Vanilla Extract It’s that time of year when you’re baking A LOT. And MANY recipes call for Vanilla Extract. I’m pretty particular about my Vanilla Extract. I like the Madagascar Pure Vanilla Extract (PLEASE PLEASE don’t evah use imitation, it’s so pshew ~ well just please don’t use it) and well it’s not cheap. Depending on where you get it, it can run $10/for a 4 ounce bottles. You’re seriously NOT going to believe how simple it is to make your own Vanilla Extract! Now, since it ONLY has two ingredients you need to buy THE BEST quality you can find. & was quite pleased with their quality. So perfect in fact, that I’m giving these away as Christmas gifts this year! Baci e’ Buon Natale! Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. What You Will Need: Vanilla Beans – 3 per jar good quality Vodka small jars w/tight fitting lids- I used 4oz Mason Jars What To Do: Copyright Paula Jones with bellalimento
Colleges and Pinterest: Great marketing opportunity or waste of time? Ben Silbermann, founder of social media site Pinterest. Photo from Gannett, courtesy of Anna Jones/Ikonix/Silicon Prairie News. Colleges are quickly wising up to the marketing potential of the newest social media phenomenon: Pinterest. Many universities including Drake, Texas A&M and Yale have recently joined the website, which allows users to create virtual scrapbooks for a wide variety of interests, including recipes and fashion. The interface is simple: A white screen hosting hundreds of pictures or “pins,” which users can “re-pin” onto their accounts. Pinterest reached 10 million unique monthly vistors faster than any single website in history, according to the Internet statistic gurus at Comscore. “Pinterest took the element of Facebook that people fell in love with from the start – the photos,” said Gia Rassier, the online communication specialist who manages Concordia College’s account. “I think of Pinterest as a virtual scrapbook for the college,” she said. Comments comments
Homemade Potato Chips Recipe [donotprint]A few years ago a friend of mine taught me how to make potato chips in a microwave. I thought she was kidding because I couldn’t imagine a microwave producing crispy chips. After cooking them for 5 minutes they were done, crispy, and wonderful! Ideally, a mandoline works best to cut the potatoes paper thin. Homemade Potato Chips Ingredients: 1 russet potato Non stick spray Parchment paper or glass plate Salt and Pepper Directions: Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the inside of your microwave. **WARNING** Some people have had their microwaves short cut, plates shatter, and potatoes go up in flames. **UPDATE** I’ve made several batches of this over the weekend. Tagged as: Gluten-Free, microwave, Snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian
Innovation in College Media Time once again for one of my pet peeves. In fact, it’s not so much a pet peeve as something that summons my rage to levels no mere listicle can, and especially when an online-only outlet does it. I’m writing, of course, about the profound inability of some web sites to actually do a hyperlink properly. What do you think? I’ve written about this again and again and again and again , and until outlets start writing links like they understand what the World Wide Web is for, I’ll keep on raging about it. Exhibit A: As you can tell from reading, this is a story about an app called Fleksy . A savvy veteran of the World Wide Web, or even a rank noob who’d spent more than a day with a browser, would think those links would point you to, I don’t know, the app company’s web site (in the case of #1) or the web page for the Android version (in the case of #2). But you, dear WWW browser, would be WRONG . If you’re going to do this, just don’t put links in your articles.
Cupcakes for Dinner and Mashed Potatoes for Dessert?!? April Fools!!! Oh yes, those are meatloaf cupcakes, my friends (with mashed potato frosting)! Who can resist a meatcake?!? When I saw this post on Fine Furious Life while blog-surfing yesterday, I knew that I had to make them! The meatloaf is really good....scroll down for the recipe. And for dessert....mashed potato cupcakes! To make them, I followed the book's instructions for doctoring a cake mix. Once cooled, frost with vanilla frosting, mounding it in the middle. It was a fun April Fool's Day! Meatloaf Cupcakes:(adapted from Fine Furious Life) 1/2 lb. ground chuck1/2 lb. ground pork1 small carrot, chopped1/2 large onion, diced2 stalks celery, diced3/4 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs1/3 cup milk1/4 cup chopped parsley1/4 cup shredded Parmesan2 eggsSalt and pepper Preheat oven to 350F. Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk and set aside. Saute the vegetables in olive oil until softened. For the frosting: Follow the instruction on the packages. Sprinkle with very finely diced green bell pepper.
Colleges Use Social Media to Sell Sports Tickets Social media offers ideal ways for ticket departments to build relationships and boost revenue. It was late in the summer of 2008, and the University of Utah still had 500 football season tickets to sell. Zack Lassiter, Utah's assistant athletics director for corporate sales and ticket operations, was prepared to send out a traditional press release, in the hopes that local newspapers and TV stations would take the ball and run with it. But first, the ticket department posted a notice about availability on the Utah Athletics Facebook page, which at the time boasted fewer than 15,000 fans. Today, Lassiter is spreading the word about Utah's social media sales approach. Ticket sales represent the overwhelming majority of revenue generation in most college athletic departments, and the potential impact of social media on ticket marketing is limited only by the imagination. Moreover, social-media-driven ticketing transactions are getting ever easier.
