Over at Simple Seasonal the hubs and I are super excited. This Wednesday, October 14th, will mark 1 year since we published our first post! In anticipation of Simple Seasonal’s 1st birthday, I have a big birthday cake with lots of sprinkles planned for Wednesday’s post. In the meantime, I thought I’d get the party started by showing you just how far we’ve come. I’ve redone our Apple Cider Pork Chops post from our first month of blogging. The recipe is amazing, but my photos from a year ago are horrific to say the least.
Blogging can be a bit of a long game and it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the daily workflow. I imagine that other bloggers who are reading this are nodding their heads to that truth. For the non-food-blogging reader, writing a food blog involves so much more than cooking a recipe, snapping a photo, and slapping it on the internet. Recipes are cooked 2, 3, sometimes, even more times, before they are published to ensure that the recipe can be replicated and is delicious every time. Once a dish is cooked, styling and photographing a recipe takes an hour or two. The challenge is getting the food piping hot and unwilted onto a plate. Then under the perfect light, snapping an amazing image in the hopes that anyone who sees it will want to make and eat your recipe. Then there’s the photo editing… and the writing… and more editing… The next time you’re on Pinterest and see something that looks out of this world, take a moment to recognize the work that went into that delightful pin!
Sometimes I need to offset feeling overwhelmed by the day-to-day of having an on-line business, and the compulsion to always do this or that better. Periodically taking a wide view of the work I’ve done can add some perspective and remind me just how far I’ve come. This is also a good practice in other areas of my life. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by work, a young family, illness, or whatever other crap life throws at you, I encourage you to take a moment and look back at just how far you’ve come!
Now onto the before and after photos (how embarrassing):
BEFORE… I had no business thinking I could write a food blog!
AFTER…
There are a couple of books that I have found indispensable in developing my skills in food photography over the last year. They literally took me from, “you’ve got to be kidding me,” to “that looks so yummy!” If you’re considering purchasing one of these books, click the links below and I’ll get a commission, which helps to support the continuation of Simple Seasonal:
Through these Amazon affiliate links you can also find some of my favorite photography tools:
- Nikon D7100 24 MP Digital SLR
- Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G Lens
- Vello FreeWave Wireless Remote Shutter Release
- Lowel EGO Tabletop Fluorescent Light Unit
- Neewer 43-inch 5-in-1 Collapsible Multi-Disc Light Reflector with Bag
- Pillow case to diffuse Lowel tabletop light (a simple and affordable solution)
- 5 boneless pork chops
- 1 cup organic apple cider
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin unfiltered olive oil
- 3 Tbsp of local honey
- 3 medium cloves of fresh minced garlic (or 1 tsp dry)
- 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
- 1/16 tsp cayenne pepper (just use half of a ⅛ tsp to measure)
- ½ tsp salt
- ⅓ tsp black pepper
- 1 Tbsp GMO-free cornstarch
- ⅓ cup golden raisins
- Create your marinade in a medium mixing bowl by whisking together apple cider vinegar, olive oil, honey, garlic, Dijon mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, and cornstarch.
- Measure ¾ cup of marinade into a small sauce pan, add golden raisins, and cover. Set aside the remaining marinade in a mixing bowl for the pork. Place the sauce pan in the refrigerator and allow the golden raisins to marinate and become plump while the pork marinates.
- Place the pork into your marinade in mixing bowl and refrigerate for 6-8 hours. If you work or have a busy day ahead, this is ideal to prep in the morning, making dinner prep much easier at the end of a long day.
- Remove pork and the sauce pan with raisins from the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to cooking and allow both items to come to room temperature. Cook the pork on a grill or on the stove-top on medium-high heat, flipping and basting with leftover marinade midway. Depending on the size of your pork chops, you will only need to cook them 3-7 minutes on each side. The pork is done when there is a small amount of pale pink in the center with white outer edges.
