Melinda Holland Photography

06/21/2010

Vegan Chef Charmaine Daniels

Vegan Chef Charmaine Daniels having fun in the kitchen.Havin’ Fun in the Kitch-Un!

Vegan chef Charmaine Daniels and I had a great time tooling around the kitchen last Wednesday. Thanks to Jim & Donna for providing a FABULOUS location for this shoot. Bright, airy, scenic, clean. Great specs for a food shoot.

I love photographing food, Charmaine loves to cook, and we both love to eat good, tasty, colorful food–and it just so happens to be super healthy and vegan. Just look at her. She’s fit and gorgeous!

Be watching for more photos as she whips up a super fresh and tasty tabbouleh/tabouli…(However it’s spelled…I found about 9 thousand different spellings on Google…)

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A few of the ingredients.

Ingredients-mint, lemon, tomato, parsley, cucumber.Check out the size of this knife.

Parsley & KnifeChoppin’ up fresh parsley, green onion and mint. The aromas were wonderful. Especially the mint.

By the way, I love how the green onion reflects off the knife in the middle photo. So shiny…

Charmaine cutting greens.The dish is starting to come together. Beautiful! I never tire of these complementary colors in food.

Adding the Tomatoes

Cucumbers…

Dicing a cucumber

Adding the cucumbers, fresh lemon juice and bulgur wheat (bulgur was soaked in water, then drained).

Putting the Tabbouleh togetherDrizzling some delicious extra-virgin olive oil into the mix.

Pouring the olive oil on the Tabbouleh.Look at Charmaine! Isn’t she the cutest chef?!Charmaine

Then it was out to the balcony for a lovely alfresco portrait.

The wind was mighty and blowing her hair all over the place, but we managed to get some nice shots. I do love the spontaneous look of this portrait.Charmaine dining alfrescoThanks for joining me on this food journey. Hope you enjoyed it. Until next time….

03/15/2010

Vegan Cheesecake from Toukies Restaurant

Filed under: Food — Tags: , , , , , , — Melinda @ 12:55 am
Toukies Vegan Cheesecake

Toukies Vegan Cheesecake

When I was a kid, my aunt would make little cupcake-sized cheesecakes quite often with fresh raspberries on top. She’d bring them over and I’d wolf them down lickety-split. I ate a lot of them. Like, A LOT. Oh how I loved them. Such a treat.

And then. One day. I ate a bunch of cupcake-sized cheesecakes. Got sick.

And vomited.

I didn’t eat cheesecake for many years. As I got older, I’d try a bite here and there, but never a whole piece. The last whole piece I had was a few years ago at a birthday gathering for me at, well…The Cheesecake Factory. So of course the server came out with a slice of cheesecake complete with a lit sparkler on top. I ate most of it, sharing some with my sister and Jon. It wasn’t bad. It was fine. But it wasn’t anything special.

But the vegan cheesecake from Toukies? Whew! It’s now one of my new favorite desserts. It’s incredibly creamy, absolutely moist, delicious and completely vegan! Although Toukies reveals some recipes, their vegan cheesecake is not a recipe they give out. Boo! Ah well. Guess I’ll just have to buy one the next time I crave it. 😉

Toukies serves heart-healthy vegan food that’s quite tasty. Check it out if you’re ever in California’s gold country.

Me at Toukies with a fantastic slice of cheesecake!Me at Toukies with a fantastic slice of cheesecake (loaded with strawberry & blueberry glaze just for the shoot.)

Go to Toukies! The bright, happy decor is positively invigorating!

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