Way back in early October I spent an entire Sunday roasting peppers on our rickety charcoal grill and blanching, skinning, seeding, and chopping my ‘Japanese Black Trifle’ tomatoes that had finally ripened. I packed these veggies into pint sized bags, stuffed them into my entirely too small freezer, and then collapsed onto my couch in a stupor.

My eyes were watering (I accidentally rubbed them after peeling jalapenos) and my fingertips were puckery from peeling 50 humongous tomatoes, but I was happy. I had never put up food before, because the process always seemed like so much effort. And it was.

But on cold, windy, rainy days like today, I love opening up our freezer and checking out the food that I grew. It’s pretty much the best cure for a case of the wintertime blahs. Our supply of tomatoes and peppers is quickly dwindling, in large part because Jon and I are addicted to this vegetarian chili recipe. It calls for canned tomatoes and peppers, but our homegrown stewed tomatoes and fire roasted chiles make a most excellent substitution.

Maren’s Vegetarian Lentil Chili
My aunt’s friend Maren is the perfect person to invite to a party. She loves to talk, makes a mean cocktail, always brings the best food, and she’s happy to share her recipes. I got a hold of her Vegetarian Lentil Chili recipe a few winters ago and it has since become a staple meal at our house. The addition of lime juice at the end brightens up the soup and ties all the flavors together. The recipe makes a lot, so I often dish it up as soup one day and then serve the leftovers (which thicken up in the fridge) with braised greens and roasted vegetables the next night.

You’ll need:
1 pound lentils, rinsed and drained
2 cups vegetable broth
3 cups water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
½ cup onion, finely chopped
1 can fire roasted tomatoes (or two cups stewed tomatoes)
1 can green chiles (or ½ cup chopped fire roasted chiles)
1 teaspoon chile powder
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons minced cilantro

Instructions:
Combine lentils, broth and water in a large pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes partially covered.

Meanwhile, in a skillet heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes. Then, add the tomatoes, chiles, chile powder, cumin, salt and cayenne. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Stir the tomato sauce into the lentils. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes more, or until the lentils are tender. Add a bit more water if the lentils become too thick. Stir in the lime juice and cilantro and adjust the seasonings just before serving.

To wrap up her guest photography stint on DigginFood, Christa offered to share 10 tips for taking compelling photos of food both in the garden and the kitchen. Lucky us! I really admire Christa’s styling and attention to details and it has been an absolute pleasure to share her photos of quail eggs, pears, and salt with you these past few weeks. I hope you’ll continue to follow her work on her blog c neu photo and in the pages of Organic Gardening magazine.

I can’t wait to try out these tips (and eat the props!):

Tips for Both Indoor and Outdoor Shots

1. Watch your backgrounds. Check your viewfinder. Is there anything distracting–a color, a shape, clutter, a horizon line in your way? Move yourself or the camera to simplify your compostition

2. Avoid contrasty harsh shadow. Shoot in even lighting. Bright sunlight can cause harsh shadows, inside and out. You can buy a diffusion screen from a place like B&H or Adorama, or you can make your own. My friend got me a sheer white beach umbrella from Ikea last summer for $8 and I love using that to diffuse the sun.

If the light is too contrasty inside, I experiment with mini blinds or move what I’m trying to photograph farther away from the window. You can bounce more light into your shot using white cards as reflector boards, and won’t have those 1940’s film noir stripes of light across your photos.

3. Try some shots on a macro setting, or get a macro lens. This will help your depth of field, and will clean up some of those backgrounds.

4. Take notes! When you’re taking pictures of your produce, either write the variety name on a piece of paper, or pick up the plant marker, and take a picture of the variety name in front of the vegetable. Then you’ll have an easy record and you won’t go mad later when you’re trying to figure out if that tomato is a ‘Copia’ or a ‘Tiger’.

Indoor Food Photography Tips

1. Go Natural. Try not to use your flash when you’re shooting your harvest. It can make your vegetables look surreal—and peppers and eggplants are shiny enough without a flash highlight.

2. Less is more. Try not to over prop, make sure your surfaces are ironed and flat…and watch for little flecks of dirt or lint on the fabric pieces.

3. Try a tripod, even if you have a point and shoot camera. When I take pictures in low lighting, I bump up the camera’s iso setting to 200 or 400. I put the camera on self timer, so it doesn’t have camera shake when I push the shutter. You could also use a remote control or a cable release. Your images will be sharper, and you will be happy!

Garden Photography Tips

1. Change your perspective. Lie right down in the grass and shoot up at your garden, or climb on a ladder or take pictures from the second floor to get something of an aerial view of your hard work.

2. Photograph your garden from all sides. Get right in the bed, lean right into a tomato’s face to take a photo–then back off and take shots from farther away. Walk around all of your garden–if you take shots from all the corners you can get into, you’ll have a better record of what it felt like to be in your garden.

