There’s a BABY!
Joining our family!
In April 2017!
OMGEEEEEE
Sage cannot even with this whole thing.
So overwhelmingly grateful for this wild ride of a life ♡
and so thankful for YOU for sharing the fun + joy with us!
The post Guess What appeared first on Pinch of Yum.
It’s Fridayyyy!
Who’s having fun with their life over the next two and a half days?
I have plans every day this weekend, which is a little unusual for me but I am v excited about them all, since they include things like eating out at my favorite Indian restaurant (I started strategically planning my order last night – I take these things seriously), going to a play with my best girlfriends, hosting a baby shower for which I will be making beautiful fancy-pants toast and a pumpkin streusel bundt cake ♡, watching my little brother play football, and eating the leftovers of this bowl to do a clean eating reset between all my going-out meals.
I sort of can’t believe that Monday is Halloween and then Tuesday is NOVEMBER. November as in the month before December. How did this happen. Did life play a trick on us? And does November mean we are officially moving into the supercold season and at what point is it acceptable to just put on my best sweats and stay inside 24/7 and call it winter?
I’m the kind of person who is always needing at least 3 pairs of thick socks, and who only ever eats hot to very hot food, and who talks to her husband about her need (NEED) for a hot tub on a daily basis. I really don’t love cold weather. But do you know what is kind of fun about cold weather? You can feel cozy. When we lived in the Philippines, I realized that without cold weather, you never get to feel cozy.
So as I’m bracing myself for November / winter / cold times ahead, I’m feeling 99% grateful for the opportunity to feel cozy with my sweats, thick socks, and a big glow bowl loaded with those Moroccan-spiced chickpeas. And also still 1% greedy for a hot tub. A girl can dream, right?
So I’m super happy to be bringing this recipe / mashup / bowl situation to you today, guys.
Here’s what we have going on in this chickpea glow bowl:
Moroccan-spiced chickpeas simmered in sauce fire-roasted tomatoes. Couscous, cooked and fluffed to perfection, or our old standby quinoa, depending on your clean eating goals (I’m kind of over quinoa at the moment, so couscous did the trick beautifully for me). Cucumber salad aka cucumbers, some lemon juice, olive oil, and herbs to the max –> hello mint, parsley, and cilantro. Plain yogurt or hummus for a side-sauce bonus, and toasted pita wedges if you’re okay working a little bit of wheat into your detox.
And just in case you need some ideas, here are the situations that a Detox Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Glow Bowl could be considered useful in a normal person’s life:
You have been eating out a lot this week. (Hi, yes.) You are returning home from a trip or adventure where you ate really well, and by really well, I don’t mean really clean. (Me again.) You like to eat super healthy food that a) gives you lots of nutrition and b) doesn’t taste like broken hearts and shattered dreams. (Oooh, yes, over here!)
This is currently acting as my colder-weather go-to for a super nutritious, plant-based meal that is basically the same experience as me eating my favorite comfort food. Okay, fine, pizza might still stand in a category all its own, but other than that, I’d say this detox bowl can compete with the best of them.
The post Detox Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Glow Bowl appeared first on Pinch of Yum.
Hi there!
Bjork here. Checking in for the monthly income report here on Pinch of Yum.
We’ll look at three things in this report.
We’ve been doing these reports for over five years now. The first time we ever published one of these was back in September of 2011, when we made a total of $21.97 and had almost (but not quite) 50,000 pageviews. You can check out that first income report here.
We’ve followed an insanely simple formula to get the blog to this point: Consistently doing the work and finding ways to do it a little bit better along the way.
Our key to success is showing up.
Not all the time. Not every single day. But almost all of the time. Almost every day.
Post by post. Picture by picture. Email by email. Year by year. Brick by brick.
A few years after launching Pinch of Yum we started another site called Food Blogger Pro. We followed the same slow and steady formula with Food Blogger Pro: show up every day and improve little by little.
Today FBP is a thriving community of over 2,300 members from all around the world. It’s truly an amazing group of bloggers and we’re deeply honored to be a part of it.
Note: We’re opening Food Blogger Pro for our Fall enrollment period really soon. Be sure to jump on the waiting list if you’re interested in joining.
If you’re starting and building your thing, whether it be a blog, a non-profit, or a new career, I’d encourage you to have a long-term mindset, show up every day, and find ways to enjoy the work.
Let’s take a look at the numbers for September…
Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links. All of the products listed below are products and services we’ve used before. If you have any questions about any of the income or expenses you can leave a comment and we’ll do our best to reply.
