Administrativia

I've been taking it easy on the blogging side of things over the past few months, but am starting to get back into the swing of things... For one thing, the recipes will resume in two weeks -- I've been trying out several new ones and experimenting with various dishes that I think most folks will like.  (For example, I found a new place to get spices that carries quality ground peppers -- from jalepeno powder to New Mexico ancho chili and chipoltle powder which I'm looking forward to using.) I'm also toying with doing a weekly recap from my FaceBook filings -- just to see what the world looked like Twitter-style. But since it's so hot outside, I invite you to enjoy some old favorites from the refrigerated / frozen dessert files: No-Bake Banana Split Cheesecake Chocolate Mousse Pie Double Chocolate Ice Cream Mud Pie Frozen Lemonade Pie Cherry Cheese Pie Strawberry Crunch Strawberry & Lemon Trifle Oreo Cookies & Cream Freeze

Puddings Rum Raisin Bread Pudding No-Bake / Freezer No-Bake Banana Split Cheesecake Chocolate Mousse Pie Double Chocolate Ice Cream Mud Pie Frozen Lemonade Pie Cherry Cheese Pie Strawberry Crunch Strawberry & Lemon Trifle Oreo Cookies & Cream Freeze

Breads, Muffins & Rolls Banana Toffee Rum Bread Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins Foccacia Bread Irish Soda Bread Orange Nut Bread Baking Mix  - for pancakes & biscuits

Brownies, Cookies & Squares Basic Blondies Dark & White Chocolate Chip Blondies Brownies S'mores-style Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches Chocolate Marble Cheesecake Squares Double Chocolate Brownies Cranberry-Raisin Bars Ginger Snaps Lemon Squares Molasses Cookies Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Peanut Butter Bars Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies Pineapple Cookies Peanut Brittle Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies Raisin-Cinnamon Bars Red Velvet Cookies Snickerdoodle Cookies Toffee Nut Bars

Cheesecakes, Pies, Cobblers & Crisps Apple-Blackberry Crisp Easy Peach Cobbler Traditional Apple Pie Buttermilk Pie Key Lime Pie Pumpkin Pie Chocolate Praline Pie Caramel Pecan Cheesecake

Cakes Angel Food Cake Apple Cake Applesauce Cake Applesauce Gems Easy Apple Coffee Cake Butter Eggnog Cake Chocolate Bourbon Bundt Cake Chocolate Pound Cake Coffe Cup Chocolate Cake Caramel Pecan Cheesecake Fruit Cocktail Cake Fluffy Banana Cake with Ice Cream Icing Hungarian Chocolate Cake Jam Cake (aka Kentucky Jam Cake) Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Pumpkin Cake (with molasses) Pumpkin Spice Cake South St. Louis Butter Cake Vanilla Pound Cake

Back to blogging (versus just doing the FaceBook thing).  Having taken a look at the old blog after a bit of an absence, I realized that I needed to break up the dessert lists by category just to simplify things going forward. So the next few posts will be housekeeping posts to create the new lists for the navigation -- I wish Blogger let you have some straight HTML pages as part of your blog, but then again:  IT'S FREE.

Cakes Angel Food Cake Apple Cake Applesauce Cake Applesauce Gems Easy Apple Coffee Cake Butter Eggnog Cake Chocolate Bourbon Bundt Cake Chocolate Pound Cake Coffe Cup Chocolate Cake Caramel Pecan Cheesecake Fruit Cocktail Cake Fluffy Banana Cake with Ice Cream Icing Hungarian Chocolate Cake Jam Cake (aka Kentucky Jam Cake) Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Pumpkin Spice Cake South St. Louis Butter Cake Vanilla Pound Cake Brownies, Cookies & Squares Brownies S'mores-style Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches Chocolate Marble Cheesecake Squares Double Chocolate Brownies Cranberry-Raisin Bars Ginger Snaps Lemon Squares Molasses Cookies Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Peanut Butter Bars Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies Pineapple Cookies Peanut Brittle Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies Raisin-Cinnamon Bars Red Velvet Cookies Snickerdoodle Cookies Toffee Nut Bars Pies, Cobblers & Crisps Apple-Blackberry Crisp Easy Peach Cobbler Traditional Apple Pie Buttermilk Pie...

As promised, I've added the ability to share any of these blog posts via social networking sites like FaceBook, Digg, etc. -- and now you can tweet them as well. As I dig through sites like http://www.bloggerplugins.org/ , I'm finding more things to potentially add -- but want to make sure that the site loads quickly. If you experience problems with the site load or any of the other widgets, please leave a comment.