3. Early morning is the magic time to photograph your garden. Both the light and your plants will be at their best. Plants tend to get wilty and droopy as the day goes on, just like we do. (That is, unless you have some of those cool flowers that only open at dusk…)

I just discovered the coolest addition to my neighbors’ yard: a compost fence! Scott and Jen moved in last fall and they accumulated a seriously big pile of slow-to-decompose branches, pine needles, and evergreen leaves when they cleaned up their new yard. Rather than stuff this bulky material in their yard waste bin they decided to reuse the material on site. Their new compost fence doubles as a screen and a depository for their yard “waste”.

To build the fence, they sunk 4×6x8 posts two feet into the ground, stapled wired mesh between the posts on either side, and then sandwiched in layers of sticks, tree and shrub trimmings, pine boughs and needles, eucalyptus, holly, and other evergreen leaves. These layers will eventually compact and slowly decompose, but in the meantime they disguise an unattractive view. Very cool!

You can check out before and after photos and read Jen’s directions for building the fence at her blog The Sustainable Scientist.

Who knew salt could be so pretty? When Christa of c neu photo sent me this triptych for today’s food photography special I was floored at the color and texture of these salts. Christa purchased them at Whole Foods, which is one of my favorite places to hunt for new ingredients. I just so happen to have the Sel Gris Velvet (left) and Murray River Australian Pink Flake (middle) in my cabinet, but the Cypress Mediteranean Black Lava Flakes were new to me. I can’t get over the color or the pyramid-shaped crystals. Christa recommends using the sea salt for cooking and dusting the pink and black salts over a dish just before serving. I’m tempted to try all of them sprinkled on a buttered baguette. Wouldn’t that be yummy?

Every Tuesday morning I’m lucky enough to be a guest on a gardening radio show on Seattle’s NPR station KUOW 94.9. It’s tons of fun and even though I’m supposed to be the expert I always learn a lot from the callers and my fellow panel member Greg Rabourn and Marty Wingate.  This past week we discussed budget gardening tips and there were so many great ideas that I thought I’d share a few of my favorites.

Buy Bareroot. If you’re interested in planting fruit trees, grapes, or raspberries, now is the time to buy these plants barerooot. Bareroot plants are simply dormant woody plants that have had most of the soil around their roots removed (hence the name bareroot). They are typically sold for significantly cheaper prices than similar plants grown in containers because bareroot plants cost a lot less to ship. If you’re in the Seattle area, the marketplace at the NW Flower and Garden Show is a great place to pick up bareroot plants and it starts next Wednesday.

Buy Seed in Bulk. Many seed catalogs, including Territorial and Johnny’s Select Seeds, sell seed in different sized packets. The bigger the packet you buy, the more you save! Get together with a group of friends and order your favorite seeds together and you can save 25% or more.

Borrow Rather Than Buy. When we built our vegetable garden last spring, we borrowed our neighbor’s tiller rather than renting one. We also regularly share our wheelbarrow with the couple two houses down. Many communities also have tool share programs. If you live in Seattle check out the Phinney Neighborhood Association. They have a tool library program that is so cool. They loan out everything from garden forks to hammers, which means you could build raised beds without having to buy a single tool!

Shop plant sales. Don’t get me wrong, I love to shop at nurseries, but some of the best deals to be had on plants are at plant sales hosted by local gardening groups, arboretums, and botanic gardens. In the Seattle area my favorite plant sale is the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale, which will be held on May 2nd and 3rd this year.

Participate in a Seed Exchange. Seed exchanges are a great way to get free seeds and discover new varieties. Alan at Birds n’ Such has an online exchange happening right now. Or you can organize one with friends. When you’re trading seeds just remember to label the packets and mark how old the seeds are.

Forage for Free Plants. A caller on the garden show Tuesday said that when she sees a house for sale that has nice plants, she calls the realtor to see if the homeowners would be willing to let her come in and clean up their garden in exchange for her taking a few divisions. She said she’s gotten tons of cool plants this way, including fruit trees! You can also find great free plants on Craig’s List if you’re willing to dig them up.

Find Free Fertilizer. Greg Rabourn turned me on to a program I’d never heard of. The Manure Share Program sponsored by the King Conservation District (check your local conservation district to see if they offer a similar program). They have a list with free sources manure and offer everything from rabbit to llama to chicken to horse manure. All you have to do is call and arrange to pick up the manure. It gives new meaning to the term “free shit”!

If you have ideas for saving money on your gardening budget, let me know! With the state of the economy, we’re really watching our family’s budget and the garden is definitely a place where we could scale back how much we spend.

Today’s Monday morning eye candy comes again from the lovely and talented Christa Neu of c neu photo.

Christa sends the most beautiful holiday cards, and these pears were featured on one a few years back. Believe me, discovering a card from Christa in the mailbox—along with a nice note—is a real treat!

