Showing posts with label basil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basil. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 May 2018

Greek Summer Salad and a Photo Board backdrop for better blog photos

I want to tell you about a salad that I made and also a great product I found that will make taking photos for your blog or Instagram better straight away. But first the salad...

We went to a friend's barbecue yesterday which was lovely - my little girl enjoyed laying on a blanket in the shade and watching everything that was going on and meeting some of my friends for the first time. Here's a little photo of her for no reason other than she's cute!


My friend asked us to bring a salad and I decided to make a sort of Greek salad - it was very simple and doesn't really need a recipe! Simply half some cherry tomatoes, cut some feta cheese into cubes, slice some black olives and remove the stones (I actually used ready sliced ones from a jar) and tear some fresh basil leaves. Toss with a glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper for a simple but tasty salad.


I'm really pleased with this photo which I think is called a flat lay in style (i.e. a birds eye view). It was taken on my kitchen table which is made of glass - so it's a terrible surface for photograph and I usually put a mat or table cloth or something on it when I want to photograph food, but my table cloths always have creases and none of my mats are very big.

I came across a company called Photo Boards that makes backdrops for taking photos against. They use 'texture reproduction technology', whatever that is, so the boards look more three dimensional and not like a photo of a piece of wood - I think they actually look like you are using a piece of wood, rather than a large flat piece of PVC. They are lightweight and wipe clean which is great when you are photographing food, come in two sizes (I bought the 60x60cm one, the larger size) and a variety of designs and shades that look like you are photographing against wood, marble, linen etc. They are not cheap at £30 each so I only bought one, but I already want another!

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Nigella's Pistachio Pesto

The theme for this month's Pasta Please is homemade pesto, which is something I haven't made before. I don't often eat pesto as it seems quite oily but I thought freshly made would be more healthy and it was about time I had a go at making it! I did it for a mid-week dinner and it actually turned out to be very quick to make.

Pesto is usually made of garlic, basil and pine nuts, combined with olive oil, but the name actually comes from the Italian verb meaning to pound or to crush. So technically anything made in this manner would be a pesto - I had some pistachios I wanted to use up from this cake so when I came across a recipe for pistachio pesto in Nigella's Nigellissima, it seemed ideal.

She serves her pesto over green beans and says the following quantity will serve 6-8 as a side dish:
3 tbsp pistachios (shelled)
3 tbsp grated parmesan
leaves from a small bunch of fresh basil
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Place pistachios, fresh basil, grated parmesan and salt in a food processor and blend to a paste.



Slowly pour in some olive oil and a dash of lemon juice and blend again until you have a runny paste


Simply stir into cooked pasta. This tasted delicious though it was more oil than I would usually use so I think this would have to be a recipe I make less frequently than others.


I'll be interested to see the round-up for Pasta Please and if anyone has a healthier variant on pesto that doesn't use so much oil!

Pasta Please is hosted this month by Jen at Blue Kitchen Bakes  and was started by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.