Been a busy week in my photography world. And as I'm about to embark on a 20 day excursion state-side, I thought I'd leave you with a few of my favs from my 3 photoshoots this past week. Have a great July!
Oh, and by the way - did you KNOW you can become a FAN of Bobbi-Jo Grunewald Photography on facebook? Did ya? Just search "Bobbi-Jo Grunewald Photography", and become a fan! I post samples from recent photo shoots there, and answer any questions you have etc. So, if you're in the facebook neighborhood - look me up! (nothing like shameless self-promotion!)
For Father's Day, this year, I wanted to learn how to make some of my husband's favorite Asian dishes. I was SUPER nervous about it - they seem like so much would be involved! BUT, I do consider myself brave in the kitchen, and lo and behold - they turned out delicious!! YUMMO!
Because I'm such a sweet gal (hee hee) I just HAVE to share the recipes with YOU.
Chinese Spring Rolls
5 lbs carrots, peeled and grated 2 large onions, chopped fine 1 large bunch green onions (about 8) chopped fine 3 bags rice vermicelli noodles (we used rooster brand) 4 lbs ground pork, thawed 4 pkgs square spring roll wrappers (50/pkg - found in frozen foods section, looks like pastry) 8 eggs 6 egg yolks 2 Tbsp salt 1 Tbsp black pepper 2 cups oyster sauce 2 lbs bean sprouts (the large ones) Oil for deep frying
The night before:
Soak the vermicelli noodles in a pot of hot water for about 10 minutes. Drain and leave overnight (just sitting in a bowl on the counter). You want the noodles to be fairly dry for this.
The next day:
Take out the frozen spring roll wrappers and sit them on the counter to thaw while you make the filling.
Grate the carrots, chop the onions, and green onions (I just used my food processor - worked great! AND fast!). Then you want to take handfuls of the carrots and squeeze out as much liquid as you can, then transfer to a very large bowl. Do the same with the onions. Put all of it into the large bowl.
Add the vermicelli noodles to the carrots and onions. Mix well (use your clean hands and just mix until well combined). Add the raw, thawed ground pork, and mix. Then add the 8 eggs, salt, pepper, and oyster sauce. Continue mixing until it's very well blended. The last step for the filling is to gently mix in the sprouts so they don't break up too much. You're done the filling! (this makes enough filling for about 200 rolls!) The filling will look like this: Beat 6 egg yolks together and place in a small bowl on the table (or counter) where you will be rolling them.
(this is the brand of wrappers we bought).
Now you take the spring roll wrappers, and separate them slowly (they could tear if you are too rough with them). Layer them one on top of the other, each wrapper at a different angle than the one before (this is hard to explain, but you can see in the picture below how I did it). You will want to keep a damp cloth nearby to cover them if there is a large space between rolling them. Take a wrapper, place it like a diamond shape in front of you, and put one heaping TBSP of filling on the corner nearest you. Spread some egg yolk on the top corner. Roll up according to package directions (roll the corner nearest you towards the far corner, tucking in the sides half way up, then continue rolling, sealing the top corner over with the egg yolk. Place them on a plate until you are ready to deep fry them. You can kind of see how they are rolled in this picture:
Heat oil in a deep fryer or a large pot on high. About 5 minutes before deep frying, turn down the heat to medium. Add 4-5 spring rolls at a time and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the wrapper starts to brown and have a transparent appearance. Remove and drain on a paper towel. ENJOY!Oooh, these were my FAVORITE! SOOO good. We froze them after deep frying them and they reheat great. I also tried freezing some BEFORE deep frying, and I'm going to try baking them. We'll see how that works out. This is super fun to do together with a friend. My friend, K (from the previous post) did these with me - in fact, she taught me how! What a great gal. We had great fun visiting while doing these. You can also quarter the recipe and only do 50 at a time, if you want to.
Korean Kimchi
For this recipe - I'm going to refer you to a how-to video that I used and it turned out PERFECT! It's a short and easy to follow video on how to make this spicy cabbage side dish. It's one of hubby's favorites and it's difficult to find here. All the more reason to learn to make it! We loved it.
We just used one whole apple instead of a half apple and a half apple-pear. It turned out great. Only took a couple of hours to make, and it was so easy. I'll be making it again! Vietnamese Salad Rolls
These are super duper easy and we all love them! My daughter, TJ, helped to roll these and did a great job!
1 Pkg Vermicelli noodles (same as from the spring roll recipe) 3 lbs shrimp, thawed and shells/tails removed 1 lb pork deli meat (opt.) 1 bunch cilantro (opt.) Carrots, grated Lettuce, torn into strips Rice wrappers (the round, kind of transparent looking ones - can find them in the Asian aisle at Superstore)
Soften noodles in a bowl of hot water for 10 minutes, drain.
Fill a large bowl with hot water. Dip one rice wrapper in the hot water for 1 second to soften. Lay wrapper flat, and place desired amounts of noodles, shrimp, pork, carrot, lettuce and cilantro in the center. Roll the edges of the wrapper slightly inward. Beginning at the bottom edge of wrapper, tightly wrap the ingredients. Repeat with remaining ingredients.
