Arbpen - Adrienne Boswell

Chicken Parmesan Meatballs and Marinara   So, I found a recipe I wanted to make for Chicken Parmesan Meatballs and that sounded really good.  When I actually started making the recipe, I could tell that it was very involved - and for no reason.  The original recipe called for making sauce and roasting it while meatballs were being made, then removing the sauce, cleaning out a hot pan, heating the now cool pan to fry the meatballs, then putting the sauce and cheese and baking some more.  No!  Way too complicated for absolutely no reason. Instead, I made my traditional red sauce from Joe Iannuzu's Mafia Cookbook, and while that was cooking for 30 minutes, I roasted the meatballs for 20 minutes, put them in the pan with the sauce, topped with cheese, and baked until the cheese melted.  We had it over pasta.  It was delicious!

  Chocolate Mascarpone Tort This... this tort was absolutely amazing.  I brought it to a church function and everyone was amazed by it.   I like making mascarpone with cream cheese and cream, and adding some chocolate to it was great. Why did I make this?  I made it because someone had given me a can of Danish butter cookies.  I'm sorry, but those things are nasty.  They're made to last until the next coming of Christ. But, surprisingly, they make really good crust.  Did I have enough cookies?  Of course not.  What to do, what to do.  Well, saltines go very well with chocolate and some day, I'll make a post about that as well.  A good friend showed me, and it's amazing, too. So, crust made from Danish butter cookies and saltines, with cream cheese, cocoa and cream.  What could go wrong?  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.   You can get the recipe for this at The Good Plate .  Enjoy!

 I’m doing something new here. I want to tell you about the newest recipes from The Good Plate . A new recipe comes out every Friday, and I’ll always link directly to it. What I want to use this space for is everything that doesn’t belong on a recipe page: why I made it, what I was thinking about, what went wrong, what surprised me, and the occasional blooper. So let’s start with this week’s recipe: Air Fryer Chicken Crisps 👉  Air Fryer Chicken Crisps This one came out of not wanting to waste something that usually gets thrown away, and wondering whether the air fryer could turn it into something genuinely good instead of just “acceptable.” It turns out it can. The full method, timing, and why it works are on The Good Plate . This space is where I’ll talk about the rest of it.

Just did the upload for my new client  http://qpmessenger.com , Quick Pick Messenger Service.  They are an interesting account, because there is another messenger service, with a similar name, that is getting higher ranking than they are. I call the other messenger Evil Messenger - I don't mean that lightly, either.  The other messenger service is using the same name at Manta, and not their real name. That's just unethical.  When asked to change it, they refused.  I'm not going to post their URL because I don't want them to get any traffic from this post.  My intent is to bury them, and I'm going to succeed. But, hey, if you're in the Los Angeles area, and need a good, reliable messenger service that does process service, bio-medical service in special refrigerated packaging, escrow, title or mortgage, for a really good rate, then visit them at  http://qpmessenger.com

Well, now, I think I have found and SEO tool that I like.  It's called Traffic Travis, available at  http://trafffictravis.com . I hesitated downloading the other day because the little man icon looked silly.  It reminded me of the horrible icons that Microsoft had for MS Office, anyone remember that dreadful paper clip, Clippy, or the little dog?  Cutesy is usually not my thing. Yesterday, I uninstalled Serp Attack, and this morning, I was still looking for a good SEO tool, and came across Traffic Travis again.  I decided to download it, despite the cutesy Travis guy. I like the interface, speed and tools.  I'm probably going to upgrade to the pro version soon. On another note, I found a good color accessibility tool that checks foreground and background colors.  It's free, and very simple to use.  It alerted me that the colors I had chosen for the navigation on a site I'm working on would fail.  It was a simple matter of changing th...

Well, I'm trying a new SEO tool I found for free at  http://serpattacks.com .  I'll report back when I've seen what it can do.  It's free, so we'll see how it goes. Well, it does a few things, for a free tool, but not enough.  I think I can do much better myself.

Comment Spam I just love some of the comment spam I get over at The Good Plate . Here's a good one: Today, I went to the beachfront with my children. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is entirely off topic but I had to tell someone! Now, this some poster has come by before and posted this same crap a few times. Either it's some sicko or someone who needs to have their child taken away by Department of Child and Family Services. Yeah, I know its probably a bot, but I'll bet that sometime, somewhere, some poor kid got really scared, if not hurt. Tell you what, I'll report this to local law enforcement.

Oh, you gotta love this spammer who hit my recipe blog, The Good Plate . I do {like|enjoy|love} the {way|manner in which} you have {framed|presented} {this|this particular|this specific} {issue|concern|problem|matter|challenge|difficulty|situation} {and|plus} it {does|really does|does indeed} {give|provide|offer|supply|pr… Just about all of the things you point out is astonishingly appropriate and that makes me ponder the reason why I had not looked at this with this light previously. This particular article truly did switch the light on for me personally as far as this … I guess this spammer has some kind of template but doesn't know how to use it correctly.

