Spaghetti & Meatballs

I always find it rewarding when I make my food instead of getting it store bought. I always like trying new recipes. Instead of find something new to cook I have decided to make spaghetti and meatballs from scratch. It all started with me having a desire for some time now to make my own pasta. Recently I have found myself wanting to make my own meatballs. This is how I decided that I want to make homemade Spaghetti and Meatballs.

I have found that I will need a food processor and rolling machine. which I do not have. I did some research on making pasta without a roller machine. From what I have found, it is not impossible to make the pasta without a roller machine. I will have to put more effort into making thinly sliced spaghetti without a roller machine. Since I will be making the dough from scratch, I am a little concerned about messing it up and not getting it the right consistency. But I will never know until I try.

Making the meatballs seem to be pretty easy to do. From what I have gathered you will need the meat in a bowl and add bread crumbs. There are two methods for  bread crumbs. The first is to make toast and put it into a food processor or to crush it. The second is to buy the store brand, but you should make sure to check the ingredients for spices that may already be included or for ingredients you do not want to be included. After the meatball mixture is finished you will need to roll the meatballs into “golf ball-sized.” There are two ways the meatballs can be cooked, in a greased skillet on the stove or in a baking dish in the oven.

The sauce seems pretty straight forward. I will need the ingredients like tomato diced and spices. I will have to put them at a simmer on the stove just like if I were to buy the store brand. This way I will be able to control the ingredients in the sauce. Most sauces have vegetables I do not like, this way I can decided what vegetables are in there and that aren’t. I have discovered from an article from Eat This Not That, that you can finely chop up vegetables in spaghetti sauce. Since the spaghetti sauce is so strong you can not taste the vegetables and still get the nutrition of the vegetables.

Pasta:

http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t–792/making-homemade-pasta.asp

http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Pasta/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMD9kIZMvZk

http://italianfood.about.com/od/pastarecipesandsauces/a/blr0001.htm

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/how-to-make-pasta2.htm

http://www.sugarlaws.com/whole-wheat-pasta

http://www.ehow.com/how_5033915_make-homemade-pasta-machine.html

Meatballs:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2151288_meatballs-spaghetti.html

Sauce:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Homemade-Spaghetti-Sauce

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1655,133175-243197,00.html

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/homemade-spaghetti-sauce/Detail.aspx

Progressive Enhancement

A List Apart: Understanding Progressive Enhancement

This had a comparison between progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. Then it compared progressive enhancement to a peanut M&M.

Progressive Enhancement: Paving the Way for Future Web Design

Advantages of progressive enhancement

Progressive Enhancement – What is it and How to use it? – Smashing Magazine

Search Engine Optimization // “Findability”

What is the importance of Search Engine Optimization?

It is very important for users to be able to find your website. They may need to find your phone number or a way to contact you or even just information on your company. Even if you place your website URL on every advertisement, that doesnt mean that your customers see or know you have one. It is also important for those that dont know your company even exists, it will make it easier for a user to find you when they are search for something relevant to your site.

What are its features:

• Increase traffic count.
• The more traffic the more likely you are to sell your product
• The higher ranking in Search Engines

What is done to optimize a site for search engines?

• Meta tags (keyword & description)
• Keywords in title
• Keywords in Headings
• Keywords in Alt Tags
• Keywords in Anchor Tags

Here is A List of things that can affect your ranking in search engines:

15 Minute SEO List

Why would it be important for you to add these concepts to your web design practice?

A company needs customers. If a customer cant find a phone number or location, the less customers you have. If your site is hard to find by customers they wont know its there , slowing down the traffic of the site. Websites are created to promote and access easy information on that company. If the website is doing neither then why is it there?

Best Practices

Web Design Best Practices Checklist

Web Page Development: Best Practices

Best Practices for Speeding Up your Web Page

Best Practices in Web Design

—-

Web Performance Best Practices

Mobile Web Best Practices

CSS Positioning Elements!!!

HTML SOURCE: CSS LAYOUT

I did like how right off the bat the problem with tables and frustration was stated. because they are a pain… however they put the style in the div which i havent seen i think it might get a little lost… but i could be wrong!!!

Barely Fitz Design: Learn CSS in Ten Steps

I really liked how this was seperated into 10 steps on 10 different pages/tabs.it really seems to be 9 the last is a disclaimer! and off to the left a preview was being shown of the results. this showed me a few things i didnt know or think of trying and refreshed my memory, like i forgot about clear:both which is on the 9th step.

