Pan-Fried Threadfin with Pine Nut Brown Butter

When I started blogging (on my personal blog) way back in 2004, there was only person who read it--my best friend; she started blogging first and we were doing it to keep in touch. After a while a few others started reading my blog, too, first my parents, then some friends.

In time I realised that I wanted to blog mostly about home cooking. So I started Simply Cooked in 2009 and imported all my cooking-related posts from my personal blog. And now there are more readers than my best friend and my parents! (I'm up to 15000 pageveiws a month, actually, so thanks for reading!!) I feel blessed to be able to share ideas with you, thoughtful bloggers and readers.

Weekend Links #39

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every month. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:

--This pictorial guide to mushrooms (from Oh My Veggies) takes you through the main types, storage, and preparation.
--A guide to recipe copyright by Paleo Living Magazine. An in-depth look at recipe copyright from all angles.
--I'm still trying to find healthy milk to drink - and the latest wandering step is A2 Milk.

recipe links:

--I find wine too hard to navigate so I think I will try to learn something about whiskey instead. Here is a list of the best affordable bottles (from Serious Eats). And here's an extremely simple cocktail made with whiskey called The Presbyterian (from Martha Stewart). There's also the hot toddy, of course (from The Guardian's wonderful How to Make the Perfect [weekly recipe] column by Felicity Cloake).
--German mulled wine (from Rachel Cotterill). Even though I live in the tropics I am still desiring this warming Christmassy winter drink.
--I'm going to be making some veggie "risotto" soon and I plan to use this recipe as a guide: turnip "risotto" with spinach and rosemary (from Inspiralized).

books I'm reading:

--I just finished Man's Search for Meaning by Victor E Frankl, a classic which argues that we can all make choices and our life's meaning is found in making them.
--The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction by Nate Silver. It's about separating out the "signal" in data to help make predictions. He covers many fields such as weather, earthquakes, elections, sports, and health. Fascinating.

Weekend Links #36

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every month. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--Saveur's Best Food Blogs Awards highlight some incredible blogs. There are plenty of new-to-me reads here as well as many old favourites.

recipe links:
--How ingenious is this? A porridge recipe that has a blended egg whisked in during cooking. That sounds like a great way to add protein to your breakfast (from Natural Kitchen Adventures).
--I like the idea of a corn and parmesan cheese creme brûlée (from Tasty Kitchen).
--You can make your own electrolyte energy cubes for endurance sports like long distance running (from Healthful Pursuit).
--My friend at work made fermented ginger ale (from Wellness Mama). I want to make some too. I also really want to buy some nice flip-top bottles; hee hee!
--Also on my list of fermented foods to make: easy peasy probiotic pickles (from Sarah Ramsden).
--And finally, I should go back to making yogurt at home (pictured above).

books I'm reading:
--Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H Pink
--A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage

From Scratch: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin [book review]

This month's Kitchen Reader book is From Scratch: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin (chosen by Pech of Pechluck’s Food Adventures). First, a confession: I have barely ever watched the Food Network. But that didn't stop me from reading about it and reporting back to you!

The book is a lengthy chronicle of the Food Network from before its birth until 2013. It's fascinating to read about the interplay of characters who shaped what it was and is. Even for me, with little background knowledge, the book was written in a way that allowed me to understand and enjoy the ups and downs.

I've decided to take a different format for this review. I'm going to share some quotations from the book and tell you what they made me think. I found that since I don't know much about the Food Network, I was always reading with a focus on how people reacted to food media as a whole. I found that a lot of the comments could be connected to food blogging (and food writing, magazines, and food entertainment as a whole). All my thoughts revolve around the question: What makes a good food-related story or TV idea?

Why I Switched RSS Feed Readers from Feedly to Bloglovin'

Since the demise of Google Reader last year I have been testing out a number of RSS feed readers. After trying The Old Reader for only a couple of days, I switched to Feedly and decided to stick with it for a while. I liked that it was clean and good-looking. It's easy to organize. And there was a good import feature from Google Reader that meant all my feeds were pre-sorted as I like them. But there were two key things that Feedly doesn't have which has made me leave it in the end.

1. Feedly has a very poor search feature for those with free membership. For example, I was searching for "chicken" in my hundreds of food blogs and the search result is pictured below. I could click on the first two results but the rest were hidden. Instead there was a dialogue box saying, "There are more search results for chicken. Upgrade to Pro to see them all." I was mightily unimpressed.

Ask Sarah

Hi everyone! I'm really pleased with the new "Ask Sarah" page that I made. See it there on the top menu bar? It's a simple Google Form that I embedded onto a page. It's a new way to communicate with me.

As well as asking a question, you could use it for many other things.

