The Nifty Foodie's Life

I’ve always been intimidated by Adobe Photoshop. I’m not very good with graphics, and what do all of these tools really mean anyway? Bleh, I didn’t care….

So, I never really gave it a second thought to edit my photos. However, lately, it seems that a lot of people do indeed use Photoshop or some editing software to make their pictures really pop! So, when I started seeing beautiful pictures on blogs, I decided to play around a bit.

That’s when I found a FREE Photoshop online. It allows you to edit your pictures enough to where it truly makes a difference!

Uhm and it’s virtually made for dummies. It offers tools with easy to understand names, which really motivated me to make a pretty picture!

For example, here is a picture of the watermelon sorbet I made last night. I took a picture of it on digital macro setting with my Canon SD1100IS. Nothing to be impressed over, really!

I thought it looked great! That is, until I uploaded it to Photoshop, went into “edit” mode with it and did some magic. I can’t remember exactly what I did, but it involved sharpening, saturation and exposure. I just really played with it, but I think it made a HUGE difference!

Doesn’t it look tasty? I think I shall have another bowl when I go home!

If you have been intimidated by Photoshop before, trust me, I figured this out on my own. You can totally do it too!

My husband and I decided to splurge on a FoodSaver post-wedding. It was one of the things off our registry that we really wanted to have, because meat is pricey when you are buying it in smaller packs. So, to save money I usually raid Sam’s once a month and buy our meats in bulk.

Our usual meats that I buy are chicken breasts, ground turkey and ground beef. We save a good bit of money buying in bulk, and we just package our meat in portions for 2. I used to use saran wrap, then foil,  and then put that in a quart sized freezer bag. However, now, I just take the FoodSaver bag roll, cut it to size, seal one side, put meat in and seal the other side. It sounds hard, but really, it’s not!

Besides saving us time on sealing foods, it also saves us major freezer space!

Check out my bottom freezer drawer! This thing used to be overly full with the same amount of meat!

Another great thing? It makes food last longer in the freezer as well! Not that we don’t use meats often enough, but hey, it’s good to know that it’s keeping our food fresher than the old method!

This is the machine model that we splurged on. I like that it has a built in roll holder for easier storage.

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This machine definitely works for us! To see what works for other bloggers, check out We Are That Family!

I really enjoy baking. It’s one of those things that gives me instant gratification, especially when it is done correctly.

For a wedding shower gift, I received this KitchenAid Mixer from my grandma. So, I needed a reason/excuse to break it in. My friend in Dallas jokingly told me to make her some awareness cookies…I wasn’t joking when I said YES!

So, using some methods I learned in cake decorating classes, I made her 2 dozen cookies with a few extras for DH to munch on. I can’t make sugar cookies without him wanting some!

Here comes the hard part, or so I think: shipping these from Baton Rouge to Dallas. Cookies aren’t the most delicate, but you can’t exactly throw them around! I found some ideas months ago on The Hyper Homemaker (the blog no longer exists, so I can’t link) to help me with shipping these.  So, I bought a huge roll of bubble wrap and went to work!

First, I put 5-6 layers of bubble wrap at the bottom of the box. Then, I rolled small sections of bubble wrap along the walls of the box to cushion the cookies going in.

Then, I laid cookies down in the box to where it all fit snugly. This worked out to 6 cookies for me.

I repeated this four times until all the cookies were in the box. I put 5-6 more layers of bubble wrap on top in the end and taped it in. I gave it a test shake and didn’t hear a thing. So, I think these bad boys will be safe! Just in case, though, I wrote “FRAGILE” all over the box.

I hope she enjoys them and they make them to Dallas in one piece!