Wednesday, April 28, 2010

playing...

new macro gear gets better ring shots. this was the first shot i ever took with it and it's so fun! i'm still in love with my pretty wedding ring. and love my little homemade flower hairclip.

ASIAN LETTUCE WRAPS RECIPE.

one of my favorite recipes to make for my hubby! delicious and sooooo easy to make :)


i pulled this recipe out of a random magazine a few years ago,
 and have continuously adapted it over the years.

i usually make this for dinner with brown rice and a side of edamame.
or if i'm feeling up to it i'll make fried rice.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup peanut sauce (i like spicy thai peanut sauce)

1/2 cup hoisin sauce

1 cucumber (peeled, seeded, and diced)

1 lb. lean ground beef or turkey

1 head crispy iceberg or romaine lettuce

2 carrots, diced

a few tbsp of chopped peanuts


DIRECTIONS:

1) brown the ground beef or turkey in a skillet.
pour off any drippings.

2) peel the cucumber and carrots.

3) seed the cucumber by cutting it in half lengthwise,
 and scraping out seeds with a spoon. then dice it.

4) dice the carrots into very small pieces.

5) chop up peanuts into small pieces.

6) cut the head of lettuce in half through the center,
so that the leaves will be left cut in half.

7) carefully pull off large lettuce leaf halves and separate.

8) carefully rinse and dry lettuce leaves.

9) add peanut sauce & hoisin sauce to meat in skillet and heat thoroughly.

10)  add cucumber and carrots to the skillet just before serving. stir.

11) serve the beef mixture in lettuce leaves.
sprinkle each lettuce wrap with peanut crumbs.

TIP: we like to put a few spoonfuls of brown rice in the bottom of
each lettuce cup before adding the meat mixture.

other mix-in ideas:
red onions, edamame, or bean sprouts.

Monday, April 26, 2010

trashed my dress...

image by katie neal

i got to be a bridal model at the last socal photog shootout.
it was really fun to be on the front side of the camera
from about a hundred other photographers throughout the day.
an interesting learning experience. and i kinda trashed my dress.

gowns were provided but it's a good thing i brought my dress as a backup,
since all the sample gowns were like size 10 and i am a tiny little thing.
but really, any excuse to get to dress up in my wedding gown for a day?
sign me up. a bonus was that i got to borrow an enzoani sash,
pinned it up really good and used it as an embellishment to "update" my dress.

if you are a photographer make sure to check out photog shootout and sign up for their events.
you'll meet a lot of great photographers and learn a thing or two.

it was really cool for me to observe how each photographer worked so differently,
 and produced so many different angles, emotions, composition, post-processing...
different art from the same subject.
here are are a few photos from a few of the many awesome photographers...

wai reyes, our lovely group leader
stephen knuth
stacee lianna

jared crawford
hanssie trainor

vendor shoutouts:

coordinator: amanda auer of in the now weddings
venue: ron at the romanesque room
florist: megan gray of honey and poppies
dj: marcel gonzalez firstchoice entertainment
videographer: crafthouse productions
rentals: town & country
catering: jay’s catering
venue concierge: mary lallande
bakery: colette at fancy that! cupcakes 909.524.1864
linens: wildflower
styling: michelle cunningham
hair/makeup: kacee geoffroy & becca
hair/makeup: alisha baijournas
specialty: classic party rentals

and here is a cool video made by crafthouse productions of the event! it was a really fun day!



SoCal Photog Shootout 2010 from CraftHouse Productions on Vimeo.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

shinichi osawa.

while we're on the topic, how bout a song from one of my favorite japanese artists?
i've been obsessed with this song for a long time and it still never fails to pump me up and put me in an awesome mood!

sakura, i miss you so.

it's been 2 years this month since i visited japan,
 but i still think about it almost daily.

we totally lucked out and ended up being there during cherry blossom season...
which is usually 1-2 weeks of the year when the cherry blossoms are all blooming.

i have been thinking about these beauties a lot lately...
i took a ton of photos of them while i was there...here are a few of my favorites.


too bad i missed the cherry blossom festival in little tokyo this year.

see more photos from my japan trip (all taken with a point & shoot camera, sorry) HERE and HERE.

you can also read my little writeup about japan on the eliza blog HERE.

Monday, April 12, 2010

that dog.

i love this song a little bit extra because the intro reminds me of that dog.
ps, that's my first time linking to wikipedia...not sure how i feel about it.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

100 meters of existence

i love the the new 100 meter long image by simon hoegsberg...

i just love the candidness, the motion and emotion.

here's the first few inches...


click here to view the image! do it!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

bunnies.

hope you had a happy easter!
here is a photo of our friend will kindrick (remember, he made this cool video of us) holding bunny (rest in peace).

husband and i had a fun day together yesterday. we played tennis, i met with a super cool bride (wedding in 2 weeks), we ate at native foods and then whole foods gelato!

our easter day was awesome as well!

+waffles for breakfast
+heard some inspiring words from the leaders of our church
+i found a money egg in our easter egg hunt ($10!)
+lots of yummy food was eaten throughout the day...and dessert...and candy...etc.

all in all it was a great weekend! it went by so fast! why do they keep doing that?

Friday, April 2, 2010

this makes me happy.


have a super weekend!

i usually try to save images with the artist or company name but this one slipped by...not too sure where it came from, sadly.


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