Below are some Google Analytics screenshots from the month of September 2016.
The takeaway that I wanted to focus on today is updating old blog posts.
Here’s the deal:
If you’ve been consistently blogging for a certain amount of time then you’ve probably built up a decent amount of content. For instance, over the past 6+ years of blogging Pinch of Yum has amassed 934 posts.
That’s a lot of content.
It’s one of the reasons why Pinch of Yum is able to get 4 million page views a month.
You often here people talk (myself included) about the “secret” of success being consistently publishing high quality content over a long period of time. It’s 100% true.
But it’s easy to get tunnel vision and only focus on creating content, all the while forgetting that it’s also important to update and improve your old content.
There are a few benefits to updating old blog posts vs. creating new ones:
At the beginning of October Lindsay updated this sweet potato casserole recipe.
It was a pretty big update, including new photos, a recipe video that Alana and Krista created, some additional written content, and updating some of the SEO metadata (using the Yoast SEO plugin I previously mentioned).
If you’re updating an old post you don’t have to do a big overhaul like we did for this post. Even small changes like updating the SEO metadata and adding in some new (and relevant) written content can help.
Lindsay also worked with a brand that sponsored the republished post (it wasn’t previously a sponsored post).
The proof is in the pudding, er, sweet potato casserole…right?
Here are the results from updating and republishing that post.
Here’s a screenshot of the overall traffic to this post from the past 30 days.
And here’s a few screenshots comparing traffic from the week before we updated the post and the most recent week of traffic.
So the experiment was a success, right?
Well, not so fast…
Straight up traffic stats aren’t exactly a good metric to use when gauging whether this was a successful experiment or not. Here’s why: It’s possible (and likely) that we’re getting more traffic because republishing the post simply resulted in more people finding it because it was more prominently displayed on the blog. Or, perhaps we’re getting more traffic because it’s close to Thanksgiving, so more people are making this recipe.
A better metric to look at is the Search Analytics area in Google Webmaster Tools.
Specifically, I’m looking at the Position report for the query sweet potato casserole recipe.
This handy little report shows us the average position on a Google search results page for certain search queries.
If the number is 10, that means that this post, on average, shows up as number 10 in Google search results for the term “sweet potato casserole recipe.”
As you probably know, higher is better.
Here’s a screenshot of the before and after for republishing the post.
Pretty interesting!
So does that mean that be republishing and updating this post resulted in it showing up higher in Google searches?
In a word, yes.
We saw a consistent and steady lift for three days after republishing that post. After that it came back down a bit but then slowly started going up again.
It’s an exciting graph to look at (at least as far as graphs go) because it shows pretty clearly that updating and republishing that post resulted in a boost in it’s position on search results pages, which almost always results in a boost in traffic.
The process is pretty simple:
Two quick things to consider if you do this:
The two tools you’ll need to do the tracking for this are Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, both of which are free (and incredibly powerful).
There cheers for tasty and (re)fresh(ed) recipes!
It’s because of you that this thing we call Pinch of Yum can exist as it does today. Thank you so much for making these recipes, leaving comments with your love and feedback, sending emails, following on social media, and sharing this food around the table with your families and friends.
Every month we donate a portion of Pinch of Yum’s income to non-profit or foundation that’s near to our heart. This month we’re donating to the Children’s Shelter of Cebu and helping to fund their budget for daily meals.
The post Updating an Old Blog Post: September Traffic and Income Report appeared first on Pinch of Yum.
Hello hi!
Good news, friends! We are looking at creamy-but-not-overly-creamy FALL PASTA on the menu tonight.
This can be filed under the category of fall bliss – little bites of whole wheat orecchiette with roasted butternut squash and broccolini, tossed with a light Parmesan cream / thyme / garlic sauce and sprinkled generously with pumpkin seeds and Parmesan.
Not too heavy, not too light, just total pasta perfection that is everything October should be, all in one big bowl.
I ate my first inspirational version of this pasta at the blog retreat I attended this weekend (shout out to Chef Tony from Kroger – seriously AMAZING), and this pasta specifically was the kind of life-changing food magic that just requires that you come home and make it happen immediately, again and again, in your real life.
Things I love about this recipe include its meatlessness (although please, by all means, ADD THAT BACON and we will cheer your name from the rooftops), its quick and easy method, its comforting cream sauce that is just barely there and requires nothing more than just a light roux and a little broth or milk + Parmesan, its large quantity of leftovers and their ability to stay yummy for several days, and its glorious way of satisfying a hangry dinner situation with pretty minimal effort. You know I’m all about the good food / minimal effort combo.
