Share and Tell ...

Today I am going to just share a few links to recipes I've tried, and tell you about some things I've learned on my computer this week.

Chocolate can be for breakfast - and snack time too. 

I couldn't resist making this recipe for Chocolate Banana muffins from a fun blog called Fork Knife Swoon, which I recently discovered.

I made just a couple of changes to the recipe:

• I used soy milk instead of almond milk, and added 1/2 tsp almond flavoring
• I put the mini chips right into the batter (instead of just sprinkling them on top).
• Instead of regular-sized muffins, I made mini-muffins (about 5 dozen).  Watch closely and reduce baking time (in my oven it was about 11 minutes) until a tester comes out clean.

If you love chocolate - you would love these!  Here's a few photos of the muffins I made:

Chocolate Banana muffins - MMmmm!

Easier than making cookies - and just as good

I have a new favorite recipe to use, when I need to bake something up for a crowd.  I have tried other chocolate chip cookie bar recipes, but never has one been as good as this recipe for Chocolate Chip Pan Cookies from Nestle.  These take less time to make (and less slaving over a hot oven) than cookies.  When baked in a 15x10-inch jelly roll pan, and cut fairly small, this is a good sized batch of bars.  They travel well - but they probably won't last long!

Chocolate Chip Pan Cookies - packed and ready to be shared!

An apology 

I recently published a post about the closure of Yahoo Contributor Network, and mentioned that on July 31st all contributor content was to be removed from Yahoo Voices.  I assumed that would mean the links to all of the articles I had published there would just become dead links.  I expected that they would now lead to a message "We are sorry but the content you are looking for no longer exists," or some similarly worded phrase.  To my surprise, when I now click on these links, they redirect to the Yahoo home page - without any mention of the articles I wrote or similar information provided for you to easily find.  

If I may vent for just a moment: Although overall, being a contributor to Yahoo was a great experience, I now feel a little "used." Perhaps you should as well!  My articles have been removed from cyberspace, but YCN is still using their ‘ghost links’ as a way to direct traffic to their site.  This wastes your time, and in no way benefits me. In fact, it will probably be a frustrating experience for you, as it may take a few minutes to realize the information you seek is probably not on that page.  I feel badly about this - but I suspect that Yahoo does not.  The longer you look around to find what you originally wanted to read, the happier they probably will be.

I am very sorry for any inconvenience this causes you.  I will attempt to remove or redirect as many of the links to Yahoo Voices content from this blog and my Pinterest boards as soon as possible, but it may take a while.  

Did you notice these words - “You might also like: ” 

There is something new on my blog. A few thumbnail photos of previously published posts will now appear at the bottom of each post on my blog. It was surprisingly easy to add this feature, using a tutorial from the LinkWithin website. Even better, the selection and placement of these links is all done automatically for me.  I hope this is a helpful feature.  Like the "back to top" and "print" features I have added, this will hopefully make my blog more easily navigable for you.  

I have never been very computer savvy, but I am gradually learning and gaining confidence in working with the technical computer aspects of a blog.  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?!  (Now I just hope I don't accidentally erase the whole thing!)

What suggestions do you have to make this site easier to read?