Thanks everyone for the glowing compliments on my new blog design! I am glad to hear you like it, can comment easier on it, and that it loads faster for many of you. Thanks to everyone who also de-lurked and said hi for the first time. Thank you!
If you couldn’t see my new layout and site re-redesign yesterday, or are reading this from your Google Reader and you’re trying to click off and are getting an error message from my old Blogger site that the page is not found, rest assured your servers will recognize the change soon. Likely within 24 hours or so, and you will be able to see my new site.
My servers in San Diego (Cox Cable) have been painfully slow to update and I cannot see my own blog unless I access it in a very sneaky behind the scenes way.
As for the links being broken and not directing you to where you need to go, that’s another glitch that is being ironed out and everything should be up and running and totally normal by Wednesday. And hopefully late Tuesday, fingers crossed. So for those you who need recipes, everything in the Recipes Tab should be back to normal very soon.
Thanks for your tips about how to size photos and what you do. The comments section had quite a few tips and tidbits about how to do this.
As I mentioned, “medium” seems too small, and “large” was huge. I am still playing around with things and I will let you know what ends up working the best for me. Here is a link with a 1 minute video that was helpful for me. I still am not sure what size I should configure large at. Some of the photos below I configured at 500 x 500 and others at 600 x 600. I like BIG pictures.
I once did a post called What Blogging Really Entails. And I will link it once I know links are working again. All these things you never think about when all you want to do is talk about recipes, life, workouts, or whatever the theme of your blog is.
Enough shop talk.
Let’s talk about an Extra Large Microwave Banana Cake. Enough to tame your big, hungry beast all at once. Or save half for later. And, it’s portable.
Or perfect to share with someone. Like this someone.
Biggie Microwave Banana Oat Cakes
1 ripe medium or large banana, mashed
1/2 c dry oats (or a little more if you have an especially big banana)
1/4 c brown sugar
1 Tsp Cinnamon (more if you love it)
Optional: Dash of Vanilla Extract, 1 Tbsp of Chia Seeds, 1 Tbsp of Coconut Flakes, 2 Tbsp of Cocoa Powder for a chocolate banana cake
I love how TJ’s sells bananas for 19 cents each. So I buy the biggest ones I can find since they are priced by unit, not weight. And since these are big bananas, that’s why this recipe is entitled Biggie.
Directions:
Mash the banana
Add everything else to it and stir to combine
Spray a clean bowl with cooking spray and put the banana mixture in it
Microwave for 2.5 minutes to 3.0 minutes. You will know when it’s done because it will not be “juicy” looking anymore. And will have some “holes” on the surface. See first photo below.
After mircowaving, allow to rest for a couple minutes. Eat in that bowl or easily invert/remove from bowl and re-plate it, or take as a to-go snack.
Top with syrup, jelly, agave, nut butter, raisins, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, or nothing.
After microwaving and resting
Plate up your extra large cake….
…Or break it off section by section and eat with your fingers
It’s totally portable!
Enjoy!
This recipe is based on my other Microwave Banana Cake Recipe. Which I will link, but I don’t know if the link will work. For today.
Questions:
1. When do you Pay and When do you Do-It-Yourself on Projects?
To everyone who asked, no, I did not do my site migration myself. I paid for it. It took a team of professionals dozens and dozens of womanpower/manpower hours. And we are still not done.
Between the time involved and the technical aspects, although I am sure you could do a Blogger to Self Hosted Wordpress migration, import you comments from a third party site like Intense Debate, secure your own servers, re-point your own DNS, get your domain hosting to jive with your server hosting, not to mention do the creative and artistic side to it, so yes, you could do this. But I could not. So I paid for it. Happily. I plan to do a glowing review and give you all the details about who helped me, very soon.
Time is money to me and I evaluate projects on not only time spent, but the emotional and mental cost. And if I am going to be a walking stress case or get in way over my head, I’d rather just have it done by someone else. Who can do it Right.
2. If anyone still wants to chime in about the picture uploading/sizes to choose stuff, please, enlighten me!
Oh and can you import more than 1 picture at a time with WP? I am doing them one by one and it…is not efficient.
3. How good are you at “saving the other half for later”?
I am moderately good with this. It really depends on the item, though. I can open a bag of chips or savory things and really not go to town that much.
Protein/energy/snack bars, I am so-so.
With sweets like cookies, well, not as good. What other half?
See you later!
I am good at saving the other half of something for “later” as I usually am very easily satisfied. I can’t even finish a whole chocolate bar if I tried!
Those banana oat cakes are so easy to make! I am going to try one for sure!
the new design is lovely! I’m just now able to see it. the photos now are perfect — i can see the delicious detail in the cookies and the adorableness of your daughter…excellent work!
LOVE the new layout!
I was JUST thinking to myself yesterday that I would be surprised if you didn’t move to a self hosted site and update the design. Why? Because you blog is so popular and AWESOME. Way to take it to a whole new level! I hope my blog reaches the success yours has one day!
Oooooh, just checked out your new site. It looks fabulous!!! :)
ya, I am with you. If i ever make the move, I AM PAYING FOR IT! not worth the pain and misery. Yours looks great!
That looks so yummy! I need to use oats more often. :)
let me know if you end up trying it :)
I love your new design! So fresh and clean :) I can’t save anything for later. Sometimes I’ll put half of something in the fridge for later, sit down, get right back up and get it :)
LOVE LOVE LOVE the new blog design!!!!! Oh my goodness it’s gorgeous, Averie!
I can see it now! It looks great!! Welcome to the glorious world of wordpress! I usually customize the size of my photos because I agree with the too big/too small issue. I am sure there is a more efficient way to go about it but I am not tech savvy so I’ve yet to figure it out.
That recipe looks great and I love how easy it is! I also love the new layout! Great work!
Averie! The design is fantastic! I use WLW (obviously I dont have a Mac), but I would suggest a similar program that is Mac friendly. Ecto, maybe?
LOVE the new design!! It’s gorgeous!! I know you have a Mac, so instead of using Wordpress to load one picture at a time, I use Blogo. It’s a pretty good blogging app and you can do all your pictures at once. Hope that helps!
Blogo. thank you. Will check it out!
LOVE the new layout, how did you get the featured recipes widget on the side I want one soo bad!
it was put on manually by my web lady :) if i hear of a plug in ill lyk!
The site looks great Averie! It is finally showing up for me!
I can save the rest for later…sometimes, but really the question for me would be why wait? Unless I am traveling and really NEED it for later.
ok, i’ll join the crowd and delurk. love your new design and that banana cake looks fab. i will have to make.
i too enjoy that TJ’s sells fruit by unit and not weight–i get the BIGGEST pink ladies and bananas i can find.
As for wordpress, i haven’t had any problems uploading photos, i usually use large for any camera photos and regular for photobooth photos….but then again, i don’t have a fancy camera, so i don’t know if it’s different. i also noticed that once i tried to change my theme and it totally screwed up my pictures, so i think it’s also layout dependent? LOVE my macbook though :)
Had I moved my blog in the earlier days to self-hosted and wordpress template, I probably would have risked doing it myself. Now, I have too many readers, too many comments, and almost 900 posts, some very picture heavy, and I don’t want to risk it without professionals doing the stuff behind the scenes. That said, I like the look and feel of my blog (still hosted by blogger) so I feel ok staying there for now :) I reevaluate every few months.
As for saving the other half – it really depends on whether I am starving when eating something. If I am, no chance of saving it.
exactly what you said, pic heavy, 900 posts (750+ for me), some very long/big…dont want to risk losing it!
and i got the give away gift yesterday…thank you again :)