Weekly Photo 9/52 for 2013: Cheese Steak Peppers

Today’s weekly photo post is of our lunch the other day and it probably looks familiar if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook. The original recipe for Philly Cheese Steak Peppers had a few things we don’t typically like, so I fiddled a little.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/50 • ƒ/4.5 • ISO 1000 • 28 mm

Philly Cheese Steak Peppers

8 oz sliced Roast Beef
8 slices provolone cheese
2 large green peppers
1 medium onion (I used ready-cut diced onions and eyeballed it)
4 oz jar of Green Giant sliced mushrooms
2-3 Tbs butter
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 pinch salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 400˚F (205˚C).

Slice peppers in half lengthwise and remove ribs and any seeds.

Slice onions and mushrooms, if they’re not already. Sauté over medium heat with butter, minced garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper. Sauté until veggies are soft and begin to caramelize.

Slice roast beef into thin strips (small squares might work better) and add meat to the onions and mushrooms in the pan. Cook 5-10 minutes, tossing well to blend.

Line the inside of each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese. Push it down in there. Then, fill peppers with 1/4 of meat mixture each. They shouldn’t quite overflow. If you’re worried, stuff it down in there tighter. Top with another slice of cheese. (I folded these in half so they fit our peppers better and more would end up on the meat and not the bottom of the baking dish.)

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until cheese on top is golden brown. (We baked ours for the full 20 minutes and the cheese was too dark for our liking and the peppers were still a bit crunchy. You could solve this by blanching or nuking the peppers slightly before stuffing and adding the cheese on 5 minutes into cooking.)

Weekly Photo 8/52 for 2013: Fungi

Today’s weekly photo post is of the giant fungi growing on our dying willow tree. There are several of this variety at the base of the trunk and on a couple of the higher branches. There’s also small white fungi along the upper branches that almost make it look snow covered. Yeah. Not likely here, right?

We’re going to have to call someone to take this tree down. One substantial branch already fell and several more were trimmed off. It’s a pretty sad-looking specimen at this point.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 100 • 250 mm

Weekly Photo 7/52 for 2013: Bird of Paradise

Today’s weekly photo post shows off the brilliant color of the birds of paradise just beyond our pool. This photo was taken around 5pm and our property is tucked down over the hill from where the sun sets, so the lighting is all indirect and muted.

Even in the low light, these flowers shine with an inner glow.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/160 • ƒ/4 • ISO 400 • 100 mm

Weekly Photo 6/52 for 2013: Almond Blossoms

Today’s weekly photo post is of one of our two almond trees which has begun to blossom. The crows tend to get all the nuts before we even have an inkling that they might be ready. Apparently, almond trees are a lot of work to harvest and require quite a bit of pampering so that the crows don’t steal all your hard work anyway. Oh well.

I love how the blossoms cluster like that.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 800 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 5/52 for 2013: Purple Daisy

Spring has sprung here in sunny SoCal. Today’s post for my weekly photo is just one of the many flowers that has decided that the combination of scattered showers and warm weather we’ve been having mean it’s time to poke their heads up and get their bloom on!

I was good this week and didn’t just go out with the automatic settings, but played around with several different shots on manual. Some I was happy with, others not so much. I need to plan a field trip with my camera. I have a couple places in mind, but my days have been full lately.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 320 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 4/52 for 2013: Doggie Tattoos?

My pick for the weekly photo this week is one of our very silly golden retriever puppy, Olivia. She’s almost a year old and she loves exploring things, like the crevices in the couch where the kids drop all sorts of tasty treasures. She’ll get her whole head down in the cushions and our son referred to it as “scuba dogging” and the term has stuck.

The other day she discovered the fireplace in the living room. She’s tried to explore it before, but I convinced her that she’d rather do other things. Well, this time, she slipped in between the chain curtains and was nosing around the ceramic logs for a bit before I caught her in the act. Damp paper towels were not enough, but a dunk in the shower and some baby shampoo got her back to normal. Our son said, “You know, I just can’t take the dog seriously when her face is like this.”

Who knows… maybe tattoos like this will become all the rage for dogs!

Settings: iPhone 4S • 1/15 • ƒ/2.4 • ISO 400 • 4.3 mm

Weekly Photo 3/52 for 2013: Silk Floss Tree

Today’s weekly photo is of one of two Silk Floss Trees (Chorisia speciosa) on our property. This tree is holding on to its blooms as long as it possibly can, despite the lows in the 20s and frost several mornings in a row last week.

I haven’t been able to get an interesting picture of the impressive thorns on these trees. The rejects from this weekly photo batch included some clouds, the moon out in the afternoon sky, some rather impressionistic ones of the back yard where I had the camera set completely wrong. But you know, in some ways I find those worth investigating because the effects are cool and if they could be applied in the right situations on purpose, who needs Photoshop filters!

Settings: SONY SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 250 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 2/52 for 2013: Early Gazania Bloom

Today’s entry for my weekly photo challenge is one of the confused Gazanias in the back yard. The temperatures this week have been unusually cooler for SoCal. The highs have been in the mid-50s and the lows have been in the upper 20s. Yes, the natives think it’s parka weather. I’m happy in shirt sleeves. Anyway, after the temperatures in the mid 70s last week, the plants are confused. They thought spring was here.

I’m probably only going to post one photo each week, but I’m hoping to take more so I have a few to choose from. If I can’t pick just one or have several I like, I’ll add them to my flickr stream. I ended up taking two batches of photos this week because I didn’t really like any of the ones from the first day.

And, yes, I promise I won’t always do flowers.

Weekly Photo 1/52 for 2013: Camelia

As some of you know, last year I started a 365 project where you take and post a picture for every day of the year. I stalled out in September and even though I tried to pick it up again in October, the momentum was gone. This year, I decided to take a lot of the pressure off and only require myself to post one weekly photo, although I may take lots more. Downloading my camera and posting the pictures wasn’t the hard part. Some days it was just getting outside to take a picture. Sure I had my iPhone with me, but I don’t like the picture quality as well and it felt like cheating when the whole point of the project was to learn how to use my dSLR better. And I think I made great progress toward that goal.

I hope you enjoy these posts and looking at the year to come through my lens with me!

Your Turn: What are you doing for fun, relaxation and to feed your creative muse this year?

2012 Photo Challenge: Week 42

Week 42 of our 365 Photo Challenge.

I spent most of the past week in an allergy med-inuduced fog. So, I’m afraid it wasn’t a very interesting week photo-wise, but I took ’em!

What you see below are links to my flickr set for the photos I’m posting for this photo challenge. Click on any photo below to go to flickr and then you can navigate through the set with the “Previous” and “Next” arrows at the top.