• give me something you think we might enjoy if I researched and wrote about
• inspire me with a recipe idea
• tell me what you like on the blog
• tell me what could be improved on the blog
• report technical difficulties
• just to say hello

Weekend Links #33

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--Looking back on Elizabeth David's legacy (from the Observer Food Monthly). She has been described as the UK's "first lady of food" thanks to her 1950s cookbooks lauding fresh, mediterranean ingredients.
--Eating healthfully is easier when you have a bigger reason to do it than for yourself. Enter a Christian reason to serve God with your diet (from The Atlantic). The article also compares the church to Weight Watchers.
--The comments in this short article from The Kitchn elaborate on what "clean as you go" really means for a messy cook.

image source: My New Roots

Simply Cooked's Best of 2013

Most Popular Posts

My most visited posts this year were all posts written before this year. I'm a little surprised that the top five are not more recent ones. But there are some classically helpful posts in this list, and that is what visitors to Simply Cooked are looking for (and finding!).

How to Cook Perfect Quail's Eggs

The largest amount of searchers come to Simply Cooked looking for instructions on how to hard boil perfect quail's eggs. This post was visited more than 90,000 times in 2013, which is more than double the visits for any other post.

Light Box for Food Photography: Step-by-Step



The post giving instructions for how to build a light box was written in 2010, and was my first widely popular post. It was also a turning point for my photography since with better lighting I was able to take much, much better pictures. If you don't yet have a light box, make one soon.

Weekend Links #32

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--How many times should you try a food before deciding you don't like it? At least once, argues Jay Rayner in The Observer Food Monthly. And in the case of tripe, many more times. (I have not tried it so I can't comment.)
--A detailed (but readable) analysis of 23 studies comparing low fat and low carbohydrate diets (from Authority Nutrition).
--"Don't bother going out to eat all the time"... and you will enjoy it more (from Casual Kitchen). The same goes for eating chocolate.

Warm Bean and Courgette Salad with Mint

I read a lot of food blogs. Precisely 278 food blogs. I use Google Reader to do this - it aggregates all the new posts and if you've never tried it before, you should! Start by adding Simply Cooked and a few other blogs to your Reader and away you go! (You'll love it, I promise.)

Here's the thing. There is a big, gaping hole in my list of food blogs. I want, but can't seem to find, more food blogs that concentrate on vegetables. I can't get over my love to all things veggie, and I want to find more people who feel the same. I want to drool over pictures of beautiful salads. I want to find intriguing combinations of crisp and green things. I want to feel inspired to make more of my vegetables and inspired to buy more new-to-me items.

Empty

I haven't blogged much lately as I feel empty of ideas. I haven't been photographing much lately because I haven't been enjoying cooking much lately. And I think not enjoying grocery shopping much lately has been a part of the problem, too.

Thanks for Visiting!

Hello, friends! This is just a short, personal note to say thanks for visiting Simply Cooked, or liking us on Facebook. In the last four months the blog has had over 10,000 page views each month! This is a huge milestone for me and I'm so excited. Plus, there are more than 300 people subscribed to the blog by email or RSS feed.


My next goal is to increase the interactivity on the Simply Cooked Facebook page. I think it could be a great place to share easy, tasty recipe ideas. Anyone can post there, so I hope you will. Next time you find something interesting around the web, please share it with the Simply Cooked community by posting it there. Or share your kitchen ideas.

New Business Cards for Simply Cooked

I have ordered some new business cards today using the superb service from Moo. The card stock they use is heavy and glossy and the print quality is excellent. I have used them before and loved the results. Last week I ran out of Simply Cooked cards so I decided that it was time to order new ones with rounded corners. And I am thrilled that this time they include QR codes!

10 Ways to Encourage Conversations and Comments on Your Blog

I recently sat in on an enlightening twitter chat about gaining comments on your blog by following along with the hashtag #blogchat. The discussion included some very thoughtful and experienced bloggers, as well as lots of newbies and everyone in between. We were talking about promoting conversation on your blog. Here are some of the ideas I found most useful. (There are certainly lots of things for me to learn!)


1. People will comment when there is something worth talking about. Try posting about topics you know your readers will find interesting and want to talk about. Invite them to respond by asking "What do you think?"

@Stevefogg I think that conversation can only happen if the blog post is something worth talking about

@Jenica704 Creating talkable content means knowing your audience.

@patricksplace I encourage people to disagree. Things are much more interesting that way...as long as everyone is respectful.

@samfiorella Ask yourself: Is your blog an answer blog or a conversation blog?

Simply Cooked's Facebook Page

I'm thrilled to announce that Simply Cooked now has a Facebook page. Those who like the page get to see updates in their news feed and interact with other readers. Please head over there and check it out!

creating blog community -- and party pinwheels

How do you increase community connections on your blog? This is a key question for successful bloggers. We try to create a feeling of camaraderie here on our blogs and recently I have felt very much befriended and involved with others on the web. One strategy that has helped me was joining blog events like this one, the Secret Recipe Club. My assignment this month was Jam Hands, written by Ali. She uses some incredible methods for improving the community on her blog--simple ideas that are effective, too. (Oh, and she makes some mighty tasty party pinwheels.)