Beetroot Gnocchi
Ingredients
3 small fresh beetroot, peeled and chopped
1 large potato, peeled and chopped
1/6 of the combined weight of the potato and beetroot in plain flour
75g/3oz unsalted butter
extra flour, for rolling

Method
1. Fill two medium pans with salted water and bring to the boil.
2. Cook the beetroot and potato until tender separately in the two pans.
3. Drain, return to one pan and mash.
4. Beat in the flour.
5. On a floured surface, knead the mixture for 1-2 minutes.
6. Divide into strips, roll and cut into 2.5cm/1in cubes.
7. In a separate pan of salted water, boil the cubes for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
8. Drain the gnocchi.

NOW for the Sauce
Gorgonzola Walnut Sauce

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 to 3/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese or other blue cheese (such as Maytag)
3/4 cup walnut pieces, toasted
1 cup chopped fresh basil

Preparation

Cook pasta in medium pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid.
Melt butter with oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and thyme; sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add pasta, cream, and cheese. Toss until sauce coats pasta, adding reserved cooking liquid by 1/4 cupfuls if dry. Mix in walnuts, then basil. Season pasta to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

Another such person was my husbands Czech Pol Grandmother. She was great example of how food is love. If you visited my husband’s family you always went home with a loaf or two of fresh baked Babka…steaming hot and straight from the oven. When I married my husband she taught me his favorite recipe for Pierogi. filled with Farmers Cheese. They were incredible…like little pockets of happiness. Gram has recently left us, but yesterday in her honor I dusted off that old recipe and let her legacy live on. These pierogi were adapted to be Gluten Free Cooking. and Dairy Free Cooking., which was easily done by using a GF white flour blend which you can buy in any health food store and I filled them with a potato and red onion mixture instead of the cheese. The pastry itself calls for sour cream which I substituted with Oatly Oat Cream.. They are served with fried onions and sour cream which can be replaced with a Soy Sour Cream.

I hope you will get into your kitchen and whip up some Love.

Last weekend we had the pleasure of participating in the Accessible Art Fair at the Conrad hotel in Brussels, Belgium. It was a exciting fun filled weekend and we met and spoke with at least 3000 people in those two and a half days.

This year we brought our Wet Plate Ambrotypes and Albumen hand pulled Prints along to showcase. The public were very receptive to this historic techniques and enjoyed very much looking through our 100+ year old Charten Whole Plate camera.

We demonstrated the Collodion Wet Plate process in a dry manner due to the fact we were inside a very swanky hotel, but I believe the concept came across to everyone.

Here are a few images from the event and we hope to return again with something new again in 2011.

Thank you to everyone who came out in support to see us in Brussels!

The Dragons have returned once again to our little sleepy bend in the Neckar river. Ladenburg hosted the 6th annual Dragon Boats races with 55 teams from local areas competing. The atmosphere was alive, especially because our long running heatwave broke the evening before the races, thus encouraging everyone to come and participate.

Our small stretch of beach was also transformed into Tropical beach bars with bonfires lighting up the night sky. It seemed like just about everyone came to party in Ladenburg this weekend.

I have been lucky enough to photograph 4 of the 6 years of this event and each year it gets more fun. This year, I tried to find a new perspective and came prepared with my amazing Keen waterproof shoes. I just walked right into the cool Neckar river, creating a very unique perspective to capture my shots.

So I am really hoping you enjoy this slide show of images I put together to share with you.

Fingers crossed all goes well in the morning but I am thinking an over night trip is definitely in our future!

WAGONS HO!

So many people have been saying, “Oh those iPhone image are so cool but what can you really do with them?” Well, that is simple you use software called Genuine Fractals to enlarge them. It is simple.

OK so…I have created the larger image files, now what? Well, you create digital negatives. Another thing I have been in love with. After getting much backlash in the world that Digital Photography is some how a lesser craft…but that is another story.

While creating all this…my husband AKA “Mad Photo Scientist” was mixing up a batch of Albumen
. We are now well known at the local farm for buying flats and flats of eggs for our “Experiments.” We then “Float” the paper in the Albumen mix, remove all air bubbles and hang to dry. We use our furnace room so the paper dries in minutes. Now you have your own handmade Photosensitive paper.

Now with the introduction of classically made paper and modern negative….throw in a dash of UV light and Voila….You have an Albumen print.

It’s all very exciting. I find the possibilities are endless in Photography…as they say you are only limited by your creativity…and how long you can stand the smell of eggs.

We loaded all the chemicals, cameras, dark box and other incidentals into my husband’s Classic Land Rover, (Landy) and drove out into the fields. After finding an interesting location we started to set up. There has been an issue all along with the used dark box we purchased from another Photographer who was giving up Wet Plate…though it saved us a lot of trouble of building one ourselves, we discovered the vast difference in size and height between my husband and I really played an issue when it came time to using the box. The legs affixed to the box were just too short for him so he decided to try and mount the box in the back cargo area of the Landy.

It worked perfectly!! We both were able to produce 2 plates each before the heat and thirst chased us back home.

OK, so it has also been raining in Biblical proportions  for weeks now and my wandering has been cut short, but these process’ are turning out to be great rainy day projects.

Simply put I am being positive about all this negative weather and turning some of my digital images into negatives that I can use to create contact prints.

So far the experiment has been a load of fun and not that tricky at all.  Here is the result of my first attempt…of course there are some kinks that need to be worked out, but….isn’t that really the fun part?

Once we moved to Germany we found a new trainer for Clover and she told me every time you find it hard to get his attention or if he wanders off…Go hide.   Let me tell you, this works!

A trick to living with a Wheaten Terrier is to turn all “Learning Experiences” into a game.   He loves to go in search of me now and I love being interesting to him.

I liken the experience to a “Fish Tale”. I had the first two beautiful plates float away in the fix bath, BUT I was smart enough to get a digital snap of it…since there was no one there to witness the event.

After using black glass for the first 2 pours and having lost those images I switched to black aluminum. I had no issues with the glass inside the silver bath as they are heavy but apparently the metal floated on me and the silver coating stopped an inch from the top. I exposed it anyway and it turned out to be one of my favorites.

Two hours into it, I was finally getting into the rhythm of working inside the dark box….even with the low light I was still able to see properly to develop the plates, when the skies opened up and chased me speedily for cover. That is after I raced the camera indoors.

I just submitted my contribution to the event…too bad you can call a rain date.

Here is “The One That Got Away”