I hope you enjoy this second installment in the new food photography series! Be sure to take note of Christa’s hints below for capturing such pretty pictures and her favorite place to buy pears:

I really love pears–we make pear sauce and buy pear cider and make all sorts of baked goods during pear season.  I get my Asian pears from North Star Orchard at the Emmaus Farmer’s Market. When I’m taking photos like these I try to keep the propping simple, and pay attention to small details–how are the pear stems pointed? Is there a wrinkle in the cloth that is distracting? What about my horizon line? It always helps to have a second pair of eyes when you’re shooting.

Still life shots like this are fun to do by yourself, but I find they can be stronger if you collaborate, especially when your collaborator has a good sense of style. I was  super lucky because Abby Poulette of Good n’ Planty styled these photos for one of my holiday cards.

I think that I might have been a rabbit—or a cabbage moth—in a past life, because there is really no other explanation for why I love kale so much. We eat kale two or three times a week all through the fall, winter and early spring, and I grow loads of the Italian heirloom ‘Nero di Toscana’, or Dino Kale, in my vegetable gardens. The large, upright plants have this amazing architectural presence and their deeply crumpled leaves have a much better texture and flavor than curly kales like ‘Redbor’. Plus, I love to harvest the plants from the bottom up. They end up looking like some kind of crazy, temperate palm tree.

I thought that I had cooked kale every which way—braised, boiled in soup, stir-fried, even raw—until my friend Robin posted her favorite recipe for roasted kale on Facebook.

I had to try it.  Immediately. So I popped down to the market and purchased a bunch of kale. The recipe—basically chopped kale tossed with olive oil and soy sauce and roasted for a few minutes in a hot oven—was so simple and delicious! I’ve made it four times in the past few weeks. It is a perfect fast, healthy side dish for dinners on the fly.

Of course, since I am pretty much physically incapable of not tinkering with a recipe, I made a few adjustments, adding in a little bit of chili oil, substituting the soy sauce for Bragg Liquid Aminos, and sprinkling on sesame seeds and red pepper flakes.

Kale in the Garden

Roasted Kale with Sesame Seeds
Adapted from Robin Haglund of Gardenhelp.org

Roasting the kale results in a few pieces that get crispy around the edges, which is delicious and unexpected for a green. My version of this recipe calls for Bragg Liquid Aminos—a sauce that is made from fermented soybeans. It tastes pretty much exactly like  soy sauce, but I love to use it because of the packaging. Silly, I know. But it comes in a ridiculous yellow bottle that proclaims “Dash or Spray for Taste Delights.” With a sell line like that, how can you resist?

You’ll need:
1 large bunch of kale (about 7 cups)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons Bragg Liquid Aminos or soy sauce
½ teaspoon  chili oil
Sesame seeds
Red pepper flakes

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Cut out the kale’s tough center ribs and chop the leaves into two-inch pieces. Rinse the kale in a colander and let it drain in the sink. Meanwhile, whisk the olive oil, Bragg Liquid Aminos, and chili oil together in a small bowl.

Place the kale in a large bowl. Drizzle the oil mixture over it and toss to coat.  Arrange the kale in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Sprinkle a big pinch of sesame seeds over the kale and a few red pepper flakes. Roast the kale for 8 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Serve immediately.

When I first saw this photograph, I wished I could reach inside of it and pick up the eggs. I wanted to feel their weight in the palm of my hand. Run my fingers across their mottled shells. Part of me wanted to tap one egg swiftly on the edge of a mixing bowl just to see what was inside. My other half hoped that they were still sitting on a table somewhere. Untouched.

These eggs where photographed by my friend and colleague at Organic Gardening, Christa Neu, who generously agreed to be the first guest photographer on DigginFood! On Mondays, I will be posting photos of food taken by a series of guest photographers. Each post will include the photos and some short commentary from the photographer.

I’m really excited for this new feature and can’t wait to see where it leads. My hope is that the pictures widen your perspective on food, inspire you in the kitchen and garden, introduce you to talented photographers, and make you smile.

Now a word from Christa on quail eggs:

I’d never eaten quail eggs before, but I bought them because I thought they’d make a pretty photo prop. Quail eggs have more delicate shells than chicken eggs, and I didn’t get through the shoot without some casualties. It let me learn two things, the inside of the shells are blue, and you barely have to tap quail eggs to crack them open. I used my remaining 7 eggs to make a fluffy delicious omlette.

Bizarrely, while I was buying my quail eggs in Pennsylvania,  my friend Angel was gravitating to quail eggs in Rhode Island, and for the same reason. Soon we had people photographing quail eggs in Boston and Brooklyn, too—a  “same object” photo assignment reminiscent of our Syracuse University days. 
That project is on hiatus now, but if you want to see more quail egg photos, you can check out what Angel, Robyn and Matt shot here, here, and here.

You can see more of Christa’s work on her blog, c neu photo, and in the pages of Organic Gardening.