For bloggers, it's no longer enough to simply generate good content and hope for the best. The internet is now littered with many good bloggers with useful content and it's easy to get lost in the crowd. There are many ways to promote your blog and one of them is through email. The danger with email is, your message could be easily classified as spam then it becomes more of a detriment to your campaign than an advantage. The infographic below gives some very useful tips on how you can use email to your advantage. Here are the main points:

1. Optimize for Mobile - more and more people are now using mobile devices to browse the internet, check their emails and for social networking. As a blogger or website developer, you have to make sure that your website is visible and useable in any device.
2. Personalize and Interact - customize your emails so that readers will feel that you are talking directly to them and make them want to engage in a conversation with you. You don't always have to do a hard sell, sometimes getting them interested first is worth more in the long run.
3. Adapt, Change, and Test - Don't sent the same pitch over and over again. That is a sure way to get your email relegated to the spam folder. Try to vary your messages and monitor how people are responding to them.

See the infographic below for more details. Better yet, print it out and post it where you can refer to it while strategizing for your next email campaign.

 
Via: iContact

Everyone's on a diet lately. There are so many types of diets being talked about on the blogs right now that it gets really hard to keep track of them sometimes.

Here's another infographic (don't you just love these things?) that takes a closer look at some of the more popular diet trends going on and highlights some of the good and bad about each one.

The one that I have heard of the most is the Paleo Diet which is a high protein and high fat diet. Perfect for a meat eating family like mine. I am concerned too that it is high in fat, but I like it that it concentrates around 'real' and organic foods.

What about you, have you tried any of the diets below? What do you think?



Via: RetrofitMe

One of the buzzwords you may have heard among health blogs lately is the importance of gut flora. Gut flora describes the many microorgarnisms that live in our digestive tracts. Most of the time, this 'flora' is beneficial to our well being and more important that we may think. They enable us to take advantage and utilize all the things we digest and keep our body functioning as it should.

However, what we feed our 'flora' is also important in order to keep them in good working order. Ever wonder why there are so many ailments that are alleviated by proper nutrition? Gut flora is the reason. When working properly, the relationship between your gut flora and your well being can be mutually beneficial.

You'd be surprised how much of our body is affected by what we put in our guts. The infographic below shows the relationship between your mind and your gut, for instance. What you eat can greatly affect how your brain functions. Depending on what your fill your gut with, you could be helping your brain or you could be killing it.

Read throught the infographic below and keep it mind next time you're tempted to indulge in something that is bad for you. There is something to that old adage after all, You Are What You Eat!



Via: Probiotic supplements

Strawberry season is waning, but there is still time to get some ripe, juicy berries. Top them with plain yogurt or, my favorite, Greek yogurt, and you have an unbeatable breakfast!

 

 It's getting to be that time again! The weather is getting cooler, the leaves are changing, and the hankering for soup is back! 

 We had chili the other night, with cornbread casserole. It was a welcome change. Click on the photo for the recipe. Or if you'd rather have turkey chili, just click on this link.

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Whenever my daughter gets sick, she asks for soup. She loves most types of soup but she especially loves soups with noodles and without meat. I am always concerned that she gets enough vegetables though so I always try to sneak them in whenever I can.

The last time she got sick she was also afflicted with a very sore throat and lost her appetite for most things. That is, until I made this soup which is a cross of everything she had and everything that is good for her.

The soup base contains all the usual ingredients for Filipino chicken soup called Tinola and since I didn't plan on using any chicken, I used chicken broth for the soup.

The recipe starts by sauteeing garlic, onions and garlic in about a tablespoon of oil. Add the chicken broth and let it come to a boil. Then add (as in this case) mustard greens, turnip root and rice noodles. Cook until the turnip and noodles are tender at which point the greens should be too. This should take about 8-10 minutes. If your chicken broth is not seasoned already, season the soup with salt and pepper.

I didn't put any proportions because it all depends on how much soup you're making. By adjusting the proportions to your taste, you can make this soup for two or two hundred :)

This is one of my many comfort food but it's a favorite. I have to have my pansit fix at least once a month, especially on birthdays and holidays.

I cook this dish so often that it's also becoming a fast favorite for my friends and in-laws too. My brother-in-law in particular never fails to request pansit whenever I ask what I can bring for potluck.

The photo above is what I fix myself when the craving for noodles hit. It's the simplest version with just the rice noodles, carrots, celery, cabbage and slices of pork. It's real easy and can be prepared in less than an hour. Perfect for working people like me, and it's still healthy for you.

