New Year, New Content

January 5, 2012 By Marah 1 Comment

Red Velvet is evolving every day and I plan to develop content alot more in 2012 as discussed in my New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve been blogging for a while now and have been in a little bubble, cranking out posts and doing my own thing. I read that the blogosphere is a great community to be a part of but have not connected with many other bloggers yet, until a few weeks ago.

An old friend of mine started her own blog that also shares lots of cooking tips and recipes and she reached out to me. We were high school friends and had lost touch through the years, but not intentionally, life just sort of happened. After a few emails and checking out one another’s blogs we decided we’d like to take this whole thing a little further and start sharing some content on each other’s blogs.

Dana’s blog is called Let’s Meet for Lunch and she’s got some great recipes and food tips not to mention a few household topics and DIY crafts that I think you all will enjoy! From time to time we will post on each other’s blogs and combine our efforts on different cooking topics to provide both of our readers with even more content. You will also notice that I’ve added Let’s Meet for Lunch to my blogroll so it’s easy for you to click on over and check out what she’s got going on. Also, do yourself a favor and “like” her blog on Facebook so you can get updates when she posts new info. Oh, and if you haven’t “liked” Red Velvet yet,(shame on you!) click on the icon on here and just do it already!

The best way for you to get a taste of life over at Let’s Meet for Lunch is not for me to tell you about it but to hear from Dana herself. Without further ado, here’s Dana!

Hi Red Velvet Blog readers!

My name is Dana, and I have known Marah since high school. She does a wonderful job with her blog, wouldn’t you agree? Browsing different blogs is something I really enjoy, and I just began writing my own a little over a month ago, called Let’s Meet For Lunch. I would like to invite you to stop by and see what I have going on! I feature mostly recipes, but will occasionally share a cleaning tip, or DIY ideas. Here are a few links to some of my more popular posts:

Pumpkin Pie Monkey Bread

Pierogie Bake!

DIY: Sugar Scrub

It always helps to know who is writing the blog you’re reading, so I’ll share a bit about myself. I am 20-something living in the Charlotte, NC area. At my “real” job, I am a school counselor at a middle school… which always brings something fun and interesting. My husband and I have been married for a year and a half, and we are in the midst of trying to put our house on the market. Wish us luck!

I look forward to having you stop by my blog! Click here to check it out!

Dana and I are excited about working together and coming up with some great stuff for you guys in the kitchen. Here’s to great new things in this brand new year!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bloggers, blogosphere, blogroll, cooking tips, crafts, dana, doing my own thing, facebook, food tips, high school friends, household, lunch, nbsp, new year, old friend, recipes, red velvet, resolutions, shame, taste of life

New Year, New Resolutions

January 3, 2012 By Marah Leave a Comment

Happy 2012!

I wish you all a safe, healthy and happy year! I’ve never been a big fan of resolutions, maybe because they are made so lightly and so easily broken. There is some statistic somewhere that states that most new year’s resolutions are broken within an hour of making them or something. But this year, I thought I’d make a few goals for the blog, call them resolutions if you want.

These are a few things I’d like to see this year:

Blog more/blog better – I’d like to get some more stuff on here. More posts, more of the ideas that I’ve had floating in my mind for the last year. I want to see them here.
Make it personal – I’d like to share more stuff about me, my life, my thoughts, on here. Don’t worry, the recipes won’t go away I just want to have more of myself in those posts.
Make movies – Well, not really movies but I’d like to get some video footage up on this little blog.
Restaurant Reviews – More local restaurant reviews and info. I’ll just have to suck it up and start eating out more often at some great places, darn.

I hope that by 2013 I’ll have done some work on all of these areas.

What about you guys? What kind of resolutions or goals are you hoping to accomplish this year? OR what would you like to see here on the ol’ blog? Any requests?

PS- Anyone else sad that Christmas is over? I hated turning on the radio this morning in the car and not hearing Christmas music and Eric asked yesterday when I want to take down the tree. I told him, never!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: christmas, christmas music, happy year, local restaurant, new resolutions, new year, radio, recipes, statistic, video footage

Christmas Cookie Time

December 1, 2011 By Marah 1 Comment

Since it is officially December today, I feel it is acceptable to begin the popular Christmas cookie discussion. Everyone loves Christmas cookies; there are so many different varieties that it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t have a favorite. There are the classic cookies, chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin and the elegant cookies like gingerbread and iced sugar cookies and then there are cookies that are unique to each family, sand tarts or pumpkin.

Growing up, my mom would make many different kinds of Christmas cookies and on top of that my grandmother would make totally different kinds than my mom made. For a kid, this was a perfect situation and my brother and I would eat Christmas cookies well into the New Year. Another “use” for all the cookies was gifts. My mom made nice bags of cookies for our teachers at school, neighbors and friends, all decorated in holiday bags and ready to be opened and eaten immediately. They really are a great gift; what is better than homemade cookies?

Now that I’m grown, there is not as much need for SO many cookies and my mom has decreased her production levels in an effort to save those few extra cookie pounds from attaching to her and my dad’s waist. I have started making a few kinds of cookies but no where near what my mother used to take on. I have discovered that I like to spread out the Christmas cookies all month long and now operate on system in which I made 1-2 kinds of cookies each week for the weeks leading up to Christmas. This way we can enjoy each kind and no cookies go to waste. It also eliminates the marathon baking sessions I remember participating in as a child where we churned out 7 varieties of cookies in 1 day. Those were a lot of work, and a lot of fun, especially when my aunts, cousins and grandma got together but its not as easy to find a time when we can all do that anymore.

I’m going to adopt the same strategy this year as in years past with a little exception. We have decided to have a Christmas party again this year (which we like to have during the week between Christmas and New Years). This means I’ll be needing extra cookies for the party. I’m going to attempt to make cookies that freeze well earlier in the month and freeze some and then make a larger amount close to Christmas. I plan to start this weekend!

One of my Christmas wishes, is to get some more dialogue going here on the blog. I have a feeling there are people reading this that want to comment but hesitate. Please feel free to comment! Nothing makes my day more than the little email I get saying I got a comment but even better is when that comment is not spam (I get alot of spam)! So let’s hear it, what is your favorite Christmas cookie? Got any great memories of baking cookies during the holidays? Or of finding cookies half eaten by Santa on Christmas morning? I love hearing what you think!