Billy and Deanne's Adventures

Can’t say enough how much I am enjoying Project 365, it has pushed me to try harder to achieve better photos. I love love love this project and wish I did this last year and I am so pleased to get so much positive feedback, though if there was negative I would be happy too, it helps to learn and try to do better. I just want to keep working hard, trying my best, giving it my all and seeing what the rest of the year brings.

Well after a LOT of thought, a lot of back and forthing I have started my own Facebook page for my Images and a Zazzle shop to sell them. It’s not been an easy decision because I don’t class myself as a photographer, you will even find some of my thoughts regarding this on this blog too. The fact is I was getting loads of compliments regarding my images and many messages regarding where could they be bought. I have had many of my images made up and they are gracing many walls, however as much as I love to give gifts it is impossible to do this for everyone that happens to want one of my images, so I began the page and the shop. .
My Zazzle shop is still under construction and I have my fingers crossed I iron out all the issues and my internet connection stays stable enough so I can create more and more products like Canvas’s, Cards, Posters, stickers and more. Till then I hope that you can join my Facebook page and watch my journey.
Dee

Images by Deanne Facebook Page

Images By Deanne Zazzle Shop

I have been tinkering around again with Lightroom and playing about with some presets, I posted the photos on Facebook and got a lot of wonderful feedback so here they are…

The pork belly was seasoned only with salt and pepper, I have seen other recipes where stock is added or a brine but to begin with I wanted to keep it simple. This week I have cooked chicken breast twice and porterhouse steak once and kept to basics. My second attempt at chicken I used less salt and pepper, very finely chopped garlic and mixed herbs, the second attempt was more nicer than the first, even though the first was magic. I really want to work the basics and build on that, I figure get the fundamentals right first.
The pork belly was twice sealed, I did this because I knew it was going to be in the immersion circulator for some time so I wanted to make sure no leaks would happen. The pork belly was put not the circulator at 84 degrees for 24 hours, when it was taken out I was glad I twice sealed as the inner bag had a minor leak. I then put the pork belly on some baking paper on an oven tray and put more baking paper on top, then another tray with a bucket to weigh it down and left for 24 hours.
After 24 hours I took the pork belly out of the fridge and cut it into 5 x 2 cm pieces and put in a hot fry pan. It was not crisping up as I would like, so I put it under the grill to finish. The result???? Mag-yum-nificent!!!! Super soft, melt in your mouth, tender, juicy, flavorsome goodness….. I can hardly wait to have another crack at this!!!

Tonight’s meal, chicken breast, I stabbed the fillet and poked small pieces of garlic, seasoned the fillet just with salt and pepper and put in the bag with a little butter. The Sous Vide Pro was set to 64 degrees Celsius, the fillets (2 per bag) were left for 1 hour. Meanwhile I cooked a potato galette and made a garden salad. I took the fillets out of the pot and heated up a fry pan with a little butter. Cutting open the bag was a surprise, there was barely any juices in the pan and the butter I had put in seemed to have been absorbed by the fillet. I then put the fillets in the pan just to color them, this took about a minute and then I served them on top of the galette. The fillets were really plump, cutting into them could have been done with a spoon, they were so soft, so tender, so juicy, just delicious the best chicken fillet I have ever tasted!!

Omg, seriously OMG! I sifted through my pots to figure out which was the best size to use, filled up the pot to almost the required level and then I lightly seasoned the steaks with salt and pepper before I vacuum sealed them. I then waited about a 1/2 hour for the Sous Vide Pro to reach the temperature I set (56 degrees celsius) I put the vacuum sealed steak in, clipping the edge of the bag to the pot as it seemed to fall to the bottom and I was unsure if this would block the machine. I left it for a little over two hours, I then pulled the steaks out, took them out of the bag, gave them a light pat dry and rubbed some oil onto them, meanwhile I had a fry pan on the induction cooker getting really hot, I put the steaks in and they browned in no time (maillard effect). I didn’t rest the steaks for long but I was to find that this would not affect it too much as the steaks did not bleed at all. Cutting into the steak….like a hot knife through butter, the taste magic!! Soft, tender, juicy, flavor some one of the BEST steaks I have had in a long time.
Tomorrow night I try chicken breast Sous Vide!

While the pot warmed up  I took this photo so I could post this entry, yesterday my Sous Vide Pro arrived and tonight is the very first time I am cooking a meal Sous Vide, it is only going to be something simple, a Porterhouse Steak, I wanted to start off with something simple first and build on it. Will try to post more later on how it all works out

Normally its pretty easy to sort out the scam emails, realistically if you did not enter that competition to win a million dollars then how could you have won it?? Just as if you don’t have an account with a bank in Nigeria, how can you have millions in that account? Anyhow most phishing emails I have found are pretty easy to sort; however the last 24 hours I have received 2 emails that were incredibly convincing and I am posting about them because of how convincing they are as there is a very REAL concern people will fall for this. The first one I would have generally ignored but then when the second one arrived was when it became a bit more convincing.

First Email

Second Email