Of course, this dish is so versatile that you can add more vegetables and protein to dress it up a bit more.

The basic pancit recipe is posted on Cooked from the Heart if you'd like to try it out.

So what's your comfort food?

I felt like I was live blogging on Facebook today as I was attempting a Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake while facebooking at the same time. So I thought I'd share some of my food related updates here too. My first FB post about this:

BAKERS/COOKS WANTED TO SOLVE PROBLEM IN THE KITCHEN. I used an 8 inch springform pan instead of a 10 inch one so now I have a cake that is way too tall to add additional mousse layers to. Should I.... 1) split the cake and spread it out on a 10 inch pan then put the layers on top of it or 2) make a tall collar to accommodate the 2 mousse layers and have a towering cake (with risk of it being too tall and possibly falling over when cut) WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

That's right, what I assumed to be a 10 inch pan turned out to be 8. It happens. Next time just make sure to read the label on the pan itself rather than guessing at the size especially when you have spacial acuity problems. How would you have solved this problem? Here's how I did it (on my next FB status update):

Lesson for the day: IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, EAT IT
My too tall cake in the too small pan problem was solved by me cutting the top off and eating it. I made room for the mousse layers and I didn't have to dirty up another pan. You all know how I hate washing dishes :) To my friends who are baking pros, yes, I know I suck at folding. I need to practice my technique. The white spots are where the meringue was not quite incorporated into the chocolate.

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Would you like to win the prize package above? The Betty Crocker Fun Da-middles Giveaway is now on Cooked From the Heart and you have many chances to win. The number of entries are low and the contest will end next Friday.

So get on over there to enter the giveaway! Click on the links or the photo to enter the giveaway.

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Frugality is something that I try to adhere to in general. We do have three daughters to support, and two of them are now in college. My husband and I, of course, have been finding ways to earn money in addition to cutting back on unnecessary expenses.

At my house, the biggest chunk of our expenses go to food, largely consisting of the groceries we buy and the food that we eat out.

With us trying to save more money, when we buy convenience food, I have noticed that we tend to go for fast food rather than restaurant food. However, with the recent talks about fast food and prepared foods in general, we have been cutting down a lot on eating out. Especially junk food.

A few months ago, I read this article on the Simple Dollar referring to the revelation that Taco Bell (one of favorite go-to fast food chains) is not using 100% beef in their products as we would assume. But they are not alone in that. It is a common practice in most fast-food places and I'm sure even in some restaurants.

The following is an excerpt from the Simple Dollar (one of my favorite blogs for being frugal and healthy) about making your own convenience food at home.

Over the past week, the fast food restaurant chain Taco Bell was sued for claiming that the taco mixture used in their products was actually beef. According to USDA standards, a beef mixture served by businesses must contain at least 40% beef in ordered to be labeled as such, and the lawsuit alleges (with some evidence) that their taco mixture only contains 36% beef., not the 88% beef that they claim.

Taco Bell themselves list ingredients in their “meat filling products” that include “water, isolated oat product, wheat oats, maltodrextrin, soy lecithin, maltodrextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch, sodium phosphate and silicon dioxide.”

Silicon dioxide?

Here’s the thing: the lawsuit itself isn’t really all that important. It’s the broader issue that scares me. Consider that the USDA only requires that something contain 40% meat to be called “meat,” whether at Taco Bell or anywhere else you might buy a “meat product.” ~ The Simple Dollar

As mentioned in the article, it's just as easy to make your own "fast food" at home rather than subjecting your family's health to subpar ingredients and toxic additives. The Simple Dollar, by the way is a personal finance blog that gives practical advice and solutions to financial problems that we all encounter. While he advises on ways to increase your income stream, he is not one of those sites that promote make money online schemes so THEY can make money online. The topics he discusses and the advice he doles out are all practical and sensible for everyday folks like us. I also like it that he talks about the meals that they prepare in their family, meals that are healthy but also frugal.

My daughter loves miso soup. You know, the kind they give you at the Japanese restaurant that usually has cubes of tofu and slivers of seaweed? Well my daughter who swears to hate anything seafood loves miso soup. She tolerates the seaweed or just picks them out when she sees them. But I haven't told her that the stock base for miso soup is made of fish stock. Or rather, flavored with dried bonito flakes. Did you know that?

Did you also know that the main ingredient of the soup, MISO, is made of fermented soy beans? My daughter does not mind this so much. She loves edamame! Salt and koji fungus are also added to fascilitate the fermentation process along.

The final product that I buy is a tub like the one pictured below at the Asian market. It's usually in the refrigerated section.



