Food Pics - An Ongoing Challenge
 

Do you ever find yourself parked in the kitchen, fridge door propped open, mindlessly munching out of containers? Conversely, do you often enjoy cooking and serving "pretty" meals? I fall into both of those categories sometimes. I consider the former to be a bad habit, and usually leads to poorer choices. So here's a little challenge: more often than not, try to prepare a nice plate or spread for yourself (and/or others), and if you're so inclined, share a photo with us.

I enjoy photos of other peoples' meals. It inspires creativity, and can be a fun reminder of foods you know you enjoy, but basically forgot about. :idea:

No rules here, though some suggestions:
- Come and go as you please, there are no dates on this challenge.
- You will need to find an external site for uploading your pics. I use imgbb.com. See my post here for some tips on using imgbb.
- Please reduce the size of your photos to something reasonable, maybe 500 x something. We don't need electron microscopy on the individual cells on your meat and veggies. :lol: (Hint - if you use imgbb, you can do this right before you upload.)
- If you require any assistance with photos, please post to the thread above. If I can't help you, someone else probably can. :)
- It would be nice if you include a link to a recipe, if you used one. However, pics of easy, simple foods are also whole-heartedly encouraged. :thup:

While we all do the mindless kitchen munch once in a while, remember that you are worth a nice meal as much as a guest would be. You deserve it. :thup: :thup:

I'll go first. :) This was from January. My food lately has been pretty boring/fast/easy... plus I was just procrastinating on starting this thread.

Beef has gotten really expensive here. I found some reduced beef shank, turned the bones into broth, and the meat into a Mexican shredded beef (barbacoa). DH had his on tortillas; I was happy with this:


There was lots of extra sauce, and I didn't want to waste all that nutritious broth, so I used it to steam-poach eggs. I'm a huge fan of poaching eggs on top of thick, rich sauces. Think shakshuka. Technique is easy: bring your sauce to a simmer in a sauce pan, let it simmer for a bit if it's too thin, crack your eggs on top, put a lid on it, let it cook gently until the eggs are cooked to your liking. This was delicious, rich, very filling. I wasn't even hungry for dinner after this.


The barbacoa recipe is close to Amy and Jacky's, but it's sort of like chili in the sense that there are lots of variations and you can't really go wrong. :thup:

I hope that was the last time I purchase cilantro! I froze the rest of it, but I planted some last year. I heard that it self-seeds and you'll be cursed with it forever. I hope it grows on its own.

I made Maria Emmeritch's PSMF bread on the weekend, and really liked it. I turned it into a corned beef & cheese sandwich for dinner.

All pics look really good 😊

Thanks, Marsha!

I started this thread and then proceeded to go on a stretch of either ugly food or no time/inclination to take pics. Funny, I finally made something photo-worthy and it was barbacoa again. :p This time, I found some wraps for it (Promise brand - product is new and not on the website yet). I grilled them up, put the lettuce inside, and dunked it in salsa and sour cream.

Fun! I missed this thread. I'll subscribe. I need to make a new place for my photos, my old worn out webserver only does HTTP and now all browsers don't like to display "insecure" HTTP content inside of HTTPS pages, like this one.

Cheers and good cooking and photoging

Nice cool Cobb salad with some homemade Italian dressing:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Great idea. Recently my meals have taken a simple approach, eggs, meat and some simple veg. Hope to get some good ideas here and maybe share one or two

subscribed.

Chicken zoodles alfredo :yum:

(ETA) I posted the alfredo sauce recipe here.

I got creative to use up 4 dying cucumbers that I got in a reduced-price mixed-produce box at the grocery store.

Lunch yesterday was a cucumber salad (sesame/tamari dressing) with smoked salmon. Not pictured: I forgot the sesame seeds on top until after I took the pic. Also not pictured, the fork after I gave up on the chopsticks. :lol: Salad was too slippery.


Dinner was homemade tzatziki, chaffles as my pita replacement, capocollo/cheese roll-ups, blueberries.

Very Nice!

Taco night!

My taco shell is a Folios wrap. The instructions on the back explain how to crisp them up. These are a tad pricey here, but a nice treat. P:E diet friendly, too, at 13 g protein and 130 cal (using the 10x rule of thumb).


The first time I tried them, I learned the hard way that one taco is plenty! It's very filling.

Last night's dinner was Thai Fish Stew

Despite it being a favourite of mine, I haven't made this for a while, but I did last night and it was delicious :yum:

I've also shared the recipe here. It's very easy and quick!

That looks great, Demi. I haven't done Thai food in quite a while. I have to confess to cheating and using Thai curry paste, but I'll have to add that and some coconut milk to my shopping list. :thup:

Brunch for me yesterday: Sausage Mock-muffin with egg, cottage cheese, rasps

"Potstickers" - sausage seasoned with tamari sauce and folded into provolone cheese.

