September 28, 2010
Squash Fest
A few weeks ago I started receiving squash in my CSA box. I’ve mostly gotten butternut squash, but also an acorn squash. Although zucchini is one of our favorite vegetables, I’ve done very little with other squashes. Last year I made a butternut squash soup that I really liked, and I cooked spaghetti squash a few times. Really, my squash experience is very limited. However, in an effort to eat more seasonally I decided I want to try more squash recipes this fall. That gave me the idea for this Squash Fest (actually Wendy of Celiacs in the House came up with the name). What is the Squash Fest? I have asked eight bloggers to do a guest post including a squash recipe or squash tips. Those guest posts will show up here on Thursdays beginning this week and going until the week before Thanksgiving. A big thank you to all these bloggers. Here’s the line up:
| September 30 | Wendy of Celiacs in the House |
| October 7 | Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl |
| October 14 | Aubree of Living Free |
| October 21 | Alta of Tasty Eats at Home |
| October 28 | Shirley of Gluten Free Easily |
| November 4 | Heidi of Adventures of a Gluten-Free Mom |
| November 11 | Amy of Simply Sugar & Gluten Free |
| November 18 | Iris of The Daily Dietribe |
By the way, if anyone is interested in doing a holiday themed guest post for me in December, just let me know.
Labels: blogging
June 2, 2010
Printable Recipes
For your information, I have set up a sub domain for printable recipes. You will see my header and some ads on the page along with the recipe, but only the recipe will print. You can use your browsers print preview to see how it will look. There are no photos with the recipe. The sub domain will only show my most current recipe, but you can get to other recipes from their original post.
You may have noticed a “View Printable Recipe” link on my cake recipe this week. If you tried that link, you weren’t able to get to the actual recipe page because I forgot to change the setting that allows others to view it. That is corrected and you can now view the printable recipe. Sorry!
I still have the print friendly button at the bottom of all my posts so that previous recipes can be printed. I think the new method will be easier for you though. I hope you find this helpful.
Labels: blogging
May 28, 2010
Gluten-Free Blogroll
With all the great gluten-free blogs out there, I have not been able to keep up with updating my blog roll. I have decided instead to keep this post as a resource. If you want to be listed here, please let me know. Instead of leaving a comment, I would like you to use Mr. Linky. I will periodically check Mr. Linky, add the blogs to my list, and then delete them from Mr. Linky. I'm looking for blogs that are primarily about gluten-free living. If you added a link, but I didn't put it in the list, it is probably because I felt your blog contained too little gluten-free information. If you have a question about that or you change the focus of your blog, please let me know.
When entering your blog, in the box next to “name” put your blog title and in parentheses list other foods that you also omit from your diet. It is assumed that everyone is gluten free, but if you also blog about a sugar free and soy free diet, you would enter this: Your Blog Title (sugar, soy). That doesn’t mean that every recipe or product review on your blog is sugar and soy free, but is should be what you primarily and currently blog about. In the box next to “url” please put your home page blog address.
Blogs will be permanently added to the list at my discretion. Blogs with offensive material will not be added. I don’t expect this to be a problem, but you never know.
A Life of Sugar and Spice (dairy free)
About Allergy
Adventures of a Gluten-Free Mom
Amongst Lovely Things
Auntjayne's Blog
Beyond Rice and Tofu (vegetarian)
Bubble Tummy
Bye Bye Bread (corn)
Celiac At School
Celiac Family
Celiac Teen
Celiacs in the House
Celtic Celiac
Chaya's Comfy Cook Blog
CJ's Woodland Shed and the Autism Journey
Cooking Gluten Free
Dharma Cakes (dairy, egg, & soy free)
Easy To Be Gluten Free
Elegantly, Gluten-Free
Enjoy Life Free
Free to Feast (sugar, most dairy, grain & starch free)
Freedom to Dine
Finding Food
Fit Food Lover
Flip Cookbook
G is for Gluten
Ginger Lemon Girl
Glugle Gluten-Free
Gluten Hates Me
Gluten Free A-Z (vegetarian)
Gluten Free April
Gluten Free Asian Food
Gluten Free Birmingham
Gluten Free Cheaply!