Crowd Favorite Recipes : Guinness Gasm – SF Food Wars (photo by chris rochelle @ CHOW) Team Mustache had everyone smiling with their irresistible mini-mustache mini-cupcake toppers. Matching this feast for the eyes was a party in the mouth–teeny Guinness Gasm cakes boasting a rich combo of Guinness, chocolate, and Bailey’s that will surely bring out the boozy Irishman in you when you whip these up yourself!Guinness Gasm Ingredients: (For the cupcakes) 1 cup Guinness 1 cup unsalted butter 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2 cups all purpose flour 2 cups sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 3/4 teaspoon salt 2 eggs 2/3 cup sour cream (For the filling…chances are, this will be more than you need. (For the frosting) 3 to 4 cups confectioners sugar 1/2 cup room-temperature, unsalted butter 3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream Instructions: Make the cupcakes: 1. *I wrap the chopstick in saran wrap and spray a little Pam on it. Now make the filling: 1. Now make the frosting: 1. Congratulations.
10 Ways Newspapers are Using Social Media to Save the Industry Woody Lewis is a Social Media Strategist and Web Architect. He authors a blog at woodylewis.com about social media strategy for newspapers. These days, everyone knows that one of the hottest stories any newspaper can cover is that of its own demise. Social media gives any business an interactive channel to communicate with its current and future customers. 1. With more than 280,000 followers, the New York Times’ main Twitter feed dwarfs the Wall Street Journal (19,000+), the Washington Post (4,800+), and the Chicago Tribune (5,200+). 2. In November, 2008, Gannett Co., publisher of 85 daily newspapers, acquired Ripple6, Inc., maker of a social networking platform that links marketers to end users. 3. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) introduced a thematic website last month to promote the translation of The Kindly Ones, a controversial novel that has generated much publicity in Europe, and more recently the U.S. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. The St. 9. 10. Social journalism
Chocolate Cake In 5 Minutes! | Dizzy Dee So, Someone gave me a link to This Yesterday, and after reading the comments I decided to try this, but with modifications. I mixed together THROUGHLY: 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda 3 1/2 Tbsp. and in a separate bowl, mixed 1 Egg white and half of the yolk. I added the wet ingredients to the dry, and stirred it up until all of it was moistened(no major clumps of dry ingredients-some small though. which is fine, because it bakes out.)According to the comments, over-mixing it will make a tough and rubbery cake. Looking online, I found a Chocolate Sauce Recipe, and I 1/4th’d it. 1/4 Cup Sugar(I used normal, white granulated sugar) 1/2 Tbsp. I mixed the dry ingredients VERY THROUGHLY first, then added the wet. I believe while the cake is nuking you could easily make the sauce in time, assuming you put the ingredients in the saucepan first. It was JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT of sauce for this cake!
Battle Plans for Newspapers (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Virtually every newspaper in America has gone through waves of staff layoffs and budget cuts as advertisers and subscribers have marched out the door, driven by the move to the Web and, more recently, the economic crisis. In some cities, midsized metropolitan papers may not survive to year’s end. What survival strategies should these dailies adopt? Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia Journalism SchoolJoel Kramer, editor of MinnPost.comSteven Brill, founder of The American Lawyer magazineGeneva Overholser, Annenberg School of JournalismCraig Newmark, founder of craigslist.orgAndrew Keen, authorEdward M. Define What Will Be Lost Nicholas Lemann is dean of the Columbia University Journalism School. In many cities, newspaper readers are already seeing a much thinner, less complete paper than the one they used to read a few years ago. This is too facile. So there are two ways to look at the problem. Fewer Readers, Paying More Would this work? Partner Up Ms.
Bacon, Egg and Toast Cups » Annie's Eats Bacon, Egg and Toast Cups Cooking View Oh, how I LOVE these little cuties! What an ingenious idea – bacon, eggs and toast all wrapped up in a cute little muffin-sized package. Even better, these take next to no time to throw together so they are perfect for a lazy weekend breakfast, or a quick breakfast-for-dinner night. Growing up my absolute favorite breakfast was known in my family as an “eggy on toasty” (an over-easy fried egg on a piece of toast), even better when made by my sweet Grampa. If you don’t like a runny yolk, simply bake your eggs longer until they are cooked to your preferred doneness. The Finger Test to Check the Doneness of Meat Print Photography Credit: Elise Bauer There are two basic methods to test for how done your meat is while you are cooking it—use a meat thermometer, or press on the meat with your fingertips. The problem with the meat thermometer approach is that when you poke a hole into the meat with a thermometer, it can let juices escape, juices that you would rather have stay in the meat. For this reason, most experienced cooks rely on a “finger test” method, especially on steaks (whole roasts are better tested with a thermometer). My mother has been trying to get me to test meat with my fingertips for years, and for years, being somewhat of a scaredy cat (won’t it burn my fingers?) Then my friend David showed me up. Now the point of this story is not to embarrass David (though that would be fun, if it were even possible) but to encourage you, if like me, you’ve been shying away from trying this approach. This is one of those things that gets easier with practice. MethodHide Photos Hello!