Schnitzel and Autumn, strange bedfellows perhaps...

First, The Schnitzel! I keep coming across meat eaters who think it strange that vegetarians would ever want to eat meatless versions of sausages, burgers etc. I personally think that as long as I'm not killing an animal for my food then I can eat whatever I like. Before I gave up meat I loved sausages, bolognaise, schnitzel - I won't list them all. So if I can find an excellent substitute to add to my already delicious meatless meals, then I will. And the excellent substitutes just happen to be made by my daughter, Suzy Spoon, of Spoon's Vegetarian Butcher!

Last night I floured, egged and breadcrumbed small seitan pieces to make schnitzel bites. I shallow fried them in olive oil (because that was all I had) and served them with boiled potatoes drizzled with butter and herbs. To make it vegan I should have used an egg substitute and added Nuttalex instead of the butter. High in calories, yes, but so good. You have to realize that half my family came from Vienna so Wiener Schnitzel is in my genes. I'm very critical of much that gets served up under that name so I can assure you that Spoon's seitan makes excellent schnitzel.

Now for Autumn in the garden. We've been lucky to have warm sunny days and crisp nights so far in May, and it is a joy to be outside. It never gets really cold enough here for weeds to stop growing, though the lawn slows a little, thankfully. The deciduous trees lose their leaves but there's not a lot of colour, and the ground is covered in huge brown leaves. Here are a few photos to demonstrate Autumn on the NSW Central Coast.

This beautiful and large ( about 18" wide) funghi appeared in the woodchip heap, lasting about a week.

Tiny orange toadstools popped up among the purple tradescantia leaves.

After a sudden downpour the wheel barrow floated an array of coloured Autumn leaves and reflected a brilliant blue sky.
And I can't resist tossing in an apped photo to the mix. This is just a fence post in the garden, swirled with the Tiny Planets app. A tiny whirlwind in the garden.

Tell me what you think about my schnitzel pieces and tell me about Autumn in your part of the world.

The Gardener's Assistant

The original photo was taken on my iPad and saved. In PhotoViva I cropped and made some vague changes. I found it all a bit confusing so saved and opened in Snapseed. I chose Old Lens, then Frame 8. Saved & posted.

An app tutorial from Dave

If you're interested in learning more about using your apps, read on... Dave at Clearer Reflections has been doing some cool tutorials and you can find one here at iphoneographycentral, which has reviews of apps and more tutorials. An interesting article about Dave's Recipe Book Project is here.

I've been trying to take notes as I work on photos but I didn't manage very well with this one. From memory I put a photo of a hippeastrum into PhotoTropedelic, then blended the result with the original photo, using Blender. I saved, then finished up in XnView Photo, using various options. Next time I'll write it all down...

The Recipe Book Project : May 2012

Dave's Recipe Book Project has a change of name but still challenges us to produce a photo using only apps, iPhone or Android. My entry is very simple, starting with a photo taken late at night at my big birthday bash. A friend was exploring PaperCamera on my iPhone, and snapped me and my friend Samantha as we sat by the open fire.

The PaperCamera mode was Andy Pop, which produces 4 images in an Andy Warhol style. I opened this in PhotoToaster and cropped to one image only and saved. A strange choice, perhaps.

I opened this again in PhotoToaster and in Lighting I chose Recover Hilights, in Fx I chose Sharpen, in Vignette I chose Deep Focus, in Texture I chose Antique, and finished with the Border. Black Brush. Then saved.

On the balcony

Photo taken in PaperCamera Comic Boom. Open in XnView Fx.
Choose Vintage 3, Enchanted Bokeh, Frame 1. Save, post.

Joining Dave's App Recipes for April

Following on my swirls of yesterday I started with another Flowpaper swoosh around, just using my finger. I found a photo of bamboo that I'd taken with iPhoto, opened it in Moku HD.

Straight into Tiny Planets and tried various views then chose this.

I then blended the swirl and this bamboo pic and did a bit of finger tweaking to minimise the bamboo.

 Finally another shot at Tiny Planets and I ended up with the Fan Dancer!

I'm not very good at making notes as I go along, so I'm sorry if there's not enough information. I do find my mind rushes on ahead and sometimes I end up with a result that is a complete mystery to me.
If you've missed joining Dave's App Recipes this month, there'll be another chance in May.

Fia's app recipes

Here is Fia, 6 years old and determined to get her own iPad. No chance, I'd say, for quite a few years but here are a couple of examples of her app art. The first had nothing to do with me, she was just experimenting. First, she found my PaperCamera photo of frangipanis.

This is after Fia's use of the app Percolator. She was very thrilled with the result. It's in reverse. I have no idea why or how.

Fia draws on the iPad and saves her pictures in Photos. This is a purpose drawn scribble because she saw me using Tiny Planets and fancied it.

She saved the drawing and was straight into Tiny Planets.

We ended up with about 10 versions and this was another one.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

This post is part of

Dave's App Recipe Book Project -  25 April Edition 

Join us at Dave's tomorrow. In fact, join in...