Oh yeah, did I mention that Shannon is my darling sister? She and Nick live in Boston, but are looking to move to Brooklyn in the very near future. Which I am over-the-moon excited about, because I could always use more rock climbing / biking buddies. That, and I also wouldn’t mind benefiting from Shan’s stellar cooking/baking skills.

Happy anniversary, kiddos!

But as much as I abhor winter weather, it does provide a few nice things. Case in point, this image: the blowing veil and colorful sky made possible by said abhorrent weather. Ashleigh and Shawn were such troopers for sticking out the cold in their wedding attire, and I dare say it was worth it :)

Here’s a sneak peek of their wedding day; more to come next month!

Here’s what the album looks like:

And here are a few examples of what the album design looks like inside:

“Trust me”, she insists. “This vegan lasagna is AMAZING.”

I thought to myself, yeah ok… I don’t even really care for lasagna. But we’ll see.

And so we drove around town on Christmas Eve, hitting up various (super)markets before they closed for the holiday, in search of nutritional yeast and sundried tomatoes and other semi-obscure ingredients. (We also may have picked up and consumed an entire tub of hummus and bag of falafel chips while driving home, but it’s fine.) And that night, she cooked the lasagna while I… did something other than spend 2 straight hours in the kitchen.

On Christmas Day, I promised her I’d try her lasagna. I soon declared it The Most Amazing Thing I’ve Ever Had Outside Of A Restaurant. 90% of my Christmas meal was this lasagna. 100% of the leftovers I brought back to NYC was this lasagna. 100% of said leftovers were consumed within 20 minutes of me getting home that night.

Don’t you see? This vegan lasagna is straight-up MINDBLOWING. And this is coming from someone who is neither vegan, nor a fan of lasagna.

I am, however, some degree of a fan of Alicia Silverstone, whose website provided this delectable recipe… which I am going to include below with a few snaps I took of my first attempt at this dish. If you do nothing else with your life, please just try this recipe! Or have someone else have at it while you sample the finished product. Everyone MUST experience this amazingness!

Ingredients

1 box of whole wheat or brown rice lasagna noodles
1 (16-ounce) box of frozen spinach, thawed, squeeze excess water out
2 (26-ounce) jars of vegan marinara
4 vegan Italian “sausages” cut into cubes
2 green bell peppers, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
Vegan shredded cheese (enough to sprinkle on top only)
1 lb. extra firm tofu
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 heaping tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp sea salt
Black pepper to taste
4 tbsp chopped sundried tomatoes
1 cup (a few huge handfuls) chopped fresh basil
1 tsp. dried oregano

Instructions

To Make:
Press water out of tofu by wrapping in a clean towel, and placing a pot or pan on top for about 10-20 minutes. Crumble the tofu in a bowl, and add lemon juice, garlic, nutritional yeast, sea salt, black pepper, sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, and dried oregano. Using a potato masher, smash up the tofu really well until it resembles ricotta cheese in texture. Set aside until ready to use.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water with 2 Tbsp olive oil to a boil, and cook noodles according to package. (You probably won’t need the whole package. Take however many noodles will fit across the dish and multiply by 3). Cook them for a few minutes less than suggested so that they can finish cooking in the oven. When noodles are done cooking, drain and rinse in cold water.

While the noodles are cooking, heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a saute pan, and saute sausage a few minutes. Use a wooden spoon to help crumble the sausage into slightly smaller pieces. Add 2 jars of marinara sauce and 2 chopped green peppers to the pan, and let simmer about 10 minutes.

To Assemble:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a rectangular pyrex glass dish, start layering your lasagna. Start by adding a little sauce on the bottom, then a layer of noodles, then sauce, spinach, tofu ricotta, a layer of noodles, sauce, spinach, ricotta, a layer of noodles, and then end with sauce and cover the top with shredded vegan cheese (you should have 3 layers of noodles). Cover top of dish with foil, and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook an additional 10 minutes until cheese melts a little on top. Let cool 5 minutes before eating.

Darlene and Eric got married in a beautiful chapel at SUNY Maritime College. The campus is surrounded by water (not surprising), and the grounds provide a rather fetching view of the Throgs Neck Bridge which I was more than a little excited about (also not surprising, given my fascination with bridges). Couple that with some serious salsa dancing at the reception and you’ve got a prettttttty excellent day. Check out some of my favorite shots from it:

You might recall some portraits I posted from this wedding awhile back that were taken during a freak October snow/sleet/rainstorm. Thinking on the fly and wanting to keep everyone dry, I pitched the idea of popping into a local gallery to take a few quick photos, not knowing a). if it would work for photo ops, or b). if we’d even be allowed to shoot there. The wedding party was 100% down to try it out, and we ended up with a few cool shots before being kicked out. See? So much awesome.

And if that wasn’t enough proof of awesomeness, Cora & Matt’s wedding will go down in history as the first wedding where I was literally pulled onto the dancefloor to dance with everyone at the end of the night :)

I can’t get over how funny this picture is. Clearly my cat wanted nothing to do with it :P

Well, I didn’t anticipate the redo to happen the very next year, but let’s just say I did it right this time :) We spent a whole day hiking a good ways into the canyon and back out. The weather was perfect. I didn’t get sick – well, at least not til the last day, when we took a plane ride over the canyon (which was pretty amazing til we hit turbulence and motion sickness knocked out half of the plane).

Besides the Grand Canyon, I also hit up Sedona, Scottsdale, and Tempe and – in true Lindsay fashion – roped my friend into doing a photoshoot with me in the desert. I’m already itching to get back out there!

I remember at one point, Ashleigh said to me “Lindsay, you’re so expressive – I love it!”. And it’s true – I have an extensive repertoire of facial expressions. I also have a ton of energy. So, if I’m taking pictures of you, be warned: you can expect me to laugh a lot, joke around, and have a big goofy smile plastered on my face the entire time. And if I get a particularly amazing shot, my face will light up, and I’ll say something along the lines of “OHMYGOSH I LOVE IT!”. I can’t help it – I get excited about things very easily, especially things I care a lot about (e.g. photography). And I’m pretty ok with that.

Speaking of excitement, I’m pretty psyched for Ashleigh and Shawn’s winter wedding next month! I’m normally not a fan of snow, but I’m secretly hoping we have some for photography’s sake. I figure I can handle a little January snow, since shortly after I’ll be shipping off to Hawaii for my 27th birthday! :D

We started the day with photos by the Brooklyn Bridge on a clear blue sky day, then used the most fetching rooftop view as a backdrop for more portraits. The ceremony and reception took place at ReBar, a ridiculously cool venue in Dumbo that I’d describe as *visually stunning* – which, of course, excites us wedding photographers beyond words!

Yeah, I’d say it was a pretty great day :)