Gluten-Free Denver
Gluten Free Diva
Gluten Freedom (dairy free)
Gluten Free Easily
Gluten-Free Flavor Full
Gluten-Free Food That Even My Husband Likes
Gluten Free Gluttony
Gluten Free 4 Goofs
Gluten-Free Greenie
Gluten Free & Healthy for Me
Gluten Free in SLC
Gluten Free Kitchen (dairy & soy free)
Gluten Free Motherhood
Gluten Free Naturally
Gluten-Free Optimist
Gluten Free Real Food (sugar, dairy, & grain free)
Gluten Free Recipe Box
Gluten Free Recipes
Gluten-Free Social Media Tips
Gluten Free Spinner
Gluten Free Taste of Home
Gluten Free and You
Goodbye Goldfish
Gracefully Gluten-Free
Gwinnett GF Food Examiner
Healthy Mama
I'm A Celiac
I Made Toast
Jenn Cuisine
Karina's Kitchen
Kosher Heathy Foodie
La Maoomba
Lisa's Gluten-Free Advice and Healthy Living
Living and Loving Gluten and Casein Free (casein free)
Living Free (dairy & sugar free)
Losing Creek Farm (soy, nuts, legumes)
Lynn's Recipe Adventures (nut & peanut free)
Madison Papers
Make it Gluten Free
Marine Corps Nomads
My Marriage Has Autism (dairy & egg free)
Mysteries Internal
Saving U Cents
Silly Celiac, You Can't Have Wheat!
Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free
Sing Cook Write (egg & dairy free)
Sophies Foodie Files
Super Charged Foods Blog
Sweet Sensitivity
Tasty Eats At Home
The Baking Beauties
The Crazy Kitchen
The Daily Dietribe
The Discerning Kitchen (corn, soy, dairy)
The Frugally Rich Life (dairy, sugar, most soy, and red meat free)
The Gluten Free Digest
The Gluten Free Food Blog
The Mommy Bowl (dairy, red meat, & refined sugar free)
The Not So Perfect Housewife
The Pink Cowgirl
Vividly & Gluten Free
What Can You Eat? (mostly vegetarian)
What Life Dishes Out
Wheatless Foodie
If you would like to use this button, feel free to copy and paste the code below. It will automatically link back to this post.
Labels: blogging
May 23, 2010
Going Dairy Free
I have been on a gluten-free diet for over nine years, but I have a new challenge to face these days. I am trying to eat dairy free. I bought this thyroid book
recently, and in addition to a gluten-free diet, the author also recommends a dairy free diet for most people with Hashimoto’s disease. I have suspected dairy for some time, and I’m finally ready to give it a good try. This is a hard one for me. I’m not a milk drinker, but I use plenty of it in baking recipes. I am a cheese and butter eater. I love cheese and butter. I try to go easy on them because of their fat content, but the thought of giving them up for good is sad.However, I know I can do this. It’s been a week, and already I have found that it’s not as hard as I thought. Last week I had pizza without cheese and really didn’t miss it that much. I’m still very new at this, though, and I would love to get your help. I know many of my readers are also dairy free, and I would love to hear from you. What are your favorite substitutes? What are your favorite web sites? What are your favorite cookbooks? Please leave a comment or send me an email.
As for this blog, I’m not sure what this change means. You will certainly be seeing some dairy free recipes, though some recipes with dairy will probably still show up. I look forward to hearing from you!
Be sure to enter this week's giveaway!
Labels: blogging, gluten-free diet
April 3, 2010
A Party Invitation
If you have never participated in the Ultimate Blog Party at 5 Minutes for Mom, you really should consider it. It’s a great way to meet new bloggers and to help other people find your blog. It’s a lot of fun, and there are tons of prizes. It starts next Friday, April 9th. I’ll be participating, and I hope to see you there!
Labels: blogging
January 10, 2010
Survey Winners and Printer Friendly Recipes
Thank you to the more than 100 readers who completed my survey! I learned that 74% would like me to write more about gluten-free living and 57% would like more kitchen tips. I'll have to give those some thought. Your comments were helpful, encouraging, and very much appreciated. I will leave the survey open. If you didn't have a chance to complete it yet, I would still love for you to do it. The randomly chosen winners were:
Heidi - Gluten-Free Quick & Easy by Carol Fenster
Sharon, Tammy, & Stephanie - both of my ebooks
Printer Friendly
A couple of people mentioned in the survey that they would like to have printer friendly versions of my recipes. After looking into it, I was pleased to find an easy way to accomplish that. You will now find a green "print friendly" button at the bottom of each post. When you click on that, a new window will open showing a printer friendly version. There is a box on the top left that you can check if you want to remove the photos. If you move your cursor over different parts of the posts, they will be highlighted and you can delete them if you want by simply clicking. That would come in handy if you only want to remove some of the photos, or if you want to remove the non-recipe part of my post. I realize this isn't a perfect solution, because you have to do a little editing to get only the recipe, but I think it is much easier than having to copy and paste a recipe into another document. You can also choose to save the post as a PDF file or email it. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
Labels: blogging
January 3, 2010
A Reader Survey
It’s that time of year when we evaluate and set goals for our lives. As I was reflecting on the past year of blogging, I realized that I only receive input in the form of comments or emails from a small fraction of my readers. I find myself asking, “How can I make decisions about my blog when I don’t know what my readers want?”
