My son recently gave me an amazing new camera. It’s called a Lytro light field camera, and it operates on an entirely different principle than regular cameras. Peter is a techie who lives and works in Silicon Valley, so he is always up to date with the latest gadgets. This camera captures light in such a way that you can focus on any part of your image, and change the focus with the touch of a finger. You can also take close-up images from only a few centimeters away from the subject, so he thought that I would find it useful in making images of food. In spite of the instruction manual, using the camera is not intuitive – at least not for someone of my age. With practice, though, I think I have caught the hang of it. Also, you need a computer with a fairly recent operating system to take advantage of the focusing feature. Unfortunately, when you publish the images you have to convert them to jpegs so that the focusing is lost. Thus, you won’t be able to get a full appreciation of how unique the camera is, and how much fun it is to use. Except for the images of the Lytro camera, which I made with my iPhone, the images in this post are made with the Lytro. Let me know what you think of them.
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I know. I know. You are not supposed to mix fish and cheese. But I was looking for something to photograph with my new camera and decided to use what I was cooking, macaroni and cheese, as the test . But how can a person put plain old mac and cheese on a food blog? So I added a few twists to make me feel better. One of those twists is the use of Old Bay seasoning which adds just a little bit of pep to shellfish. Be careful, though, or you can over-do it. You can also omit the seasoning if you like. Here it is, then, shrimp, artichoke, and mushroom mac and cheese shot with a Lytro light field camera.
RECIPE
Shrimp, Artichoke and Mushroom Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients
-
5 tablespoons butter, divided + more to butter the baking dish
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1½ cups milk
- salt and pepper
- 1 ounce Cheddar cheese, grated
- 1 ounce mozzarella cheese, grated
- 2 ounces Swiss cheese, grated
- ½ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning (optional)
- salt and pepper
- 2 quarts of salted water
- 2 cups dry macaroni
- ½ pound (31/40) shrimp, peeled, deveined, and rinsed
- 6 medium crimini mushrooms, rinsed and broken into pieces
- 1 cup marinated, quartered mushroom hearts, drained
- ¾ cup panko
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
Method
- In a medium saucepan, melt 3 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.
- add the flour and stir in the flour cooking for a few minutes to remove the raw flour taste.
- Add the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to remove any lumps and to avoid scorching until thickened.
- Turn the heat to low and stir in the Cheddar, mozzarella, and Swiss cheeses. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Add optional Old Bay seasoning. When the cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth, remove from the heat and set aside.
- In a large pot, bring the salted water to a boil. Add the macaroni and cook at the boil, stirring occasionally, until the macaroni is al dente. Drain.
- In the large pot, combine the cheese sauce and cooked macaroni.
- Stir in the shrimp, mushrooms, and artichokes
- Prepare the baking dish by heavily greasing the inside with butter. Then coat the butter layer with panko crumbs. Pour in the macaroni mixture.
- In a small saucepan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the remaining panko and brown it lightly, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Remove from the heat
- Combine the toasted panko and grated Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle the mixture over the top of the macaroni mixture.
- Bake for 45 minutes in the middle of an oven pre-heated to 350°F. If the top becomes too brown, cover with aluminum foil and continue baking.
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From the Family Table 
Congrats on the camera. This recipe looks great. I recently read that many chefs now say fish + cheese are okay to mix. 🙂
Sort of like wine – red or white? – really doesn’t matter as long as it’s wine!
Oh, I agree completely. To me, good wine is good wine. 🙂 I am really missing it these days!!!! Maybe the baby will come early. 😉
The baby Wil arrive in his/her own time. I’ll be thinking about you.
Thank you! Yes, those are true words. 🙂
An unusual contraption – I am not good with new things – I tend to end up getting quite annoying as I will think about and look at nothing else until I have it working (which can take weeks) – especially software eg the new film editing software which I dont seem to be able to use at the moment…
I know that’s not true. Your blog always seems to have the latest touches. Have a good day!
Fascinating new camera! And your new style of laying out photos for a gallery is really nice, too. Is that because of the Lytro, or have you learned some new tricks using WordPress?
Thank you Diane, The layout is part of WordPress. When you add media to the post, there is a button labeled “Create Gallery” and then there is a drop-down that lets you choose how the images are arranged. I have used square tiles. Tile mosaic sometimes distorts the images. You can also display the images as circles.
Another toy…your new camera will be fun to play with. I like your combination of ingredients in your mac and cheese. I need to get more inventive. 🙂
Thanks, Karen, for your comments. Yes, the new camera is fun to play with. I think you are already pretty inventive with your cooking and your photography.