Carrots, minestrone & flowers!

An interesting mix for today. 

I have been searching for some old soup plates for my food photography. A couple of weekends ago we went to the Nannup Flower and Garden Festival, and in the Nannup antique shop (what a glorious place) I found tucked away along the back wall these old French plates - Sarreguemines. The proprietor said they were from the 1850s, but my research tells me more likely early 1900s - but do I care? not a bit! I love them!
I have 4 plates and all 4 have a different designs - perfect!
Seen here photographed with pea & ham soup in natural kitchen light.

I made minestrone and served with herb scones last weekend, served in my French plates. I've made herb scones for years, they are a perfect accompaniment for soup on a cold winter's evening.  I use whatever herbs I have in my garden - parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (sounds like a song...) and this time I also added sun dried tomatoes to make them a bit more Italian to go with the soup.

Photographed in natural light on my back patio on a cloudy morning. I would have really liked some light and shade, but it was a completely cloudy day, so I worked with that!

I couldn't decide which image I like the best, so here is a collage.
Perhaps you can tell me which image you like? thanks!

And a mosaic of baby carrots - photographed in natural light - cloudy morning. There is those French plates again, and my serving spoon courtesy of my mother-in-law.
The baked carrot recipe came from Fast Ed's new cookbook "The Food Clock".  First you brown them in a pan a bit, but I think 20 minutes in the oven was a bit too long.  You were supposed to cook sage with it, but my plant has disappeared! so I used rosemary - just as good.

 Congratulations to everyone who participated in the Bunbury annual Floral Art Exhibition "Blooming Art 2012" on show in the beautiful Chapel Gallery at the Bunbury Regional Art Gallery. Congratulations to the winners, and the organizers, and Floral Designers Club exhibition chairwoman, Eileen Wenn. That's Eileen's prize winning arrangement on the top left, and her necklace on the top right.
The arrangement you see second from the left by Sue Larkin - Best Contemporary Design, Best in Show & Best Use of Colour - congratulations Sue - stunning work

Below is from Kim's Beyond Layers Day 60 - creating a "scripted image" layer. Here I am showing you the original unedited image, and with the "scripted" image next to it. I also added a sepia photo filter.We are learning some great techniques in Kim's e-course.

 Have a wonderful week. I am linking up with Mary at Little Red House and other wonderful artists at Mosaic Monday. Click on the link here to see their work - Mosaic Monday

Finally how about a jar of smiles for when life is not treating you so well....

If you would like to see some more of my food photography, I would love you to come over to my Flickr site -  Jill's Food on Flickr

Thank you for taking the time to come to my blog. Your comments are valuable to me and I look forward to hearing from you.  Have a wonderful week.