I love hearing from people. When you tell me that a certain recipe or my blog in general has made your day, that encourages me to keep blogging. When you ask questions, it helps me learn what people are looking for. I blog because it is something I want to do, and I find it rewarding. But I also blog for you. It is only rewarding when I know that other people are benefitting from what I do.
With that in mind, I have created a reader survey. It contains 17 questions. All but three are multiple choice or check the boxes. Some of the questions pertain to information about you and others are specific to my blog.
I am giving away one copy of Carol Fenster’s cookbook Gluten-Free Quick & Easy. I will also give away both of my eBooks to three additional winners. If you choose to leave your first name and email address at the end of the survey, you will be entered for a chance to win. I would really appreciate it if you would take a couple of minutes to complete the survey.
Thank you!!
Labels: blogging
October 14, 2009
Blog Layout Poll
I have come to learn from other bloggers, however, that many readers do not like post summaries because they don't want to click to finish reading. I would like to know what MY readers think. Please take a minute to participate in this poll. Thanks!
Labels: blogging
August 23, 2009
Blogging and Money
How I monetize this blog:
The Food Buzz ads are pretty obvious. One reason I chose Food Buzz is because this is a food blog. Another reason is that payment it based on page loads. You can help bloggers with these types of adds by visiting their web pages often. However, I’m all in favor of using a feed reader and I purposely have my entire posts published in my feeds because I understand that sometimes you just don’t have time to visit every blog.
I use Google Adsense in my feeds and on my customized Google search page. This has not been very profitable because payment is based on clicks, not page loads. However, I’m not asking you to click on ads. You should only click on those that are of interest to you.
I also use the Amazon Affiliate program. The way it works is I receive a small referral free for purchases made through a link on my blog, no matter what items are purchased. I think this is a great way to support your favorite bloggers. When you plan on buying something at Amazon, just get there through a link on one of the blogs you read.
Unlike Food Buzz and Adsense, I have complete control over the Amazon products that are advertised. I use the Amazon program in a couple of ways. The “My Store” link at the top of the page takes you to a page that lists some of my Amazon picks in several different categories including books, groceries, and kitchen items. These are items I can personally recommend.
I also include links to Amazon products or pages in some of my posts. These links are generally for sales on gluten-free groceries some of which I have tried and som
Making money on blogs used to be looked down upon, but things have changed and it is pretty common these days. I hope this information was helpful to some of you, and please let me know if you have questions or concerns.
Labels: blogging
August 18, 2009
One Year of Blogging
Blogging has been rewarding in several ways:
- I’ve met many new people and become friends with some of you, even though we’ve never met in person.
- I’ve enjoyed the writing. I don’t consider myself to be a terrific writer, but I do enjoy it and find it therapeutic.
- I’ve enjoyed the challenge and learning process of blog design.
- I’ve become more interested in creating new recipes and fixing new food.
- I’ve gained inspiration and knowledge from other people’s blogs which I might not have found otherwise.
- I’ve greatly enjoyed helping other people through the recipes and information on my blog.
When I started blogging, I thought I would write about everything—gluten-free recipes, celiac disease, homemaking, homeschooling, dogs, frugality, and anything else that came to mind. I found out several things:
- I didn’t have time to write about everything.
- Many other people wrote about some of the things much better than I could.
- Having such a wide range of topics was not the best strategy for blog growth.
In January I think it was, I switched to writing only about the gluten-free diet and celiac disease. It was a good move. It keeps me focused and it helps people to know what they will find here.
Thank you to all my readers. This blog would mean nothing without some one to read it. I appreciate your emails and comments. I especially appreciate your encouragement that lets me know you enjoy a particular recipe or find my blog helpful in general. It’s been a great year of blogging and I plan on continuing so let me know if there’s is anything you would like to see on this blog. I’ll work it in if I can. Thanks again. You all are great!
