Rainy Days and Sundays

I've spent the majority of the day...well, the weekend really...behind this computer. I think this was probably a mistake, because I spend most of my time at work behind a computer as well, and so much computer time can't be good for my eyes, or my fingers. But on cold, rainy days, like today and yesterday, I can't help but feel lazy and want to stay at home. It's in my genetics or something. And it's not like I've wasted my time at the computer looking for Vera Bradley bags on eBay or anything. Nope, I've actually been doing something productive: writing and working on my blog. 

Yesterday, I decided that I wanted to try to generate more traffic to the old blog. As a writer, I want people to actually read what I write from time to time...I'm weird that way. So I started looking for ways to attract readers. "Write it, and they will come" hasn't been working out for me so far.

Among other things, I re-designed the look of the blog to give it a more "official" feel. Jeremy helped me create my own background image, and voila! Chicken Noodle Gravy now has a more original and unique appearance. I also purchased my domain name. That's right, www.chickennoodlegravy.com now belongs to me. Try to hide your disappointment. I know some of you were hoping to turn the domain name into a web resource for icky-sounding recipes, but you snooze you lose. 




The blog makeover continued with the addition of a links page, recipe and review collective pages, and an "about me" section. As the blog grows, these pages will grow, and one day we shall rule the universe! Ahem. Anyway, I'm hoping the new look will at least not scare visitors away when/if they arrive.

And speaking of arriving visitors, to help with this objective, I've joined the Foodie Blogroll, a website that I've only recently discovered through one of my favorite blogs Bake and Destroy. The Foodie Blogroll is a collective of food-centric blogs. Aside from being a rocking place to discover delicious blogs, they have great features like contests, giveaways, a community forum, and ways to monetize your blog. I've only just been added to the blogroll, but I see it as being well worth my time, if for nothing else than just being able to discover new blogs to follow.


In other news, we had some yummy crab cakes for dinner last night. I wish I had remembered to take pictures! I've been a lover of crab cakes for a long time, but I've had a hard time finding the kind of crab cake that I like in restaurants. The closest that I've had was probably at the Florida Cracker Cafe in St. Augustine, Florida. Most crab cakes are rich and nearly overwhelming in flavor. It's like they drown out the crab flavor with the stuffing mix. They're the kinds of things that sit heavy on your stomach and fill you up way to fast! Not at the Cracker Cafe, their cakes are light, perfectly seasoned, with lots of crab flavor. And these are the kinds of cakes I try to make. My cakes are panned fried in a little bit of butter and consist of egg, mayonnaise, bread crumbs, sauteed onion and pepper, and canned crab. They're super duper easy to make and taste fantastic. Last time we cooked them we even made our own remoulade, and they really are better with something to dip them in. To go with the crab cakes, I made another key lime pie, but he who shall remain nameless might have added lemon juice to it instead of the lime juice it called for. "The bottles look so similar!" So we'll just call this a citrus pie, which was still pretty good.


Tonight's dinner is a pan-seared ham steak, good ole out-of-the-box mac n' cheese, and butter beans. Something simple for a rainy Sunday night.