Serve with Hoisin sauce or, better yet, peanut sauce!
Peanut Sauce
1/2 cup natural-style creamy peanut butter 1 tablespoon sugar 2 tablespoons Hoisin sauce 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 small garlic clove, mashed to a paste 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil Juice of 1 lime 1/4 cup water
Mix in a mixer until smooth. Dip your salad rolls in this (MAJOR yum!)
I had a great week - thanks in large part to these two:
I'm sure I've shared the story - how I grew up with K, hubby grew up with R and they met, fell in love, and were married shortly after we were. We never imagined our two best friends would marry each other! We just love these two and they have truly helped make our lives here happy. They asked if I would do their family photos and I jumped at the chance! They have a gorgeous family of 8 - the two of them plus their 3 daughters and 3 sons! We drove out to their gorgeous home and shot these in their spacious backyard. The kids were PHENOMENALLY well behaved. I mean, really? 6 kids under 10 and they ALL were SO good. I couldn't believe my eyes. Such a pleasure to photograph them. I played around with some different vintage looks. I especially love it on these play structure shots! These kiddos actually sat and posed on their park! I mean, what kids are that good?? These ones! This is their oldest - K. She was born just a couple of months before our TJ. They get along swimmingly. TJ adores K and looks up to her - and why not? She is such a good example for my kids AND her younger siblings. This is R - he is sweet and very imaginative. A lot like my B. They are the same age, actually. It always astounds me at how well-mannered he is. Such a sweetheart!This is M, and Oh My Goodness - her eyes just kill me. She is a doll - such a sweet personality. She is funny and playful and adorable! This is little man S and he is a fun-spirited, mischievous munchkin. He and my BB are so much alike it's scary. Fearless and fun. He loves to explore and try things. And he is too darn cute for words. This is little A, and I just love this gal. She is smart, sweet, and friendly. She and my JJ love to play and I can't get over how adorable she is! And this little guy is my bud, M. He and I go way back - like oh, 8 months or so. He loves to smile and LOVES to jump! He also loves his mommy, though he is friendly with everyone. He is going to be a lady killer one day! I just love this family in every way. They are great examples of righteous living, kindness, charity, and good fun. We love you!
Hi everyone - by request I have created this list of the tutorials I have posted on my blog. I have tried to organize them by Photo Editing, Digital Scrapbooking, Blogs, and Photography but I'm open to suggestions on how to better organize. All future tutorials will be added to this page as time goes on. Enjoy!
I know, right? 2 posts in one week? What is it about summer that makes me want to be outside rather than in here blogging? :) I have been busy, though, crafting, scrapping, photographing, playing, serving - the usual (tee hee hee).
I have to share with you this super fun and fast project that I completely stole from Talia HERE. It's a cute autograph book for my girls to take to school for their friends to sign. They LOVED them and have already filled up a few pages with notes from their best friends (funny how EACH person that signed B's book said "You're the very best friend I ever had, B!" LOL! I think they are super cute. I used several stamps and digital papers from Houseof3 (yes, it's still my fav.)
Speaking of Houseof3 - I can't WAIT to show you what else I've been working on (but shhhhh, I can't share it until AFTER this weekend because I have a wonderfully supportive husband who reads his wife's blog regularly). But let me tell ya - I love it! Stay tuned for pics soon!
In other news, the weather has FINALLY been warm here. Warm enough to pull out the sprinkler and play! The girls have been loving it, and I'm thrilled that I shampooed our carpets in time for them to tramp through with wet, grassy feet! But it's worth the smiles, right?
And, and, and.... another shot from our garden. Our irises bloomed! Oh, these are one of my all-time favorite flowers, and our garden is now full of them. Few things make me happier than color, and our garden is finally bursting with it. Irises, yellow flowers kind of like lilies, pink peonies, and several other perennial flowers I have no clue what their names are. BUT they are pretty. I added a texture to this photo as well - check out this past tutorial if you'd like to know how.
And finally, a photo of my hunkster hubby and me - taken by TJ (my 9 year old) before church this Sunday. I'm pleased with it and it will work nicely with the project I'm working on!
That's all for now. Sorry about the lack of tutorials. I'm still not sure what you all want to LEARN. I did figure out a kind of fun trick recently, though, that I might share soon. Stay tuned!
We had a grand evening at the Legislative building this past Saturday - affectionately known as "The Ledge" around these here parts. How quaint :)
But first - this little sight made my heart sing:
The hunkster hubby made a trip to a local fruit stand and hooked us up with some SWEET (very literally) fruit. Nectarines, Apricots, Plums, Strawberries - you name it, we ate it! Oh delish! I've never tasted such sweet nectarines EVAH! Oh, I love summer!
But back to the ledge:
Our kids love visiting this place, the 'castle' as they like to call it. The grounds are stunning - though in this shot, the flowers had barely been planted, just WAIT until the grounds are in full bloom! They love the pathways, the lake, the geese, all of it. I love the architecture!
We went originally for me to meet up with a client for a photoshoot. We did some waiting, but it never happened - can you tell the kids were bored?