It is a thick paste, golden in color, has a slightly sour, fermented smell and very salty. I have been buying it mainly to make my daughter's miso soup. Then a few weeks ago, I ran across this recipe for Miso Dip, and I just fell in love with it!

MISO DIP

It's so simple, I don't know why I never thought of doing it before. The dip, which is really more of a condiment that you can use to accompany a variety of dishes, is simply miso paste sauteed with garlic, onions and tomatoes. Nothing could be simpler! But oh the possibilities of using this condiment is endless!

So far, we've used it as a flavor enhancer for soups, a dip for fried fish and pork chops, added it to curried dishes, and my favorite, as a pasta sauce!

I'll post more photos and recipes of miso dip inspired dishes as I get to them.
Now if you would like to learn more specific and detailed information about Miso, check out this page about Hatcho Miso for some very interesting facts.

"Tita knew through her own flesh how fire transforms the elements, how a lump of corn flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn't been warmed by the fire of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour."
— Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate)

"Vegetarian: an old Indian word for bad hunter"

"There ain't a body, be it mouse or man, that ain't made better by a little soup."
— Kate DiCamillo (The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread)

"If you're afraid of butter, use cream" ~ Julia Child

Loving food and anything related to food, it's inevitable that I am also loving all the cooking shows on tv especially the Food Network. For me, the Food Network and the Travel Channel make having cable so worth it. I love watching the celebrity chefs but I also love watching 'real life' cooks. That's why I'm excited to hear that Food Network Star Returns In June! It will premier again on June 5 at 9PM ET/PT.

15 finalists will be cooking their way towards their very own Food Network show and we'll be voting for our favorites. I love this show because they not only have to be able to cook well, they also have to be personable enough to present what they've cooked. For tv, personality is everything after all. I mean look at Rachel Ray. LOVE HER! A lot of 'serious' cooks and foodies deride her but the girl is just so darn cute and personable, you can't help but like her. The girl's got charisma! I'm sure the judges for Food Network Star will be on the lookout for the contestant with charisma.

A great example of this charisma thing is one previous winner, Aarti Sequeira who now is host of Aarti Paarti on the Food Network. She is is just adorable! You can't help but like her. She's got a beautiful smile and makes Indian food seem easy to cook!

"Leftovers in their less visible form are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and the cupboard of the heart" ~ Thomas Fuller

What wines to give for a birthday?
A good wine can make a great gift but people’s taste in wine can be difficult to work out if you are not in a position to discuss it with them. However, there are a few rough guidelines you can follow to increase the chances of your present being a big hit.

When buying wine for people whose taste you know very little about, go for a bottle that you are confident would please the majority of your friends if you served it at a dinner party. Perhaps your wine won’t be a life-changing experience for the receiver, but you want to make sure you at least do not offend their palette!

Merlot and Cabernet are considered to be universally loved wines, so if you’re seeking a bottle of red wine to buy your boss or a long lost family member, these two options represent reasonably safe bets.

If your friend’s birthday is in autumn or winter, a bottle of Pinot Noir is likely to go down a treat with most people. White wine is more commonly served in warm weather, so if the birthday party is a spring gathering or a summer barbecue, a bottle of Pinot Grigio will make you a popular guest.

Champagne is the classic celebration wine and you will rarely get anything less than a positive reaction when buying it as a gift. Even wine drinkers who don’t have a particular affection for champagne will enjoy having a bottle around for that special occasion or celebration.

If you can ascertain the kind of food being served at a birthday party you’re attending, you can always bring the gift of a great wine to accompany the meal.

If the birthday dinner is likely to be a hearty dish of red meat, casserole or pie, then a good, full-bodied red wine like a Cabernet Sauvignon will compliment it well. If fish, pasta or salads are on the menu, go for a white wine such as Rombauer Chardonnay. Alternatively, if spicy Mexican or Indian food is on the agenda, a wine with more of a zesty kick to it might work well, such as a Shiraz.

The price and size of your birthday gift are, unfortunately, things to keep in mind. A standard bottle of wine brought as a gift to be served at a table of 20 people might be a gesture that creates a bit of a problem for the host when everyone wants to try your perfectly matched wine with their meal. Ask your local wine merchant for a magnum if you know the wine will be passed around a lot.

Equally, don’t scrimp on birthday wines. Imagine your friend or relative’s face when they sit down to enjoy their present, only to find upon tasting that you picked up a cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel bargain from your local corner shop! When it comes to wine, price generally reflects quality, so while there is no need to break the bank, let the price of your wine guide you to a good gift.