Written By Bani Chawla

A lot of us are pottering around the kitchen and cooking/ baking for ourselves and our families during our time at home. Some of us are digging for old recipes while others are scouring the web for healthy renditions of our favourite foods on Pinterest and food blogs.

I wanted to share some easy tips for you to get some lovely photographs of your meal at home. This could be particularly useful if you are writing about food, intend to create a cookbook or just brushing up on your photography skills. Here they some and I really hope they help you:

1. Natural Light Location: Try and locate a window/door through which natural light falls beautifully and doesn’t have shadows.
2. Setting Up: Set up a table next to it (the light should fall on the table from the front and you should be on the other side/behind the table to photograph)
3. The Colour: Your table should ideally be a light colour (preferably white or grey) Light colours make the product/dish you have prepared stand out with undivided attention to it and allow your viewers to pay more attention to your content (especially relevant if you are a chef or started a food blog)
4. Props: I hope you have some Suite Number Eight? But, if you don’t dig out your crockery (from your mother’s wedding dinner set, silverware, pastel plates, bold- colourful plates, some cutlery and flowers from your garden if you’d like)
5. Styling: Plate your food to your preference and use your creativity to style your table. If you’re trying to focus on the dish prepared, place it in the centre and add the condiments and props around it. I like to follow a positive and negative space balance; which means if one area of my table is crowded I like to leave the remaining empty which allows for some breathing space by allowing the products to stand out.
6. Click away! I use portrait mode to shoot from my phone and I always open Instagram Stories to get another shot of the same frame.
7. Share these photographs : We would love to see what you are cooking and photographing, share your photos + recipes with us and if we love them, we would love to feature you on our channels.

Staying at home has also made us try so many new recipes so I’d like to share one of a pizza we prepared and plated for a Sunday Brunch with the family and the almond flour pancakes that my brother and I have grown to LOVEEEEE.

The first thing I did was to set the table, of course:)

I placed our Mehrab Pizza board in the center and placed the pomegranate halves on the left side with condiments; edible flowers, oregano and chili flake mix and watermelon seeds. I arranged the plates into a stack on the right.

Setting the table before allows you to put your creativity to test and style a table pretty for your family and those dining with you. All serveware is from www.suitenumbereight.com

Planning and setting up the table layout ahead of time also allows you to focus on cooking your meal so you don’t have to multi-task when your dish is ready.

Without further ado, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

Pizza Base

Tomatoes

Oregano

Basil

Garlic Cloves

Salt

Pepper

Onions

All below from Krishi Cress

Kale

Baby Spinach

Red Peppers

Green Peppers

Green Olives

Mushrooms

Goats Cheese

Parmesan Cheese

Method

Marinara Sauce for 10-12 Pizzas

Wash the 10-12 medium sized tomatoes and cut into small wedges by dividing each tomato into four equal halves. Mash 7-8 cloves of garlic and spread through the tomato wedges. 

Place a pan on your stove top and bring 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter to heat. Add the tomato wedges, sprinkle ½ tablespoon of salt and cook until pulpy.

Add a handful of basil leaves and black pepper and fold into the pulpy tomatoes using a spatula.

 And, voila your marinara sauce is ready.

For the PIZZA

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

Place the pizza base onto a pizza tray

Spread the marinara sauce across the pizza using knife

Start layering by putting the kale and spinach leaves at the bottom, then add the red and green peppers, mushrooms, chicken salami (meat of your choice), green olives, goats cheese and parmesan cheese right at the end and on the top.

Place the pizza into the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.

Place onto the serving board and garnish with edible flowers, dried watermelon seeds, and sprinkle with oregano and chili flakes.

Watermelon Salad

Ingredients

Watermelon

Basil Leaves

Pomegranate Seeds

Balsamic Vinegar

Method

Cut the watermelon into square cubes while taking out the seeds, add the basil leaves, pomegranate seeds and 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Combine together and refrigerate for 5-10 minutes. (refrigerating it makes it nice and cold to eat during summer)

NOWWW for the delicious+ healthy + grain free pancake recipe with almond flour

Almond Flour Pancake alongside a Petit Serving of Papaya

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon Almond Flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour but you can easily make yours at home)

1 whole Egg

Cinnamon Powder (Optional)

Maple syrup to taste (optional)

Coconut Oil

Granola (I use CAARA’s wheat free granola) and this is option

Blueberries, strawberries or even 1 banana sliced

Almond Butter (I use The Butternut Companies’ Almond Butter & Flaxseed)

Method

Place your pan on the stove and put a teaspoon of coconut oil.

Combine almond flour, egg, maple syrup, cinnamon (to taste) together and blend using a fork and when combined well, pour this mixture onto the pan.

Cook one side for 2-3 minutes until it is formed enough to flip the other side.

Flip the other side and cook for another 2-3 minutes until it is a light golden brown.

Place the pancake on your plate. Be Careful and make sure it’s not too hot…

1. Spread the almond butter on the pancake

2. Garnish with granola and blueberries

3. Voila, youre done! Bon Apetit!

All serve ware from Suite Number Eight; pomegranate halves used to serve condiments.

Almond Flour Pancake plated in a Club 7’ Polka Dot Plate, Papaya served in a Petit 4’ Plate

I really hope you enjoyed these tips+ recipes and would love to see what you cook+ create.

About Suite No.8: Suite No.8 is a home decor brand composed of capsule collections that like keys, allow you to check into vibrant locations and hotels through time. We have a Suite No. 8 at The Grand Budapest Hotel, El Fenn in Marrakech, at Caara and most recently, under the Moon! Our design ethos is centred around the idea that design must be an attentive service in itself, and that design must help create special moments for individuals and their families. You can learn more about them here.

About the author: Bani Chawla is at once whimsical and detail oriented, one who enjoys the blissfully indulgent slow life and the pace of growing business around craft. She is known for her keen eye that is incidentally synchronous with a global design zeitgeist. Her meticulous to do lists are loved by associates as much as the rotating collection of notebooks she keeps them in. She hopes to one day create her own hotel with each room designed around the persona’s she has imagined catering to!