food photography: macarons
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Tag Archives: appetizers
Paleo Food Photography: Bacon Wrapped Dates & Goat Cheese
These little buddies are magical. Just make them paleo food eater or not. They are the perfect combination of sweet, salty, tangy and bacon. Make them for yourself at home (they taste delicious even cold), or prepare them for a party. Although I don’t know how to share something this delicious. It’s difficult, but some of you are more generous than I. You could also make this dairy free by stuffing the dates with an almond or something else, but I recommend the goat cheese if you would prefer to reach nirvana.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees WITH THE BROILER PAN IN IT. That way, when you put the bacon on the hot pan, it’s less likely to stick and pull your precious bacon away with it.
Count your dates.
Cut your bacon in half. (I had ginormous dates, so I did full pieces of bacon for the pictures.) Now, you either have more pieces of dates or bacon. Whichever one you have less of, that’s how many you can make. I am assuming here that you have about eighteen pieces of bacon after cutting them in half. One of the small goat cheeses should do you, but you should always buy the larger one because GOAT CHEESE.
Soak eighteen plus extra toothpicks in a little bowl of water (a couple extra in case any of your toothpicks are janky and break)
Prep those dates-they may have pits if you didn’t pay attention and buy the de-pitted kind. Take the pits out, remove any stems, and use a knife to slice them open from top to bottom.
Then, shove some goat cheese inside with a butter knife. Put in as much as you want. It’s okay if it shows out the side. Stuff them all before wrapping them in bacon. (Trust me, it’s easier and reduces the risk of cross contamination.
(At this point, you could eat these or bring these to a vegetarian party. Or serve up extra dates and goat cheese while waiting for the bacon ones.)
Then, wrap each one with bacon and secure with a toothpick. Do them all, and by this time, the oven and pan should be ready!
Place them all onto the broiler pan (they should sizzle! Be careful!) Give them a little room-no touching! Put them into the oven and turn them once after about 10-15 minutes. They should be done after 20-25 minutes, BUT IT DEPENDS ON THE SIZE OF YOURS! And also your bacon crispy preference. The dates and goat cheese do not need to cook, so the only thing you have to worry about is the bacon.
Enjoy!
Portland Food Photography: The Sapphire Hotel
Last week, David and I decided we needed to celebrate so we searched for happy hours on Yelp and we choose The Sapphire Hotel based on the reviews and the menu. Their website claims long roots into the history of Alberta Street:
The Sapphire Hotel was originally a turn of the century seedy hotel in Portland, Oregon inhabited by sailors, travelers and ladies of the night. They rented rooms by the week, night or by the hour and spent long days and evenings in the lobby drinking, laughing, eating, talking and kissing.
Aside from entertaining one another you could count on the presence of a mystic, traveling musician or a handful of gypsies to lend some fun and adventure to your night. As the years went by, the area around the hotel grew more affluent and the ladies of the night took jobs as shop girls along the avenue. The artists began to sell their work at the galleries that cropped up along the Avenue and the rooms became upscale apartments leased to the people in the local community.
There’s a long list of signature cocktails, wine and beer followed by a shorter list of tasty food.
I ordered the hour hour special marionberry margarita and (I think) David got the Common-Law Girlfriend.
I couldn’t resist ordering a couple happy hour appetizers in addition to the food. We chose pickled veggies and nuts & olives.
Dinner was a seared tuna nicoise salad and a meze platter. Two thumbs up! Give them a try for some ambience and delicious drinks and food!
