Martha Bakes, Netvibes and January 2011 Wrap-Up

Over time, some of my favorite recipes, features, book and restaurant reviews get buried behind newer entries.  Back in October 2010, I started a month-end series on Teenie Cakes wrapping up the month with an overview.   It’s been good to  reflect at the end of each month, welcoming in the next new month  and having those month-end wrap-ups categorized on this site to quickly review what trends, seasonal recipes and foodie news are shared.

Starting with the first monthly wrap-up of the new year, I’m including some news and musings I’d like to share without devoting a separate stand-alone post.   It will be like a teenie-newsletter (pun intended) delivered with the monthly wrap-up. This month:

• Martha Bakes – A New Martha Stewart Show
• Netvibes – A Great Tool For Keeping Up-To-Date and Feeling More Organized

January 2011 Recipe and Feature Wrap-Up
While most of our country is experiencing cold weather temperatures, Southern California’s weather fluctuates from Spring-like conditions to chilly, rainy days. Regardless if the sun is out or not, January is both a month of healthier, wiser eating and enjoying comfort food meals. I started the month revisiting making macarons with French Chocolate Macarons and ended it with cozy and comforting Individual Chicken Potpies and healthy servings of Roasted Mushroom, Beef and Barley Soup. Next month I’m looking forward to baking up some sweet treats for my loved ones and making some main and side dishes using some healthy ingredients that make up comfort foods from another culture. February enjoys two holidays plus Valentine’s Day – all wrapped up in a short 28-day month. Looking forward to February!
Individual Chicken Potpies	Roasted Mushroom, Beef and Barley Soup	Honey, Pecan and Cranberry Granola	Turnip and Sweet Potato Gratin with Gruyere
Savory Polenta-Herbed Muffins	Tuscan Tomato-Basil Soup	Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins	Chocolate French Macarons

Many of my blogging friends and favorite sites I have found through FoodBuzz – the online foodie community. FoodBuzz has an inbox feature to keep you up to date with what your “friends” have posted on their blogs/sites. I found the “inbox” overwhelming and some folks sending out multiple messages on the same post…kind of like spamming from within your FoodBuzz inbox.   I stopped using it altogether.

So, how to stay up-to-date with news, information and inspiration that matter to you? Netvibes!

From my programmer days, I was used to using Pageflakes as my online reader. It was a great way to keep up to date with the things that I wanted to keep informed about. Pageflakes has had some issues over the last months/years. There were a couple of months in there were my reader was completely inaccessible. I looked for another alternative in the Google Reader. Not finding its functionality and interface impressive, I looked into Netvibes. BINGO! This is an amazing tool. I think I’ve only just scratched the surface to what it offers, but I invested some time in transporting my Pageflakes RSS feeds to my new Netvibes account.

There are several ways to read your feeds, organize tabs and display content. It’s flexible, fast and has a user-friendly interface. I’ve included a couple of screen-shots of just a small sampling of ways you can view – plus you can customize further. If you’re not already familiar with it, check it out…you can always close your account if you decide it’s not for you. It may just be the tool you’ve been dreaming about, but didn’t know it.   Netvibes offers an overview/tour of its features.

Is there a reader that you use other than Google Reader or Pageflakes that you have found has great features and a fantastic tool?