Soups Baked Potato Soup Brie Soup Cheddar Tomato Dumpling Soup Creamy Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese on Foccacia Cream of Vidalia Onion Soup Easy Tomato Florentine Soup Tomato Basil Bisque Shrimp & Corn Bisque Five Onion Soup Stews / Chili Chili with Beans

Since I started this blog back in 2008, I had no idea that: I would publish over 600 posts, I would post over 240 recipes, People (other than some of my FaceBook friends) would be interested in reading them, and Blogging is still rather fun To keep things interesting going forward, I'm going to be continuing regular recipe features: Recipe Fridays Side-dish Sundays Just Desserts (Tuesdays) Dippity-Do Da & Entertaining Recipes (random) And adding: Soup's On -- a new section of soups & stews, including some slow-cooker / crock-pot favorites Recipe Rewind -- repeating some of the standards already published, but with some additional notes and flourishes Working within the limits of what one can do in Blogger, I'll also be cleaning up the recipe lists to make them a better index and more navigable.  I'll also see what I can do to make it easier to pass things along via FaceBook, Twitter and other social media. Beyond that, I'll still be posting ...

This is a test of the Dragon for iPhone software to see whether or not this is actually something I couldn't use to blog while I'm on the go versus trying to test everything out on my little iPhone screen

I found a template generator -- Artisteer -- and am learning the product so I can change up the look & feel beyond what you get with the standard Blogger templates. So, if you happen by over the next few weeks and notice everything changing -- call it a learning curve -- especially as I try and figure out how to enable some of the tools like LinkedWithin that seem to only come back sporadically.  (I'm thinking a conflict with the CSS, but can't be sure.)

A different view of my blog thanks to Wordle .

Blogging sporadically during the dog-days of summer, but now that Fall is here... it's time to get back in the habit of regularly blogging (versus just updating my Facebook status.) With that in mind, I couldn't help but enjoy Kathy Griffin's take on the whole Kate is Enough saga.

BBQ Cheddar Burgers Beefy Biscuit Casserole Beef Bourguignon Beef Taco Skillet Cheeseburger Macaroni Bake Chicken Fried Steak Chili Mac Chili with Beans Coca-Cola/Catalina Burgers Ground Beef Casserole Hamburger Stroganoff Heavenly Hamburger Bake Sandwiches Impossible Cheeseburger Pie Meatloaf Pizza Fondue Popover Pizza Casserole Porcupines Quick Skillet Lasagna Rice & Beef Stovetop Casserole Roast Veal Fillets in Lemon Cream Sauce Swedish Meatballs Tamale Pie Spaghetti Sauce with Meat

Almond Basil Pesto Chicken over Angel Hair Pasta Almond Chicken Casserole Asian-style Chicken & Spinach Dumplings Beer Can Chicken Champagne Chicken & Mushrooms Champagne Chicken Salad Cheesy Chicken Fingers Chicken Amandine Chicken Blue Croquettes Chicken Croquettes Chicken Koulibiak Chicken Mac & Cheese Chicken Mignon with Sesame Noodles Chicken Pita Pizzas Chicken & Noodle Casserole Chicken Souffle Sandwich Chicken Rice Casserole Cranberry Chicken Breasts Creamy Lemon Chicken Devonshire Chicken Drunken Chicken Easy Chicken Pot Pie Easy Skillet Chicken Bistro Ginger Peachy Skillet Chicken Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Cranberry Aioli King Ranch Casserole Italian Baked Chicken & Pasta Mike's "Cordon Blue" Chicken & Rice Parmesan Crusted Chicken Strips Pecan-crusted Chicken in Gorgonzola Sauce Pecan & Mustard-Crusted Chicken Pineapple Chicken & Rice Skillet Chicken Cacciatore with Pas...

Summer time, and the living is easy... I'm taking a much needed break from work (and blogging) -- back in 10 days!

I had to take out the individual post widgets as this was creating a serious hang-time on page load (and totally locked things up when looking at the site on my iPhone). I've left the sidebar widget in place -- it seems to work ok. For future posts, I'm also considering adding metadata to the HTML to see if that might refine or boost the evri results. It's unfortunate that Google's algorithm doesn't use metadata -- at least not the way we rely on it for Web information on the company Intranet.

I'm experimenting on the blog with EVRI -- I've added the widget to each post to see how it reacts... the recipe posts seem to get hung up on sugar as the primary tag, which doesn't seem provide much value. I'm going to add EVRI to the right under the posts section to see what kind of results you get for the blog in general. I have noticed that there is a slight drop-off in page-load time. If that continues to be an issue, I'll drop the widgets.