Labels: blogging
August 17, 2009
New Items in My Sidebar
I noticed a Blogger sidebar gadget called Seasonal Foods. I added it to my page because I thought it might be useful for some of you. If you click on “Maryland”, then click again you can choose your state from the dropdown menu. Right now it is set to show what is in season in late August, but you can change that in the same way. After you make your selections, it will show you what foods are in season in your area. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
I also added a “What’s for dinner?” box. I plan on using it to let you know what I’m having for dinner. Since I’m not much of a menu planner, I’ll probably leave each day up as I go through the week until the following week. It can serve as a menu of sorts if you’re looking for ideas. I don’t promise that I’ll remember to post what we’re having every day, but I’ll try to do most days. I’d love to get your feedback on that idea also.
Any comments are always appreciated and I would love to hear from more of you!
Labels: blogging
March 1, 2009
What is Your Gluten-Free Story?
Today I’m asking all of you, my readers, to write something for me! I would like to get to know you better, to hear your story, and find out how I can help you more. I would also like for all of you to get to know each other a little bit and learn from each other. Here is what I propose.
You tell me about yourself and/or your family by sending me an email with the following kind of information:
- Who in your family eats gluten-free?
- How long have they been gf?
- Why are they gf?
- Stories about becoming gf (diagnosis, medical problems, behavioral problems, how you found out about the gf diet, etc.)
- How the gf diet has helped.
- What kind of information are you looking for? (getting started, cooking, recipes, health issues, etc.)
- How would you encourage someone else on a gf diet?
I will excitedly receive your emails and read them thoroughly. I will then choose some (depending on how many I receive) that I will write about and post on my blog as an introduction to that particular person or family (using first names only). Pictures would be welcome. If you are a blog author, I would include that information also. I would love for this to become an ongoing weekly feature to my blog.
Please email your gluten-free story to me by clicking on the link in this sentence, or using the “Contact” button at the top of the page. I look forward to hearing from you!
Labels: blogging
February 4, 2009
Blogging Changes
This month it will be six months since I started this blog. I have enjoyed it and learned a lot. Now I think I’m ready to make some changes.
First, life is very full right now. I home school my three kids. My oldest is a senior this year, and there is much to be done this last semester. We have to finish all instruction and paperwork by the middle of May. Our home school umbrella holds a graduation, but the nine graduates have to plan and organize most it. Basically, it means I will be blogging less.
Second, I have been thinking for some time about narrowing my blogging to only gluten-free living and cooking, and celiac disease related posts. For now, that is what I’m going to try. I might change my mind later or decide to start another blog to write about homemaking and other topics. I will keep my old posts in the archives, but will probably make some design changes.
While I enjoy writing about other things, my greatest desire has always been to help the gluten-free community. I hope to grow my readership and get more interaction in terms of comments. I have a few ideas, but I’ll just have to see what happens. I have gotten emails from a few of my readers, and it means a lot to me. I appreciate you all and love to hear from you. Please let me know if there are recipes or questions you would like me to blog about.
Labels: blogging
January 7, 2009
Free Blogging Software
I might be behind the times on this one, but I only recently found Windows Live Writer. I haven’t been using it for long, but so far I have found it to be very useful. It’s a free download that allows you to compose blog posts from your desktop. You can easily insert photos, links, tables, etc. I particularly like the way I can easily move and resize pictures, as well as add various borders to them. You can preview your post which shows you how it will look on your actual web page. I have found that the Blogger preview is not truly accurate, maybe because I have changed my template. You can save posts to your blog as drafts, or publish them directly from the program.
There are also plug-ins which I haven’t taken advantage of yet. They include Flickr upload, Digg This, and Twitter notify. The Twitter notify automatically makes a tinyURL and sends a tweet about your new blog post.
I have only highlighted some of the features. Windows Live Writer works with Blogger, Wordpress, Type Pad, and more, so go check it out. It might make your life a little bit easier!
For more great ideas visit Rocks in My Dryer's Works for Me Wednesday.
Labels: blogging
August 18, 2008
Welcome to The Gluten-Free Homemaker
I am officially entering the blogosphere thanks to Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley, authors of Blogging for Dummies.
I hope to bring you thoughts and ideas from my life as a homemaker and homeschooling mom with an emphasis on gluten-free cooking and baking.
Please come back, but be patient since I'm just learning to blog.
Labels: blogging
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