BUT, I am never one to waste some gorgeous light, so I forced asked my family to be my subjects for a few quick shots. They screamedfoughtrolled their eyes were great sports about it :)
I even captured a new favorite pic during the struggle! I mean, come on - this light was awesome! And my B looked so sweet sitting on the bench. (you can click on the photos to see them larger - I resized quite a bit for the web)
TJ, as usual, was being a total card. She is turning into her father!
We had a nice walk, with only a few small melt downs, and made our way back to the van.
Wow - today FINALLY felt like summer. I was out working in our garden and I actually became all sweaty glisteny and stinky aromatic. I loved every minute of it. And why not? I got to commune with the flowers and plants :) I love the colors of spring, no? (photos of plants courtesy of my hunkster hubby - yes, he knows how to rock the camera, too!).
In other news, Miss B finally lost her second front tooth. She can now officially sing "All if want for Christmas is my two front teeth", complete with the lisp. And just in time for her class field trip to a farm - nothing like sharing the news with some cows and sheep!
Miss JJ's hair is growing back, and we are all very happy about that. I even gave her a trim today. A few days ago, we were all waiting patiently in the van for miss J to join us.... and she did.... after dancing the Nutcracker in it's entirety first.
..yep...she's one cracked nut!
I also made the mistake of trying to snap a quick pic of my roses before church on Sunday. Mistake because we were already running behind our usual (show up 30 minutes early) schedule and that puts me in a foul mood. Plus, I should have remembered that my girls are sillies and it takes forever to get a nice shot of the four of them (people pay me to get great shots of their kids, but my own? Hardly). Still, we ended up with these:
Not too bad :)
Oh, and I have to share one of my new favorites. I've been told by friends, family, and strangers alike how much these two look like each other. I just don't see it - never have. One has brown eyes, one blue, one has a long skinny nose, one has a shorter, wider one, one has skinny lips, the other full. BUT, in this shot - I can see a resemblance. They are both mine :)
And speaking of taking pics of other people's kids... may I present an 8 month old Rider SUPA fan:
roughriders shot" width="600">
This little guy was a dream to photograph. He made the most hilarious expressions, and made my heart melt on a few occasions :)
All in all a good week.
(this is the brand of wrappers we bought).
Oooh, these were my FAVORITE! SOOO good. We froze them after deep frying them and they reheat great. I also tried freezing some BEFORE deep frying, and I'm going to try baking them. We'll see how that works out. This is super fun to do together with a friend. My friend, K (from the previous post) did these with me - in fact, she taught me how! What a great gal. We had great fun visiting while doing these. You can also quarter the recipe and only do 50 at a time, if you want to.
We drove out to their gorgeous home and shot these in their spacious backyard.
The kids were PHENOMENALLY well behaved. I mean, really? 6 kids under 10 and they ALL were SO good. I couldn't believe my eyes. Such a pleasure to photograph them.
I played around with some different vintage looks. I especially love it on these play structure shots! These kiddos actually sat and posed on their park! I mean, what kids are that good?? These ones!
This is M, and Oh My Goodness - her eyes just kill me. She is a doll - such a sweet personality. She is funny and playful and adorable!
This is little man S and he is a fun-spirited, mischievous munchkin. He and my BB are so much alike it's scary. Fearless and fun. He loves to explore and try things. And he is too darn cute for words.
This is little A, and I just love this gal. She is smart, sweet, and friendly. She and my JJ love to play and I can't get over how adorable she is!
And this little guy is my bud, M. He and I go way back - like oh, 8 months or so. He loves to smile and LOVES to jump! He also loves his mommy, though he is friendly with everyone. He is going to be a lady killer one day!
I just love this family in every way. They are great examples of righteous living, kindness, charity, and good fun. We love you!
The hunkster hubby made a trip to a local fruit stand and hooked us up with some SWEET (very literally) fruit. Nectarines, Apricots, Plums, Strawberries - you name it, we ate it! Oh delish! I've never tasted such sweet nectarines EVAH! Oh, I love summer!
Our kids love visiting this place, the 'castle' as they like to call it. The grounds are stunning - though in this shot, the flowers had barely been planted, just WAIT until the grounds are in full bloom! They love the pathways, the lake, the geese, all of it. I love the architecture!
We went originally for me to meet up with a client for a photoshoot. We did some waiting, but it never happened - can you tell the kids were bored?
We had a nice walk, with only a few small melt downs, and made our way back to the van.
In other news, Miss B finally lost her second front tooth. She can now officially sing "All if want for Christmas is my two front teeth", complete with the lisp. And just in time for her class field trip to a farm - nothing like sharing the news with some cows and sheep!
Miss JJ's hair is growing back, and we are all very happy about that. I even gave her a trim today. A few days ago, we were all waiting patiently in the van for miss J to join us.... and she did.... after dancing the Nutcracker in it's entirety first.
..yep...she's one cracked nut!
Not too bad :)
And speaking of taking pics of other people's kids... may I present an 8 month old Rider SUPA fan:
roughriders shot" width="600">
