Andy's Idea Factory

Even though I'm a good baker and love to be in the kitchen, I still love the ease of a ready-made gluten free kit.  Many of my friends who want to go gluten-free complain about the high costs of buying several different types of flours, starches, along with xanthum gum, and they're right, it's a pain in the butt to keep up. Half the time I go into my cupboard, it seemed like I was missing one of the four key ingredients.  So over the past year I've been taste-testing some goodies around the country and have some to share for those who have recently decided to go off wheat/gluten, or for those who, like me, get tired of making everything from scratch. When the temps drop, I love to start baking again, and these mixes have made it into my cabinet, and will surely repeat themselves soon! Purely Elizabeth Apple Spice Muffin Mix Whole Foods I'm not vegan, so I went with the egg over the applesauce and went with the coconut oil over the veggie oil. Truly delicious ...

Recently I made the jump to HDR photography because a new real estate job required it.  For a few years now I've been impressed by the HDR results I've seen from my peers but haven't had the reason, other than hobby, to make the leap myself.  But once you do, it's hard to go back. Combining the light and dark exposures of a single image, HDR can capture both sunrise and sunset in the same image, that is if you have the patience for it.  Many pros think it's cheating, but as someone who grew up with the cumbersomeness (and failures) of shooting with film and the darkroom, I wouldn't label any new technology as cheating. High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or HDR ) is a technique that brings together the lightest and darkest exposures of an image into balance with computer processing through special programs.   If Ansel Adams were around, he'd be eating this system up, as it takes the time of burning and dodging images out of your "darkroom" schedule ...

Upon taking position as Zero Waste Coordinator for the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council , as of today I have made a commitment to not only help Steamboat become the first Zero Waste resort town in Colorado, but to also begin tracking my own waste, my family's waste, and the waste, consumption, and impact of my fellow humans around me, wherever I may go, whenever possible. I currently travel frequently for work because I am coordinating a huge training project for Amtrak trains, educating 8000 employees on better handling customers with disabilities . My work with this travel market over the last five years has led me into much research and study of travel and impact of and on travelers and our planet, great experience which I hope to bring into the world of sustainability and our impact on our precious planet. Yesterday while traveling back from Miami to Steamboat, I thought to begin my mission of tracking in this new capacity. To start, I always travel with my own drin...

I love my Droid for its apps, no question. I check Market every few weeks, as new apps are coming in all the time.  Some apps have stayed on my phone, some come and go.  If you got a new Android-based phone for the holidays or new year, start loading it up!  Most come with a large SD card (mine is 16gb) and many apps can be stored on the card.  The apps that I seem to only use once or twice, especially the ones that are larger than 5mb, I usually wind up removing.  Apps that access large directories (like cookbook apps) can also use up too much space, so go into Settings, Applications, and Manage Applications to drop some when it's time to make room for more.  Because of this ADD-mentality I have for apps, I typically only download the free ones- another great Droid feature, free! Apps I can't live without: Advanced Task Killer - there are several versions of this and I've tried three, but it was one of the first things the Verizon rep told me ...

As stated last week , I have been reorganizing my recipes this year and found four great ones to share for holiday surprises for friends. View last week's post for the first two: Peanut Brittle and Pumpkin Seeds. Two additional easy sweet gift ideas: Rachel Ray's 5 Minute Fudge Ingredients 12 oz chocolate chips 8 oz butterscotch chips 1 can sweetened condensed milk 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup walnuts and/or dried currants/cranberries/cherries Directions Dump all ingredients except nuts and currants into a heavy-bottomed warmed pot over low heat and stir until soft.  Once fully melted, add nuts and currants and pour into a round, greased, Angel Food Cake pan.  Don't smooth out the top, and put in fridge to set for 30 minutes.  Pull out and cut into pieces. Wrap and give! Frozen Lemon  Mousee (GREAT for warmer climates seeking winter-y goodies!) Ingredients 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 4 large egg yolks 5 tablespoons sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted butt...

Last year I drafted a four-part Elven Idea Factory series for making your own holiday presents, take a peek back for recipes of Irish cream, salsa, biscotti , bathcookies , and more . This year I sorted through 3 years of recipe gathering and reduced my huge binder of sloppy recipes to a medium sized reusable gift box, making my recipes both easier to find and easier to use. I didn't know why a binder wasn't easier to use when I created it, it takes up a lot of counter space, gets spilled on, and the sheets pull out of the hole punch too easily... I switched back to mom's method of using old fashioned "index cards" so I can pull several recipes out at once (realized this was key during the holidays!) AND they're small enough for a  magnet to hold them to the metal stove hood while in use. No spills, and at eye level! Great new system.  In sorting through the mess, I found four of my favorite holiday recipes to share with you, to wrap and share with your fr...

A big part of Photography 201 is adding accessories and beefing up your photography inventory... here's the shortlist of what's inside my pack and on my Holiday wish list this year... I currently own a little Canon Rebel Xsi that is lightweight for skiing and hiking with, and have two lenses, 18-55mm and 75-300mm. The first accessories I purchase for a new body are extra memory cards, and then get lens filters, cap keepers , and hoods (I prefer the flexible ones over the rigid version for price and damage control) for all my lenses.  Swapping out one set of each accessory between two or three lenses just gets old, really quick, so stock up.  Lenses also don't always come with lens bags, so finding padded bags or a divided camera bag/backpack is also a must-have.  The next addition to my current setup was an angling external flash/speedlight with a white reflector. The on-camera flashes for any body, DSLR or point-and-shoot, are weak, too close to the lens, and not...