Sunday, September 9, 2012

New Family Portraits: Jeff, Angie, & kiddos


Jeff and Angie's kids showed their spunk during our recent photo session at Millennium Park in Plymouth. We had a beautiful, overcast day and my favorite lens was my 28-90mm. It’s easy and lovely. I also used my wide angle 10-24mm for the close-ups of the kids lying in the grass.

Jeff said that after the session, the kids said it was fun and that we should do it again. I couldn’t have received a better compliment! Apparently they also wished I had brought my girls so we could all go to the library afterwards

Here is a glimpse of some of my favorites. 








Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Sarah Bahr's Amazing Guacamole!!!


The lack of blog posts this summer is due to Christa having now two adorable babies to love and care for along with me being in beautiful Aspen for the summer working for the Aspen Opera.
I met a lot of fantastic people in Aspen and always made my guacamole for pot luck get-togethers, hence this blog post. You asked and I am spilling the beans on my tasty recipe.

Ingredients (feeds a group of 12)
5 soft dark green avocados
2-3 limes
2 roma tomatoes
1/4 medium white onion
3 medium cloves of garlic
1/2 jalapeño
cilantro
salt
pepper

Start off my chopping up the onion, tomatoes, and garlic into small chunks and add to a medium sized bowl. I like my garlic minced and onion and tomato about 1/4" chunks.


Then cut all the avocados in half and carefully remove the pit. I like to hold the avocado firmly in my hand and hit the pit with a sharp knife blade to lodge the knife in the pit. Then gently swivel the knife back and forth till the pit loosens and you can just hit the knife against the edge of your garbage to drop the pit in. The pit  can be removed with a spoon too, but careful the avocado and pit are slippery so it may go flying across the room!


Now it is time to scoop out the avocado with a large spoon and mix in with the onion, tomato, and garlic, if they are soft enough this is very easy. If they are too hard you may need mash them up with a fork. I like a chunky guac so I don't stir the heck out of my mixture, allow the avocado to be lumpy.


This is my favorite part, the limes! I usually squeeze the juice of two whole limes if I'm using 5 avocados, but if you are letting it sit in your refrigerator for more than 2 hours before eating add the third lime, this helps it from going brown. If your avocados are a bit hard lime juice helps with mashing them up. I think lime is my secret ingredient, I like a lot of lime flavor and it helps it stay preserved. Yum!

Now salt and paper to taste! You can add more or less of any of the ingredients to make your own version.

In my version I like to add 1/2 a jalapeño minced and a big handful of chopped up cilantro. These give it even more flavor, but not everyone likes these added ingredients. I add them at the end so the cilantro doesn't get too mashed up, and I can add the jalapeño to taste.
If you want to make a smaller version I usually use this ratio: 1/2 lime to every 1 avocado.
Eat immediately or let chill in the fridge.  Enjoy!!!

post written by Sarah