Hellllooooooooo. Hope your Thursday is going great!
I left you with a bit of a teaser this morning….
Eric and I are crafting.
As part of my ‘stay off the computer during the evening’ pact, I decided that I could use my evening downtime to craft!
I am notorious for never printing any of my photography shots, so I decided that I needed to put an end to that. I submitted a ton of my favourite shots to Costco for enlargement and printing and then Eric and I picked them up last night. Costco has amazing prices and super fast service. Afterwards, we booted it to Michael’s Craft Store for oodles of picture frames (thanks to Amanda for the tip). Michael’s has aisles and aisles of frames…who knew!?!
Eric is also a photography fanatic like I am, so he was quite pumped about this project and offered to help! [Although, he insists what he is doing is not ‘crafting’…lol]
I said, ‘Ok, Ok, you are building things with your super manly hands, does that work??’ :biggrin:
We took the prints and each selected our favourite ones. I had over 60 shots printed off and we had to narrow them down to around 20! I felt like I was picking my favourite children.
Dearest maple baked beans and healthy spelt pancakes for one, I’m really sorry you didn’t make the cut this round. For some reason you didn’t look good blown up. Love, Ange. (tear).
I bought a mixture of frame styles because I wanted a bit of variety. We also got some frameless ones that I don’t have any shots of yet.

Is this real life?
How amazing would a bowl of oats that huge be?!?
Food picture enlargements = always a good thing.
I also put one of my favourite quotes on one of my most recent shots!!

The quote says, ‘To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.’
I also made it the feature of my quotes page if you want to check it out.
Mmm strawberries!

Then I lined up all the ducks in a row!

Now we need help on how to hang/organize them!
We want to do a big collage all mixed and matched and eclectic looking, however we have no idea how to organize them. Maybe something like this…
We have about six 8 x 10’s and about ten 5 x 7’s.
Maybe it would help if I put them all out on the table and took one group shot of them together for you to see?

It was serious business.

Well, not really, but we pretended it was…heh.
Look at this adorable giraffe print we also picked out from Michael’s!

We are going to hang it in the family room as the first thing on the wall after living in our house for a year and a half!
Well, aside from our TV that is.
Our walls have been naked for a long time. Eric was perfectly happy with the flatscreen TV being the only thing hanging on the wall. I, however, was not. :biggrin:
This makes my heart melt.

Eric proceeded to poof out his lips and kiss my forehead like the mama giraffe. I was a bit scared.
I fled from his Giraffe like grip and found solace in the kitchen…

In A Jiffy Curry Chickpea Burgers
These are delicious and majorly addicting curry infused wheat-free chickpea burgers that bake to a beautiful burnt orange colour. The seeds give the burgers a fantastic crunch and texture. You won’t be able to stop at just one…or two…or three…
Adapted from my In A Jiffy Spelt Veggie Burgers and Emily’s Vegan Black Bean Burgers.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups cooked chickpeas
- 1/2 cup regular oats
- 10 baby carrots or 2 carrots
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (or oil of your choice), melted
- 1.5 tsp Arvinda’s Curry Masala (or other good quality curry powder)
- 1/2 tsp Paprika
- 1/4 tsp Tumeric
- 1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt, to taste
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp Parsley flakes (optional)
- 3 tbsp sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
Directions: Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper and set aside. In a food processor, process the oats, carrots, and all the spices/seasonings (sea salt, black pepper, curry masala, paprika, tumeric, optional parsley) for 30 seconds or until somewhat smooth. Now add in the chickpeas at 1/2 cup increments and coconut oil (melted), stopping to scrape down the bowl as necessary. [My food processor was quite cantankerous during this process (it didn’t process the chickpeas well, but that may have been because I doubled the recipe and I had too much in my bowl!)]. Once the chickpeas are mostly processed and smooth, take the mixture and place in a medium sized bowl. Stir in the sunflower seeds and pepita seeds. Wet your hands and shape patties or balls. Makes about 6-8 patties depending on how big you want them. Note: You can also pre-bake these for about 20 minutes and them pop them on the BBQ to finish them off!
For my first test batch, I made smaller patties and left some chickpeas whole…

They turned out delicious, however the whole chickpeas made the burgers fall apart a bit too easily.

They will be great for crumbling over salads!!

Afterward, I loved them so much I decided to make another batch and this time I doubled the recipe above! It was almost too big for my 12-cup food processor. I made 6 huge patties from the mixture.

I baked these huge burgers at 375F for 20-25 minutes on each side until golden.
They turned out incredible!!!!!!! Look at that rich orange/golden curry colour…Mmmmmmm!!

I also made Eric’s favourite new snack for a side…

That would be shredded carrot salad with my Better Than Bottled Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing!
Eric has a little obsession with carrots! They are his favourite veggie. He walked into the office the other night with a huge honking bowl of shredded carrots (plain!) and wouldn’t leave me alone until I tried some. I admit, they are pretty good…but I’m feeling a little ‘carroted out’ at the moment.