Pre-brisket and brisket - from my drive out to Tucson, Arizona from Florida back in January. This photo was taken in Texas.

Wednesday night's dinner, pan fried fillet of salmon with samphire and Hollandaise sauce. It was all delicious, but the best bit was the crispy skin :yum:

Thanks Kristine, and nothing wrong with using curry paste!

So I had some leftover steamed broccoli from the night before .. normally I'd throw in a pan with eggs and cheese to make a frittata but this day I fancied a cold salad plate for lunch. The dressing/dip is 50:50 mix mayo & greek yogurt with lemon-pepper seasoning.

Eggs cooked in the Instant Pot are easy to peel, and no gray ring around the yolk. Keep in the fridge - shell on - up to a week :idea:.




(after I'd snapped the pic, I also tossed on a few kalamata olives)

GB - that looks awesome and easy! I've never had real potstickers before but they sound great.

Demi - I had to google samphire. I guess there's not much of an export market for it because I don't think I've ever seen it over here. Nice salmon!

Doreen - I love cold leftover broccoli/cauliflower salads. I like stretching my salad dressing with cottage cheese, too, it's just a little more work to get it not-lumpy.

I made a fantastic chicken salad the other day. The dressing was mayo, mushed-up cottage cheese, 1/2 pk of Splenda, a dot of mustard, a splash of pickle juice, and some celery salt because I've pretty much stopped buying celery. It ends up going to waste. I mixed in some green onion and red bell pepper. I've been a huge fan of red bell pepper in these salads (egg and cauliflower, too) for years, when we used to make our chicken salad with jarred pimentos at work.

(Pictured with a sausage/green pepper mini-omelet)


A favourite dish of mine now: black pepper steak, like I can get at Chinese restaurants, but this is gluten-free. It's amazing in the Instant Pot.

I had leftover sauce from the black pepper steak, so I reduced it and made egg foo young. It was fantastic. 😘🤌🏼

Loving everyone's food pics! :thup: :D

I don't think it grows enough to supply an export market. Samphire has always been a bit of a delicacy here in the UK, but is gaining in popularity so it's becoming more widely available. I love asparagus and samphire is a 'sea asparagus' with the same texture but a salty taste. Delicious! :yum:

Yesterday's lunch, a Parmesan and herb omelette. Quick and easy!

Nice omelette! My ceramic pan is getting too sticky to make nice omelettes anymore.

It's this time of year now:


...so I'll be eating a lot of this:


Salad with chicken, orange & yellow bell peppers, bacon, HB egg, lite ranch.

I bought some really good pre-seasoned Filipino pork kebabs yesterday. I had them with some lettuce, tomato and greek yogurt + creamy cucumber dressing on the side. Very tasty.

That looks yummy Kristine!

One of my favourite things is a roast chicken, and I cook one at least once a week. Any leftover chicken I have cold with a Caesar salad the following day.

I melt some butter, brush it all over the chicken, add a little bit more to the top and then sprinkle with fines herbes. I don't put any salt on the chicken because the butter I use already contains sea salt crystals. I also put the chicken on a rack int he roasting pan. That way I catch all the lovely juices below, which I use as a gravy.

Yesterday's lunch:



Chicken with rocket (arugula), baby tomatoes, avocado, Parmesan and Caesar dressing.

Nice, Demi. :thup: That's about how I do my roast chicken, too. If I'm not too lazy, I'll rub the melted herb-butter underneath the skin as much as I can, plus some in the cavity with chopped onion.

Last night, the house was pretty hot, so I turned some leftover cooked zoodles + spiralized (raw) cucumber + leftover chicken breast into an Asian salad. The dressing was tamari (soy sauce) + a tad of sesame oil + ginger/garlic paste + Splenda. I just realized honey would have been nice there. Some carrot and/or bell pepper would have been nice, also, but I didn't have any. Still really good. Ate it with my nice chopsticks to feel fancy. :yum:

Kristine's post above planted a craving for asian flavours :cool:. So I made a stir fry with chicken livers (cleaned and cut into bite-sized pieces), onion and mixed bell pepper/capsicum chunks. Gluten-free tamari soy sauce, sambal oelek, toasted sesame oil, pinch of 5-spice, and a splash of balsamic vinegar for sweet-sour tang. On the side, a large head of baby bok choy cut in half and sautéed face-down in the same pan.





It was good :thup:. A nice change from the usual liver with bacon and onions.

Yesterday's lunch:



Tuna with lemon mayo on slices of beefsteak tomato spread with smashed avocado