-on step 4 i learned if the container is relative then the div inside is set to absolute it will be set to inside the parent div.

- on step 5 that you can set the absolute and set one to 0 on top and right and the other top and left for columns instead of doing the math or trying estimate

StopDesign : Making the absolute,relative
I was a little unsure when to use absolute and relative. because i don’t think I’ve ever really used relative. so i played with relative. and after reading this a have a little better understanding when to use it. so now i will go back and use absolute in areas it seems i should instead of relative.

In Home daycares

First of all, I would like to say that the in home daycare sites I have seen give me a huge headache. the color , background, the text! It makes me want to run and never come back!!!

Baby Center: Home Daycare Licensing

Childcare Lounge:Understanding Childcare Regulations

Parent Handouts: Where Does The Money Go?

Baby Center: Signs of a Good Home Daycare

Own A Day Care: Home Daycare Provider Activites

E-How: Requirements for Home Day Care

In class, Pretty much I needed to redo or rethink my comps. To be more fun to go along with the theme daycare kids and what not. so here are 2 I did. Any thoughts would be appreciated..

Css Float Layout

hum.. what have i learned about float layouts.. well i have experienced that when setting up the with percentage.. u should leave some room for error since its not always 100% which is stated in Float Layouts @ Autistic Cuckoo.

“For one, the box being floated should have a width defined for it, either explicitly or implicitly. Otherwise, it will fill its containing block horizontally, just like non-floated content, leaving no room for other content to flow around it. Second, unlike boxes in the normal flow, the vertical margins of a floated box are not collapsed with the margins of boxes either above or below it. Finally, a floated box can overlap block-level boxes adjacent to it in the normal flow.”

—- Smashing Magazine :  CSS Float Theory: Things You Should Know

“You can float elements to the right or the left. Any element that follows the floated element will flow around the floated element on the other side.”

.. as said on about.com in the Using CSS Floats for Layout Article.

You would think that only the element you tell to float would float. but nope everything that follows also floats that way!

Semantic Markup….

From browsing around my understanding of semantic markup… is that if it is writing well, then when someone else looks at it they can understand why something is there and what it is. Instead, of looking at it and wanting to rewrite it all or wanting to run away and never look at it again.

I hope I have some knowledge on meaningful markup… or at least learning to!

Guide to Semantic Markup for Blogs

The Semantic markup in blogs have always confused me. so i figured i didnt know what i was looking at. This is a guide on things to make our lives easier when it comes to semantic markup in blogs

Meaningful Markup

Explaining Semantic Markup

Web Design….

well designing a web page to not only look appealing but to be well organized so that users can find their way around. I’m sure you didn’t need to me to tell you that. but to me web design is almost a place i can just escape from the world. I’ve always liked dealing with codes (that i understand) i feel like a nerd when I’m in my little looking at code daze. When coding i don’t usually check it on different platforms or browsers. but after reading these articles im starting to feel like i should. If i have done it right there shouldn’t be a lot of problems. I will also assume that when coding a web page, that I would prefer CSS but then again I haven’t done much of anything else..

http://www.bsidolphin.com/?standards

http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/04/30/a_roadmap_to/index.php

Resturant User Reviews

i like the simple colors they use. i like the logo but it doesn’t fit for the site. the site is still in beta. so they don’t have many states where they have reviews but good thing they have Dallas reviews but for the restaurants that are reviewed there seem to be a lot of reviews for still being in beta.

i like how the logo color and page colors tie in together. i like the simple but yet self explained log0
also how you can receive updates

logo is cute but dont really like it that much. i do like the colors though.

i like how its like a social networking site. you can have a journal or reviewed sites, and have a friends like list of other friends o menuism.com

you can view a restaurant and see others reviews on it or you can review your experience at the restaurants you go to.

i like how road food as a different spin on it. its not just resturants in general but road food which is “Great regional meals along highways, in small towns and in city neighborhoods.”

the colors i don’t like that much even though they are like menuism just brighter. while menuism is more light colors. i do like the features you can see the top 10, and apparently make reservations

out of all the sites. i probably spent the most time looking around this one. it shows you a map of the restaurants and it list them. how many reviews, directions, some have pictures, and those that review the restaurant can put the price range, rating and what they thought about the place. you can also say if their review was useful to you. i like the colors, structure and feel of this site