Tuscan Bean Soup with Crunchy Croutons

Tuscan Bean Soup with Crunchy Croutons, originally uploaded by nettsu.

I love italian style cooking it's so simple & so very tasty!

Soup
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled & chopped finely
leaves from 3 to 4 sprigs fresh thyme
4 x 420g cans cannellini beans (I used organic)
1 litre vegetable stock
cracked black pepper & fresh flat-leaf parsley to serve (I skipped these0

1. Heat oil in frying pan and gently fry onion, thyme, garlic for 3 to 4 minutes (I chose to do this in the frypan to increase flavour & save on dishes). Drain cannellini beans and rise well with cold water.
2. Transfer onion, thyme & garlic to saucepan, add beans, stock and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes.
3. Using blender or food processor, roughly puree soup. Season to taste. Serve garnished with croutons & parsley.

The croutons
The recipe I used has it's own version of how to make croutons. But I have my own method (comes from watching far too many cooking shows!). Cut or rip bread into pieces (i've used the bread I use for sandwiches & toast). Place on baking tray, drizzle with good quality olive oil and season with salt & pepper. The salt will help draw extra moisture out of the bread and make for crunchier croutons.

Linguine with Crab & Lemon

300g dried linguine 2 tsp salt plus extra 250g cooked crabmeat Handful baby rocket (argula) leaves 1 tbsp grated lemon zest 1 tbsp salted baby capers, rinsed Lemon Sauce 1/2 cup chicken stock (I used vegetable stock) 2 tbsp lemon juice salt & cracked black pepper 50g chilled butter diced 2 tbsp cream or creme fraiche 1. Bring saucepan of water to boil. add 2 tbsp salt and pasta, cook for 8 minutes or until pasta is al dente. 2. Meanwhile, make sauce. Bring stock to boil in saucepan. While whisking, add lemon juice, salt & pepper. Over gentle heat, whisk in chilled butter, a few pieces at a time, without allowing the sauce to boil. Stir in cream or creme fraiche. 3. Drain pasta, keeping aside a cupful of cooking water. 4. Add pasta, cupful of cooking water, crabmeat, rocket, lemon zest, capers, salt & pepper to sauce. Toss lightly until rocket has wilted and pasta is well coated.

Asiatic Lily

Asiatic Lily, originally uploaded by nettsu.

I bought new lenses w00t!!!

I used part of my redundancy payment to finally buy myself some new glass!

It's funny - I was thinking when was the last time I bought a new lens (apart from a kit lens). And it was the 50mm f1.8 that I bought when I was given the 300D over 3 years ago... shocking isn't it?

So I bought myself the 50mm f1.4 and a macro lens (60mm f2.8) and so far I have to say I am very happy with both :)

yay!

a non-photo post!

I guess also now that I have more time on my hands (at least temporarily) I may try to blog a bit more frequently...

I'm in the throes of finally doing my tax return - I've avoided this for nearly 2 months - I thought it was time to do it. Although I am still scared I will end up with a tax debt (I seem to every year!).

So anyways...

I came across this interesting little definition -

"Your spouse is your husband or wife to whom you are legally married, or a person who lives with you on a genuine domestic basis as your husband or wife. It does not include someone who is the same sex as you.

For 2009-1o and later years, a spouse will also include a person of the same sex who is in a relationship with you that is registered under a prescribed state or territory law (my emphasis) or who you live with on a genuine domestic basis."

Now I'm a little confused here... if it is a "registered" relationship (which ours is) then why not just allow gay marriage?

Seriously is it that different?

Dangerous

Dangerous, originally uploaded by nettsu.

I'm still struggling with the whole idea of shooting film. I think maybe its because I'm still in too much of a digital mindset. Digital is easier... there's a delete option ;) and you also know pretty much whether something is in focus.

Anyways...
this is probably the shot I'm the happiest with out of the last bunch :)


It's funny I also shot a roll through my holga - they all (apart from two) were pretty much crap. it's funny how fast you can fall out of being comfortable and familiar with something to having to struggle with it again.

c'est la vie really :)

all good things come to an end

the end of unsensored09, originally uploaded by nettsu.

The end of another exhibition for me :) and I guess by extension the whole silvermine.

This is probably one of the best exhibitions I have been involved with. The crew behind it all (and I don't mean the committee - I mean the whole silvermine) has been fantastic.

Was really great to see so many sales
Yes I'm disappointed mine didn't sell but c'est la vie - I can't have everything. Exhibiting in itself is reward enough.

The melbourne silvermine -> http://silvermine.org.au/

panoramas go bananas

View from Hanging Rock, originally uploaded by nettsu.

I love panoramas
I do
I'm not really sure how much talent they require as a photographer to be honest. But there is just something magical about watching a whole series of images come together into one big image.

I have a problem now. I love autostitch. It's the simplest and most effective panorama software I've used. But now I have the macbook pro and guess what there's no autostitch available :( This makes me a little sad. I actually have a couple of panoramas from the weekend that need processing.

So anyways... I did some asking around on twitter for the best pano software for macs. I got 3 options - 2 free and 1 paid. So being the cheap bastard I am I tried the two free ones. Hugins & doubletake. I've deleted both of them of the mac. I don't understand them. So in terms of ease of use they failed for me - badly. I need something easy to use! I'm a mac n00b... I may end up investigating AutoPanoPro further which was the third suggestion.

Or just bringing the images into work and using my work machine to process the panos... that's the other option as it has autostitch.