White on Rice Couple

Video- Behind the Scenes Shoot at Our Studio with KitchenAid

White on Rice Couple — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:15:53 +0000

Want to know what goes on behind the scenes of one of our food photography shoots in our studio? Well finally, here it is! So many of you have asked for a video and sneak peak into all the scenes that happens on our shoots. Because we’re always so busy in the kitchen and behind the camera, it’s so hard to execute the video filming process. Why? because we want to be the ones filming the video part. We’re just crazy multi-taskers that way!

But we finally decided to figure out all the details and work it out for our latest shoot with KitchenAid for their new recipes on their brand new blog. Have you seen it? It’s gorgeous and full of incredible recipes by wonderful food bloggers in the community. You must check out KitchenAid’s new blog called the Kitchenthusiast at www.KitchenAid.com/blog

When KitchenAid contacted us to photograph 40 lead photo’s for their new series of Challenge Recipes, we were thrilled at the chance to be photographing all these blogger recipes. What these series of recipes entail are culinary challenges that encourage cooks to take on a technique or recipe to inspire you to get into the kitchen and make something amazing. Each recipe challenge is executed beautifully by a blogger and what you’ll see are their informative step-by-step instructions, as well as a final recipe to help you take your skills to the next level.

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“Black Magic Cake” with Butterscotch & Cream Cheese Frosting

White on Rice Couple — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:12:00 +0000

Pinterest gets me in trouble, and it isn’t even from me browsing. Diane will be lying on the couch at the end of the day, scrolling along while I catch up to the sports world on ESPN. Then suddenly she’ll pipe up “I want that”, thrusting her phone towards me.

What am I supposed to do, say “No”? Well, I could but between you and me, I like to bake. I don’t mind at all when she discovers these little sweet cravings. We’ve had some great finds, as well as a few others that looked really cool, but in the end I wasn’t crazy about the taste or texture. Sometimes if they are interesting enough the “no-go’s” will get shuffled into a drawer and every once in a while I’ll work on adjustments to see if I can make something I’m happy with.

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Meyer Lemon Crinkle Cookies

White on Rice Couple — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:43:42 +0000

I love a really good cookie. Though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I appreciate and savor every bite of dessert that my palate can tolerate. And though I’m not capable of eating too much, I’m always searching for a great recipe that can satisfy my two to three bites of sweet joy.

And what do I mean by a really good cookie? I know everyone has their criteria on what they expect out of a cookie, so having an open discussion here is always fun to see what you expect in your next warm batch. I don’t consider myself a cookie-snob, though I’m known to be very frustrated if I pay $3.50 for a mediocre cookie in a bakery!

What I love out of cookies are great texture, chew and flavor. We’ve previously written about one of our favorite granola cookies and now I found this on recipe on Pinterest and I’m so blown away by it’s flavor because I love meyer lemon and the flavor really shines in this cookie. It’s so excellent that I actually inhaled 4 cookies in one sitting. And for me, that’s an eating feat.

I found this popular lemon crinkle cookie recipe on Pinterst and it was made my Lauren of the lovely Lauren’s Latest blog. Thanks to Pinterest, I’ve been finding some really fabulous recipes, including my last magic custard cake and when I found Lauren’s cookie recipe few months ago, I’ve been equally obsessed over it.

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Our “Bountiful” Cookbook Preview & Roasted Strawberry Scone Recipe

White on Rice Couple — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:24:44 +0000

We did it. We made it. And haven’t killed each other over which recipes were going to make the cut.

Though we both have less hair than when we first announced last year, we did figure out how to make our small kitchen more efficient and whose turn it was to use the big burner. It was all about working together side-by-side (literally) and compromise because “someone” wanted to have more cocktail recipes where-as “someone” wanted to have more kale recipes. Can you guess who? Cocktails and kale. The second story of our ambitious lives will be all for you to read.

After a ga-billion dirty dishes later, two-very well fed dogs (leftovers!) and hours of editing, sorting, writing and late night wine-comfort, Bountiful is finished!! We can finally share with you all our final cover for Bountiful. What do you think?

Hope you all love it as much as we do and it’s also available for pre-order on Amazon if you love it just as much.

We poured every effort we could into this book because it’s not just a book of over 100 recipes, it’s laced with stories and images of our lives in our garden and kitchen. As you all know, we’re hyper-addicted to growing fruits and vegetables and our collection of over 40 fruit trees is a testament to why we needed to make this cookbook. Our love of food, cooking and gardening made sense to share fresh vegetable and fruit recipes that we adore so much. And though there are meat dishes in the recipes, all are adaptable to be made vegetarian, gluten free, paleo or what ever your eating lifestyle is.

The cookbook is organized into two main sections: Vegetable Recipes and Fruit Recipes. Within each of those sections, recipes are laid out under types of fruit and vegetables so it’s easy for you to find recipes for specific produce that you might have found at the farmers market or leftover in your fridge. Either way, there’s something fresh and wholesome for everyone in this cookbook.

Thank you all for your continued support. We couldn’t have done this without you. Love you all.

-diane and todd

Extra Photographs that didn’t make the cut:

We photographed way more images than our book could hold. Though these photos didn’t make the final print, we wanted to share them with you, along with a recipe from the cookbook, Roasted Strawberry Scones.