This might sound weird, but since the squash sort of melts into everything and the cream sauce is just a little bit Parmesan-cheesy, it DID kind of remind me of a grown up version of macaroni and cheese. Like, think THIS mac and cheese. I’m saying that as a compliment, just for the record, because as we all know, mac and cheese is, in fact, the meaning of life. It is like macaroni and cheese is meeting its lighter version with grown up pasta shapes, more exciting flavors, and luscious roasted fall vegetables. And let me tell you: it is a PARTY.
How are you guys feeling about fall cooking right now? Are you so totally in the zone? Are you over it and ready to bake Christmas cookies for the next two months?
I am making like 300 fall recipes today that I am so excited about: winter miso vegetable soup, moroccan-spiced chickpea burrito bowls (don’t even get me started), homemade bread bowls, and pumpkin cake with a caramely streusel layer running through the middle. I literally cannot be stopped. I burn candles, I wear tall boots, and I cook the heck out of fall life. This is my official food season, and after a few weeks of slowed-down rest this last month, I feel like I am finally getting into my fall food groove, where I can actually make the exciting food ideas I have at or near the rate that they are coming to me. A little late, maybe, since it’s now almost November, but late is my lifestyle.
Today: I’m wishing you all the weeknight joys of a good meatless pasta dish coated with a light and creamy Parmesan sauce. May your roasted veggies be just the right amount of crispy, your sauce perfectly creamy, and your pasta bowls super extra deep. Mwah.
The post Creamy Parmesan Orecchiette with Butternut Squash and Broccolini appeared first on Pinch of Yum.
Monday, Monday, Mondayyyyy.
The day where we’re all trying to slow down while also keeping up with our responsibilities and ambitions and dreams and all the things that we maybe got behind on this weekend, and, just, bottom line, trying to get our lives together and be mostly happy. Amiright? Ahh, life. I’m glad to be living this weird, crazy journey with you guys.
Yesterday I flew home from Salt Lake City after spending a few days with a handful of boss bloggers at a retreat where we shared our hearts with each other in a really sweet and vulnerable way. Also noteworthy was both the quality and the quantity of world-rocking food that we ate for basically three days straight. So yes, I’m in full blown marshmallow state.
When Bjork picked me up from the airport, I said: take me straight to the grocery store. Actually, that’s a lie: I said, take me straight to Panera because I’m craving chicken wild rice soup and that mediterranean veggie sandwich and I am going to become a hangry monster in about three seconds. But after we took care of that imminent disaster, we went to the store, stocked up on food for the week like responsible people, and settled in at home in sweats and hoodies to make pumpkin cake, ancho turkey chili, and healthy meal prep stuffs for the week ahead. We lit a little candle and opened the window cause small kitchens be gettin hot, yo. It was like fall meets Pinterest meets real life, and it was lovely.
I cannot even tell you how awesome-and-in-charge-of-my-life I feel right now. A full fridge of flavor-packed healthy food never ever felt so good.
One of the bloggers who was at the retreat with me this weekend was the ever-amazing Gina from Skinnytaste. She needs absolutely zero introduction. She is a food blogging legend and a total babe and a two-time NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER as of a few days ago. But here’s the thing you might not know about Gina – she’s literally one of the most kind and positive people I’ve ever met. I want to be her when I grow up.
So it totally makes sense that her new cookbook, called Fast and Slow (affiliate link), is loaded with awesome recipes for real people.
Sorry to dork out for a second, but you guys, can we just give it up for the cookbooks that work for real people? THANK YOU, UNIVERSE. Gina’s cookbook is 100% for US. It’s not a high-brow food diva situation. No, no. It’s familiar and easy and healthy. It’s called Fast and Slow because half of the recipes are speedy-fast and the other half are slow-cooker-friendly.
This slow cooker beef ragu is the first recipe I made from the book and it was every bit as luscious and comforting as I expected it to be. It’s packed with juicy tomato and garlic flavor and tender shredded beef that swims in a little tomato gravy situation that is on point for crusty bread dips. (PLEASE TRY THIS NO KNEAD BREAD WITH IT BECAUSE YOU WILL DIE OF JOY.)
I’ve only ever made a braised beef ragu one other time (which I love love loved) but I served mine over polenta, so this time around, serving it with pappardelle was bomb.com for a quick and easy melt-in-your-mouth pasta dinner.
We are nothing if not pasta people, so obviously. Just, obviously.
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