A new color scheme and updated recipe, travel, and crafts pages
After nearly four years of blogging, I decided it was time to redesign The Gravy Train. I surprised myself with the amount of web design, Photoshop and coding that I've taught myself over the past few years, and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.
Happy New Year! How was your holiday?
Ours was pretty quiet here in Charleston. We stayed put because of Gravy Too's impending arrival (although some days now it feels like I've been pregnant for a thousand months).
I also baked. Actually, I only kind of baked. It was unseasonably warm most days, and between the bun in my oven and the actual heat from our kitchen oven, I felt like I was sweltering in Malaysia again. Instead, I found some good no-bake options (see below) to give to the Gravy Baby's preschool teachers and family.
Hanging around the house has also given me some extra time to learn how to use Photoshop Elements, finally. After almost four years of blogging (yes, it's been that long!), I'm tired of waffling between various photo editing options on the internet, and it's one of my New Year's resolutions to teach myself how to properly edit and blog photos, once and for all. Above is my first attempt -- you'll have to bear with me as I figure it all out. I'm open to your input! If you're still reading about our quiet little life, I want to hear from you.
Recipes for the above-pictured treats are below (now that the holidays are over, you can just omit the Christmas-colored snazzle I added to our treats):
Smitten Kitchen's salted brown butter rice krispie treats (Warning: these are seriously addictive; you might have to double the recipe just to get enough to give away. Of course, not that I would know anything about that.)
Real Simple's No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies (I halved the sugar in these guys and still found them plenty sweet)
All Recipe's Gingerbread Biscotti (Amazingly easy to make, but dipping them in white chocolate as one reviewer suggested turned mine into an unmitigated, clumpy disaster. I'd suggest drizzling them with white icing instead)
Although our Asian adventures are over for now, we're excited to take on the US by storm (as soon as I finish this pesky bar exam business). I've been added to the Travel Blogs network, which you can visit here. They've also written about me in a far more flattering light than I could ever muster. Check out their other blogs and stories about travel when you get a chance.
The new parenting website Babble.com asked me to name the top 20 travel gear items for 2011. My picks are here; spread the word!
(PS - when we travel, we travel with WAY more than 20 baby items.)
I'm not normally one who's up-to-date on the latest Web craze, but man alive, am I addicted to this new site called Pinterest. It's basically a bookmarking website where you can "pin" your favorite photos, inspirations, recipes, etc. from all over the internet onto one centralized personal website. Your friends can follow your ideas, and you can follow me by clicking on this button (or on the button on the side of my webpage just under "Recent Comments":
The hubby's been poking fun at me and saying that this is just another way for me to buy more stuff and eat more food. He's not wrong, you know.
Photo taken from Ken Levine
Congratulations to Merp: you've won the tea towels and cinnamon in my Sri Lankan giveaway! I'll message you for details on how to send these to you.
To everyone else -- thanks for entering! I arrived at my winner by assigning every comment, Tweet and Facebook message a random (but chronological number). Then, I used a random number generator to tell me which number to choose; the corresponding name was Merp's.
And because we're moving in just a few short months, stay tuned for my next as-yet-undetermined giveaway. Who knows? You might win a half-eaten jar of peanut butter. Or even old magazines! What fun that will be.
gravy train: an idiomatic expression referring to any lucrative endeavor; for emphasis, one can say the gravy train has biscuit wheels.
Today we live in Charleston, South Carolina, where we enjoy every deep-fried, bacon-wrapped minute.
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