for pizza came on a day when we were seeing the Chicago White Sox in the afternoon, and the Chicago Cubs at night. In between was a perfect stop for some pizza, wouldn’t you say?

Lou Malnati’s it was.

Sauce on top … was very good!

We got here at a good time as we had a seat right away. By the time we left, there were a lot of people waiting in line for a table.

First off, this pizza was delish. But it was a little different than I am obviously used to. First, it’s very heavy on sauce. And the sauce sits on top of the pizza, with a lot of glorious cheese in the middle. Therefore, a fork and knife was a must.

But the taste … oh my. Fantastic. The sauce was very tasty and the cheese was plentiful and gooey. Good lord it was fantastic.

Being hungry, though, as an appetizer, we got their cheddar cubes, which were delightful. Think Mozzarella sticks, but in cubes and cheddar. Fantastic.

The pizza was tremendous, though. I fully enjoyed it.

Giordano’s

The following night, Giordano’s was on tap. This worked out well as we were coming back from Milwaukee and had plans to go to an independent baseball game that night.

So, so good …

However, it was the one night on the trip where weather took control and we decided not to go to the independent game (which, it turns out, was the right direction as the game only made it to the fourth before the rain uncorked, and that was after a delay before the game even started!), so with a Giordano’s not far from the hotel, it was the perfect decision.

I’m glad it worked out this way.

This pizza was crazy good. The sauce was where it was supposed to be, and with getting a meat lover’s pizza, it was loaded!

The first bit was divine. The rest was crazy good as well. But the beauty of it was this — you didn’t necessarily need a fork and knife! This was cooked to perfection. The crust was excellent, there was the right amount of cheese and sauce, and the rest was perfect.

No appetizer this time around, but a cannoli to finish off the meal was excellent.

The verdict

As stated earlier, you can’t lose.

We were split down the middle on which pizza was the winner. One preferred the more sauce, one didn’t. My choice was Giordano’s because I liked less sauce, and liked it on the inside with the toppings on top.

But the reality is, I’d go back to either one and wouldn’t complain. They were both amazing and the difference of opinion basically came down to the placement and the amount of sauce.

Tremendous experience to have these on back-to-back nights. Whenever I might get back to Chicago, I know I’d love to dig in again!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!