Somehow this happened again….!
That would be two patties with a 1/4 cup of roasted red pepper hummus smothered in between.
I swear to you, no buns are even needed! It might just be one of the best creations in the world. The Double Down need not apply!
I froze a ton of these burgers and I can’t wait to pop them out of the freezer for quick and easy meals.
Well, we are off for our evening stroll + chat. Then it is more crafting…or as Eric would say ‘constructing’. Night!
Wow…those are great pictures Angela! They are going to awesome on the wall.
The burgers look soooo great and I know they have to be just as tasty as the first batch! The photos look great too! I always want some foodie photos framed!
I love your pictures! That is such a great idea, and it fits ‘you’ so well. You should check out Young House Love for more examples of collages if you need them!
Thanks I will!
super yummy but i can’t even get 1.5 C of chickpeas in, soooo dry! Help please. what can i do?
Angela – what a great way to use your wonderful photos!!! Such a great idea!!!!
Ha, that is amazing! A healthy (and realistic) version of the double down shall I say? I always say that buns are never needed if the middle is so fantastic.
I would never think to have foodie shots to decorate the home, but those look lovely! Well your photography is always gorgeous so its to be expected. ;) That reminds me – I need to get to redoing photos in our frames. They’re so old!
those photos are amazing! this makes me remember that i wanted to print out tons of pics…
and that giraffe print! SO adorable!
Love the photos! What a great idea! I know YHL is on your “Read” list, but one of their best posts, in my opinion, was this one on asymmetrical frame groupings.
http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/02/nailed-it/
I actually took this project and did a thank you note wall at my work based on it, and it looks way cool. Maybe it will give you some inspiration? Good luck!
I agree! I think an asymmetrical collage would look much cooler! I think it would look a little bit better if there are less large gaps between the pictures though. I hope you know what I mean! I’m excited to see your final product! The pictures are amazing :)
Thanks!!!
Seriously, if you hid the frames, I never would have believed those were real foods. What great pictures of pictures you take!
oops, I meant “were not real foods”
hahah tks!
Gorgeous! A lovely project!! My walls are still pretty naked…sadnesss! haha
You know how people have favorite celebrity couples? Well, I have favorite blogger couples and you and Eric are number one. You guys are freaking adorable and I hope that my future relationship(s) is(are) similar to the one you two share. Just had to throw that out there.. haha. :)
Those chickpea burgers look amazing and I’m bookmarking the recipe to be made sometime in the near future!
awww you are so sweet thank you :)
When I was planning to do a photo collage on my wall, I traced outlines of the frames on newspaper and cut it out and then arranged the newspaper squares on the wall so I could get the layout that I wanted.
awesome idea!
I have a dream of someday putting some of my photos up in my home! But I think if they were food photos I’d be hungry All. The. Time.! Especially such gorgeous shots as yours :-)
I like the Martha example, but I’d almost like it…. less synchronized. A few shots a little higher than the rest, a few a little lower. But I’m into asymmetry that way.
Thanks again for your morning post! It totally inspired me and led me to set a new PR :-D
congrats on your PR!
I love how vibrant the colors are! I think the framing should be more assymetrical though, it would show off the colors and they would play off each other! Another blog, younghouselove.com did an example….It’s the green nursery room a couple photos down that I’m talking about : http://www.younghouselove.com/photo-gallery-2/
tks!
They look beautiful and they look real. Especially the bowl of oats.
You have such a beautiful backyard! I love when you take outdoor pictures :D
I like the idea of the pictures (from the pic you posted). I like it when photos aren’t symmetrical and are kinda all over (but somehow they all come together and WORK) Good luck!
I’m not sure if you read Dooce ( aka the original Blogger) but she is all about all things interior design and posted a blog, about making collages amongst other things. Shes even an hgtv blogger now. check it out :)
I think you need to frame some pictures you had taken from your trips. They are gorgeous. You may have some hanging somewhere already.
I agree!
Those photos are amazing, that’s such an awesome and creative idea to make blown-up pics of them!!
The burger recipe looks delicious too, I love chickpeas! I can’t wait to try this… is there a substitution I could make for the coconut oil though? I’m still not on the lots-of-coconut-is-actually-good-for-you bandwagon quite yet (I’m getting there though!).
Also, would you happen to have any tips on how to make just one of these burgers (or any)? I’m always afraid to make a whole batch and then freeze them incase I don’t like how they turned out, and when I try to make just one, they never seem to bind very well. :P
hmmm not sure…you might be able to scale down the recipe by dividing by 6 or 8…?
Great photos! Would you consider selling them as actual prints? You could make a pretty penny off of those! Love the bowl of oats :D Is there VOO parfait anywhere?! Oh, and your Double Down Chickpea Fest looks awesome! (chickpea patty, mashed chickpea/hummus filling :D)
Wei-Wei
not sure, I had never thought of it!