Shooting the outdoor gathering scenes were fun. We just invited a bunch of friends over for various dinner parties, flew by the seat of our pants with two cameras and tried to capture everything that was happening around us.

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Vietnamese Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls

White on Rice Couple — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:44:53 +0000

Hi everyone, hope you’re doing well and your weather is warming up to the peak of Spring. We’re back, cooking in our home kitchen again and it feels nice to be making food that isn’t for a shoot. We’ve had a fulfilling four weeks of back to back shoots and working with some of the coolest and creative people in advertising, but it’s always nice to be able to wind down and cook to eat, rather than for the camera. And best of all, we don’t always have a sink full of dirty dishes! That’s part of our days on shoots, tending to towering piles of dirty dishes.

Now with a few days of rest before we’re back to shooting Fall campaigns, the first thing that we missed eating at home were fresh Vietnamese spring rolls. We just can’t get enough of these fresh spring rolls. We live on spring rolls.

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The Best Dog Biscuits EVER – According to Sierra

White on Rice Couple — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:26:29 +0000

“Incentives.” That’s what we have to call dog biscuits now around the house. The pups have long figured out “treats” and spelling out the letters to each other in this LOL world was starting to get old. We’ve gotten in the habit of using letters instead of words so much I’ve started glancing over my shoulder expecting to hear a pre-K teacher about to scold “Use your words!”

I’ve been wanting to come up with a new dog biscuit recipe for a while. They are super handy to have around while Lexi is in her puppy-teenager phase. Nothing like a little “incentive” to help bring a distracted puppy running when you call them to “come”. My philosophy is that when you call them over to you, it should be the best thing in the world. Full of love, scratches, and often times a delicious treat. Even when you want to twist their floppy ears for getting into something they aren’t supposed to.

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For the Love of Meyer Lemons: Video & A Little Giveaway

White on Rice Couple — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 07:05:49 +0000

This giveaway has ended, thank you all for sharing your love of meyer lemons. Scroll to end of post to see winner.

We do love to share, but sometimes it’s really impossible to pass around a few baskets of citrus from our garden to all you kind folks. When we can, we do enjoy sending out a little bit of our Southern California sunshine to friends in the chilly parts of the country. A little box of citrus love can warm up even the coldest days during the Spring Season. We’ve given away some garden citrus before, but it’s been a while.

Because we love meyer lemons so much and we appreciate you all, we thought it’s time to share some of our garden meyer lemons. It’s not much, but for those of you who don’t get an opportunity to enjoy a really fresh meyer lemon, this little giveaway will bring a little warmth to the chilly part of your world.

And we made a little video, sharing a little glimpse of what’s sprouting up in the garden this month.

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In the kitchen with Wolfgang Puck and Alain Ducasse

White on Rice Couple — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:40:44 +0000

It’s been a while since this incredible evening happened, but thanks to a few nudges from you guys, we reached back into our archives for the images. What would we do without you amazing people? You keep us in check and encourage us to post regularly. Thank you for that.

You see, we were asked to photograph a private dinner party at Hotel Bel Air’s signature restaurant in Beverly Hills. When the request for a quote came in, we thought it would be a cool evening to shoot under the stars in one of LA’s most talked about historic hotels. We’ve shot all throughout Los Angeles’s prized restaurant jewels, so this seemed like one of our typical evenings of photography work.

The photo assignment included all the usual requests that an art director and photo editor would need to have. But then when there was the mention for portrait shots of Puck and Ducasse, we did a double take.

Alain Ducasse? Wolfgang Puck? Private Dinner Event. Ok, now this was something really special. That meant having to actually get dressed up (even as photographers), iron some wrinkled clothes, shine our shoes and strap up with our cameras for an incredible evening.

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Really Good Soft & Chewy Granola Cookies

White on Rice Couple — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:05:07 +0000

Can’t say much more than the title. There are good cookies and there are “really” good cookies, so good that you’ll allow yourself to half a dozen in one sitting. The type of cookies that allow yourself to indulge in eating pleasures without any post-guilt feelings are worth having in your recipe box. And hopefully, you’ll agree that these cookies deserve to be on that list.

Our continuous quest to find great cookies recipes that have both great texture, flavor and unique qualities is never ending. Often times we’ll search for cookie recipes with high hopes to be blown away by their taste. But sometimes we’ll just be satisfied but not over thrilled. Even a mediocre cookie can be good. Don’t get us wrong, we’re not cookie snobs (hopefully, not) but it’s nice to have your baking efforts rewarded with really great cookies.

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Blood Orange Margarita with Bitters

White on Rice Couple — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 07:03:41 +0000

Just as Diane has her prop collecting obsession, I have my own vice. Well, more like a double vice since most toss drinking into that classification. I am mildly bedeviled by making cocktails.

There is something exquisitely alluring in what has become a combination of ritual and swagger. A little James Bond, a dash of Esquire, and a jigger of Hemingway done up over ice. It may be a vice, but it is a savvy one for a man to have.

As far as my own style and ritual to cocktails, I aim to take care of the details without getting crazy about it. I care not about the newest and funkiest cocktail creations. Give me the classics added with a few sensible modern twists. I’m not going to infuse a batch of simple syrup with lavender or smoke for a cocktail I may make when the full moon happens to land on a Tuesday. But I do want someone to have one of our margaritas, sours or Sidecars, take a sip without any sense of great expectations, and then stop and stare in appreciation.

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