A mouthful of mushrooms

This will be a relatively short blog, but sometimes it's the little things in life that are often the most memorable.  A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto an incredibly simple mushroom recipe that has had me CRAVING mushrooms ever since.

I served the mushrooms on top of a filet mignon, along w/ a side of baked potato, and asparagus w/ roasted mushrooms and pronounced dinner done. I didn't think too much about it, but I submitted a picture of my dinner (mainly the mushrooms) to Allrecipes.com b/c the mushrooms didn't have a picture and were therefore a "faceless" recipe.

Imagine my surprise to see that people had voted my picture and it ended up being a top picture the following day!  It's like I said it's the little things in life.  That picture was the FIRST time I've ever had any picture I've taken show up as a "winner" :-)

Eat with your eyes!

How many times have you seen a picture of food and you hoped it tasted better than it looked?  While I'm not one to promote myself as goddess of the camera I try to get pictures that would make a person go "Oooohhh yum!"  as opposed to "Ewwww gross!"  I'm a person that eats w/ my eyes to determine if I want to eat what I see.

A couple of weeks ago I was on my second favourite cooking site - Mantestedrecipes - when I noticed a contest called "Set the mood".   The contest looked simple enough, upload a picture of your best meal for a romantic night, and then based on votes you might win a Jambox by Jawbone.  

I don't have anyone in my life that I cook for in a "romantic" realm, but I decided to submit a picture of my Pecan-crusted trout w/ roasted artichoke sauce  I then posted the link to my facebook page and asked my friends to vote for me.

I normally do NOT have the habit of asking others to vote for me, preferring to rest on my own laurels.  If my photo is better than the rest, I figure others will agree and vote regardless of whether they know me personally or know of my cooking repertoire.

On 26 June -the day before my birthday- I was surprised beyond words to find the following email :

How fricking cool is that!!!  I was SO excited to have been chosen as the first winner!!!! 
I got my jambox this past Tuesday!!!