I have to wonder what spammers are thinking when they spam your blog. Didn't anyone ever tell these yahoos that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all? Here's the latest one to hit my cooking blog The Good Plate : The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention. I supposed the spammer think that by doing this that the post will be approved just so the blog owner can reply and get the spammer what for. Obviously, I am not going to do that, but I will say to whatever spammer might see this: You catch a lot more flies with honey than you do with vinegar!

Got Klout? I am finding out about Klout, and whether I have any or not. Gee, I hope so! Back in the day when Usenet 1 was all the rage, I was a respected member of some very active groups. Now, they are like ghost towns, and social media is the way to go. I am finally writing up about social media marketing on the Mother Site, Arbpen Designs , and I think that is going to be a labor of love as I explore this Brave New World. 1 Usenet Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use. It was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, over a decade before the World Wide Web was developed and the general public got access to the Internet. Find out how to use Usenet for research

So, now I'm promoting eCosway. You know what, I really like this company. I have always hated any kind of network marketing, but these guys do something no one else does - they actually give you a brick and mortar store - for free. They pay the rent, utilities, etc., and all you have to do is nourish it. Now, you don't get a store right away, and that's okay - there is a journey like everything else. I made up a little presentation for how to use Social Marketing to market eCosway - if you are an Independent Business Owner (IBO). You are more than welcome to view this presentation, and you it in your own business. We're even working on a new blog, Peaceful For Life , because the wonderful products this company sells provide peacefulness for life! Social Marketing

Getting American Loyalty Card going is getting better. Now there are sponsored ads, events, and we're going to do products as well. It's exciting!

Holy Archiving, Bat Man! So, I decided I wanted to do a blog for Spane because he was diagnosed with Dandy Walker Syndrome, and I found out this old, old blog was still around. Thankfully, Google had kept all the information, and that's great. The older entries in this blog are mostly about being pregnant and the first and second year with Spane. If you are interested in Spane's Dandy Walker Syndrome, please visit Adventures with Spane Beeper .

Well, it's been a long time, but I think I'm going to start posting to this blog. I'm back working at nextBlock.com after three years. It's amazing - nothing has changed, except my perceptions and how I deal with things. Since I had my son, I'm a lot more patient. But, Adel still wants a fixed width design - urgh! I showed her Amazon, the biggest shopping site in the world, that is not fixed width, and she showed me Ebay and Yahoo, which are. I still think fixed width is not the way to go for several reasons: 1. Too small 2. Too much white space 3. Too little room for things. I will convince her, I know it!

Today is Spane's birthday. Jason and Marissa are at Jason's mother's housesitting. I don't think they're going to make any big effort to be here for the party. Oh well! I made Spane a Barney birthday cake, decorated by hand. I also baked a bacon, onion and jack cheese quiche, spinach balls, and made a vegetable plate. Whew! Michele and her daughter Maya came. Maya was excited because, at five, she got to be the oldest kid. William is two and half, and Spane, of course, is two. Maria and Jasmine came. Maria took pictures, I'll be putting them up soon. Maria Torres and Bonnie and her husband came. Maria and Bonnie hadn't seen eachother in over ten years, and where do they meet? My house, of all places! Kelly and William, of course, were here. Kelly wrangled the kids while I finished up cleaning and cooking. Spane got all kinds of wonderful presents: Maria Torres - money, always a good choice Maria De La Rocha - School toy that he loves Bonnie - two ...

The new refrigerator has the freezer on the bottom. Jason likes Peanut Butter ice cream, and there was a container in the freezer. Young man (Spane), just as pleased as could be, went to the freezer, took the container out, and sat on the floor with it. Then he carefully took off the top and looked inside. There was a tiny scoop sitting on the top, and he carefully picked it up in his hand and popped it in his mouth. Then he closed it up, opened the freezer, and put it back. Then he turned around and grinned at me. I was laughing so hard there wasn't a thing I could do to stop him. Of course, now that he knows that it's in there, I've been going nuts trying to keep him out.

Finally. Today, we got the refrigerator. Thanks to Alex, I found some very good, inexpensive movers who brought the refrigerator. Thanks to Sean McCann for letting us have it. Now, let's hope that Sean doesn't think that the fridge is compensation for work done.

This is the first post at the new domain name. Some fool in London is holding my real domain name hostage, so I got this new one. I actually like this one a lot.

I got published! I made a contribution of code to ASP101.com , and I'm on the front page. Here's the URL to the code, http://www.intraproducts.com/beta/requiredform.asp.

Spane got his first hair cut today, Jason's mother did a great job, and I have his hair in an envelope.