- Allow the meat to rest for a few minutes on a plate while you place the saucepan with the marinade and raisins on medium heat. Simmer and stir frequently until the sauce is heated through and thickened. If you cooked your pork on the stovetop, be sure to cook the sauce in the pan that the pork was cooked in to pull up any of that extra flavor that was left over from cooking. Remove from the heat, add the chops to the pan, and coat them in the apple cider sauce. Serve immediately.
This recipe pairs well with my Apple-Stuffed Acorn Squash. Another recipe that needs rephotographing!
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I love your addition of golden raisins. I bet it adds a great sweetness to the recipe.
Congratulations on one year! Your photos are gorgeous and these pork chops sound delish. Love the honey and raisins!
Congratulations on the first anniversary! You are doing such a great job 🙂 Loving all your recipes! OMG, these pork chops are just crazy delicious. Saved and pinned to try!
Congrats on your first year. In a month or so, it too would be my first year (in a way). No shame on the before picture or else you wouldn’t have be able to see how much you’ve improved and grown from all this blogging and photography business.:p Oh and the pork chops look delish. Yum.
Congratulations on your blog birthday! this recipe looks fabulous… but I have to admit …now I’m walking around saying “Pork Chops and applesauce” like Peter Brady from the Brady Bunch!!
guess what’s going on my shopping list this weekend.
Congratulations!! happy birthday to your blog. Your photos look so amazing, my hope is i improve my photography by the time am marking 1year annivesary.thanks for sharing the photography books, i feel like getting food photography right is the hardest part of foodblogging.
Can’t wait to try this recipe and find out how raisins & pork taste together!!
much love
You and me both, cooking is easy, photos are tough. This sounds like a really good tasty meal, I might have put some apple with the raisins …like applesauce on the pork chop, but a solid recipe. Congrats on 1 year…I’ll talk to you again when you, like me, reach seven …Cheers ~ Lindy
Congratulations and happy birthday!
You have come a long way, and your recent photos are incredible…such an improvement. The Food Photography Book is amazing isn’t.
The raisins look so plump and delicious, yum
Love apples this time of year, and totally love that you included a before and after shot! These look amazing, and your photography is beautiful! Checking into buying the e-books. 🙂
I hear you with all you were saying about photography! Thanks for the recommendations on the photography books. This has inspired me to no end. Your pictures are delightful!
http://www.ittybittyfoodies.com
Have never thought of adding raisins to pork chops. Its interesting! Thanks for the share! 🙂
Apple cider pork chops??? sounds like music to my ears. Bookmarking this recipe asap
These look totally amazing! And I so know what you mean about looking back at your progress. I thought my first blog photo was awesome and it was seriously the opposite, lol. Great job on your photos!
Congrats on one year! I love seeing the growth in your photography
Rachel, the photos are stunning! This is definitely something I am going to try very soon! I am swooning just looking at the pictures, i bet it tasted amazing!
Tried this tonight for dinner – except with regular raisins bc my husband couldn’t find the golden ones in the store – it was really good! I cooked me chops 7 mins per side and still were a tad too pink in the middle. Not sure if they were just super thick or something. Will be making again and just will adjust time as necessary. Thanks for the recipe!
Amanda- Thanks for letting me know that you gave this recipe a try! I’m sorry the cook time was longer. No one likes dinner to take longer to make! The chops I used were on the petite side of things. I’ll make an adjustment to the recipe for other readers. Thanks for sharing!
I made these a couple weeks ago and they were amazing! Thanks so much for sharing… Also I made roasted brussel sprouts and carrots with dried cherries to go with them and it was the perfect combination. I just posted that recipe on my blog, so I had to give you a little shout out, of course 😉 Thanks again!
http://www.biscuitsandburlap.com/2016/02/12/roasted-brussel-sprouts-and-carrots-with-dried-cherries/
Hey Sara! Thanks for letting me know that you gave this recipe a try. I’m glad you enjoyed it, and the Brussel Sprouts and Carrots with Dried Cherries sounds amazing!