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Here are some pics from my  six day snowboarding holiday in Bad Gastein, Austria.  The mountains were so perfect looking, the panoramas all seemed so fake.

The first 3 days of the trip were spent on the slopes (Pistes) of Stubnerkogel, a mountain in the Austrian Alps with an altitude of over 2200m (link).  The last 3 days were spent almost exclusively on the neighbouring mountain of Schlossalm, which stands at over 2300m (link).

The conditions were ideal and there was a lot of natural snow, so it was a good trip.  Despite the snowboarder’s usual fare of occasional wipe-outs, I managed to do fairly well on the slopes.  That is, until the last day, when I managed to fall twice very hard on my tail bone.  Three days on and I’m still walking a bit stiffly.

I’m very much looking forward to my next trip to the Alps, which can’t come soon enough!

These photos were all taken with my new Canon Powershot S95, and are straight out of the camera.

Once I manage to finish uploading them on YouTube, there are two 720p videos I also took with the S95 which I will link below once they finish their epic upload (currently 486 min remaining).  One is a panorama of the mountains circling Schlossalm and the other is 3 minutes of me on the slopes, to give a feel of what it felt like snowboarding there.

Just quickly threw together this triptych of an apple I’ve had sitting around for a while.  It had a certain photogenic quality, and I needed to capture it before it started going rotten.  The fruit on the right is a pear that had gone über-soft and the apple in the middle is a cross-section from a different apple.  The same photo in colour is also below.  These were taken with my new(ish) kit lens, the Pentax DA 16-45mm.  Pretty happy with the image quality on it…

Thanks to the images I took (link) for my mate Jim over at bugexplorers.co.uk, I got in touch with a guy named Keir who sells ghost mantids over at his website ornamentalinsects.com.  He wanted professional looking photos of his mantises taken for his website to help market these beautiful creatures.  So here are the results of a 4 hour photoshoot!

Anyone wishing to see these full-size, with all the detail, go to the set on Flickr where I have them stored (link).

Shooting small, moving creatures with a heavy manual-focus macro lens gets tiring fast.  I really am leaning towards getting an auto-focus macro lens now.  Thoughts?

I loved this dessert growing up, and ate it often in Pakistan.  I hadn’t had any in years, though, and was inspired to make some through my embarrassing addiction to the Facebook game “Baking Life”.

I looked at lots of recipes online to get a feel for how it is made, and decided to make my own recipe, as it seems there are dozens, if not hundreds, of variations.  Plus, I wanted to recreate the baklava of my youth: pistachios and almonds with a honeyed syrup.

Click on one of the image thumbnails and a full-size version will pop up on-screen.  And please rate this post using the stars below the gallery!

INGREDIENTS

25 filo (phyllo) pastry sheets

~250g unsalted butter (melted)

SYRUP

375ml (1.5 cups) water

250g (1 cup) honey

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

250g (2 cups) sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

0.5 teaspoon ground cardamom or

seeds from 4 cardamom pods

FILLING

500g nuts (I used 300g pistachios & 200g almonds)

60g (0.25 cup) caster (“superfine”) sugar

2 teaspoons pumpkin-pie spices or

1 teaspoon cinnamon

0.5 teaspoon ground ginger

0.5 teaspoon nutmeg

TECHNIQUE

To make the pastry base, you need to use filo (or phyllo in the US) pastry sheets.  There are websites that show how to make it, but it looks very fiddly and the store-bought sheets weren’t too expensive.  You will need around 25 sheets for one batch of baklava (check the packaging – I had to buy two packets of sheets in the UK as they only come in batches of 12).  You will also need a baking tray to bake it on.  The size will relate directly to the size of the filo sheets.  My filo sheets were square, so I used a square pizza tray for mine.  You will also need melted butter to brush on the sheets as you layer them.  Tip on melting it (don’t use a microwave!) later.

In terms of layers, I had 24 sheets, and decided to go with five layers of 6-4-4-4-6 sheets.  If you are using 25 sheets, make each layer with 5 (which, for simplicity, I will describe in step 3 below).  You can do as many layers, with as much filo as you want.  Every recipe I found online had a different method, so don’t be afraid to go with what seems best logically.

1) PREPARE THE SYRUP & BUTTER

The syrup needs to be cooled down when using it, so put the water, sugar, honey and spices into a pot.  I messed up on the syrup a bit (wasn’t thick enough), but I believe you just bring it to the simmering point, so bubbles are starting to form, and cook it for 15-30min on a low heat, until the syrup has started to become thick.  Take it off of the heat once it gets to this stage and put it somewhere to cool (my windowsill worked well).  If you used cardamom pods, you’ll need to fish all of them out with a spoon as they’re inedeible.

For the butter, I boiled a small pan of water and then placed a bowl with a 250g block of butter over the top.  The heat from the boiling water heats the bowl and melts the butter.  Best of all, building the baklava (step 3) takes a while, and keeping the butter on the pan for the whole duration keeps the butter from congealing.  Microwave it if you prefer.

2) PREPARE THE FILLING

Simply put the nuts, sugar and spices into a blender or food processor and grind them up finely.  I transferred mine to four bowls to make it easier to add them into four layers of the baklava.

3) BUILD THE BAKLAVA

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4

Now for the time-consuming bit.  Aim for 3 or 4 layers of filling and plan the number of sheets to go in a layer before you start.  I’m assuming 5 layers of 5 filo sheets with 4 layers of filling.

Grease your baking tray with some of the melted butter and place one filo sheet onto it (apologies for no filo layering pics – was too absorbing!).  Brush the top side of the filo with melted butter, then repeat the process with 4 other sheets of filo, placing them carefully one on top of the other.

Add a quarter of the filling mixture and spread evenly over the pastry, ensuring you go right to the edge.  For the next fil sheet, as it is going onto the filling, you need to butter both sides of the sheet.  Layer and butter the next 4 sheets, then add the filling again as before.  Continue this process until you have made the number of layers you planned.  Save some of the filling mixture to sprinkle on the top after adding syrup.

Some sources advised cutting the baklava at this stage, before baking.  I didn’t do this, though I scored the top layer with a sharp knife.

4) BAKE THE BAKLAVA

Place the baklava in the oven and bake until golden and crisp, somewhere between 20 and 60 minutes (mine took 30min).  Remove the baklava from the oven and cut it immediately into shapes (size/number are completely up to you!).

5) APPLY THE SYRUP

Bear in mind that the syrup could easily run off the pan you baked the baklava on, so prop it up on a clean work surface and surround it with a ring of kitchen paper.

Pour the syrup over the cut baklava and sprinkle any remaining nut mixture over the top.  Leave it to soak for a long while, at least 2 hours.  I rung out the kitchen paper back over the baklava once they had fully absorbed the syrup, as my syrup was far too runny.  Cleverer people could try to collect the syrup somehow as it leaves the baklava.

6) SHARE WITH FAMILY / FRIENDS!