Good morning from the office of Cookie and Kate! Please pardon the interruption of regularly scheduled posts. Based on your requests, I’ve been working hard on some new features that will (hopefully) help you find just the recipes you’re looking for.
Unfortunately, the transition was not as graceful as I hoped it would be. If my menu looks wonky or all of this text is underlined, please clear your browser’s cache. Sorry about that!
Here’s how it works: You can access all of the new organization features by hovering over “ALL RECIPES” in the menu. The triangle is there to remind you that there are more options there. The new drop-down menu is designed for easy access on your computer, iPad, iPhone and whatever else the kids are using these days. You can still just click on ALL RECIPES as usual, if you want the full recipe index.
Here’s a rundown of what you’ll find in the new menu:
Cuisines: Asian, Greek, Indian, Italian and Mexican. Granted, these categories are very broad and none of the recipes qualify as truly authentic, but if you’re craving Mexican food, I’ve got you covered.
Diets: This is the best part! You will now find the following diets: dairy free, egg free, gluten free, gluten free and vegan, nut free, soy free, sugar free, tomato free annnnnd vegan. All of my recipes are meatless in addition to the above, of course.
If you need recipes that are, say, soy free AND nut free, let me know and I’ll create a special page for you! Seriously, it will only take me a few minutes. I hired an awesome nutrition student/reader named Jillian who helped me categorize recipes by diet (thanks, Jillian!). As always, please double check that these recipes really do work for you and please let me know if you find any errors.
Everyday: Here, you’ll find links to fast breakfasts, pack for lunch recipes and weeknight dinners.
Ingredients: Another big improvement! I created an alphabetical ingredient index by request. You can click on the first letter of the ingredient you’re looking for to see your options. I’ve also listed about ten frequently used ingredients under the index link, in case you’re looking for any of those, and of course, you can just use the search bar if you prefer.
Seasons: This is pretty self explanatory. Click on a season to see seasonal recipes.
Ok, I think that’s it! I’ll be back with more recipes soon. Have a wonderful weekend!
Abby @ The Frosted Vegan
The new features look great! Love them!
Jenny
Looks good! Also, Cookie is so darn cute! :)
Kate
Thanks, Jenny! :D
Kate
Thank you, Jenny! :)
Liz @ Floating Kitchen
Great new features, Kate! I’m really dying to update my site as well but computers and I usually don’t get along. So it’s always such a painful process for me. Ack!
Kate
Well, if it makes you feel any better, developing these new features was a pretty painful experience and I thought I was a pretty tech-savvy person! Lesson learned: responsive menus are a beast.
Laura
The new features look great! They will definitely make it easier to find recipes – thanks, Kathryn! :)
Alessandra // the foodie teen
LOVE the new features! Thanks so much for all your hard work to make the site easier to use for your readers – it’s much appreciated!
Kate
Thank you, Alessandra! I appreciate you taking the time to say so! :D
Vix
This is amazing, Kate! Thank you for all your hard work…I’m sure it will be well-utilized!
Kate
Thank you, Vix! I appreciate it!
sarah
Excellent job! It works flawlessly.
Kate
Thank you, Sarah!
Lisa
I wondered if you were doing a redesign of sorts with the wonky menu happenings. This looks fantastic! I’m very excited to definitely put these updates to use as I look for easy dinners!
Kate
Oh bummer, I’m sorry you saw that crazy-looking menu! Glad it looks better now.
Nicole
Looks great!
Angela @ Eat Spin Run Repeat
Great job Kate! You’ve done such a good job! I just had my site re-designed and moved to a new server, and I know how it feels to sometimes see wonky pieces because of browser caching, unsure of how many others see the same thing. Your site looks just perfect for me though!
Kate
Hey Angela! Thank you! Your new site looks fantastic! Caching is SO frustrating. I’m thankful for visitors who told me what was going wrong, because I never saw it that way myself!
Ella
You ROCK. I was wondering about wonky blog things because I tried to leave a comment on the recent grilled cheese recipe but it wouldn’t accept it and kept deleting it :( I was just saying, in case you’re wondering now, that I’ve been very pleasantly surprised in the past few months by the vegan options (read: things like Persian Tempeh Curry) at restaurants in tiny, TINY towns. Hooray! I think it really depends on the place, such patterns can’t really be generalized easily/accurately.
I was also going to tell you (since you were expressing some interest in possibly getting into video a while back) that I recently upgraded my editing software from iMovie (comes with all Macs) to Final Cut Pro (about $300 in the app store, available only for Apple). You can see the first video I edited successfully with it here, if you’re interested: http://youtu.be/eoWC-3IfG74 I would really, really recommend that you start out (if you’re going to do video at some point) by figuring out iMovie before attempting Final Cut. I’ve been making videos for almost 2 years and most of the tech stuff was self taught plus the occasional Google search… but Final Cut is a really, really steep learning curve. Once you start to get it, the stuff you can do becomes really rewarding and exciting, but until then, it’s one big mess of controls and buttons! Just something to keep in mind :)
One last thing: I know it’s probably a little odd, but could you possibly put together a vegan+banana-free tab? That would be amazing!
Have a great weekend, Kate.
http://www.youtube.com/sparklesandsuch26
Kate
Hey Ella! I’m sorry about your commenting issue. I received your comment and approved it. Comments with links in the body require manual approval. Did you receive any weird error messages beyond that? I’ve never come across Persian tempeh curry, let alone in a tiny town! That’s awesome! I still don’t have a camera with video capabilities, but I’m pretty close to buying one, so we’ll see about those videos. I definitely want to use iMovie because it’s already installed on my system. I just checked the vegan page and there are only three banana recipes on there, two of which have banana in the recipe title and the last one being the fudge. I think that page is your best bet! https://cookieandkate.com/vegan-recipe-index/
Ella
Oh, that makes sense! Nope, no more error messages, it just wouldn’t show up. iMovie is what I would definitely go with. Feel free to email me (I think you can see my email address through comments? if not let me know) should you start to get into video and want any help/advice… I’ be happy to tell you what I know :) THANK YOU for pointing out bananified recipes! The categories are so well organized now, I love it!
http://www.youtube.com/sparklesandsuch26
Kate
Ok! Thanks, Ella!
Wendy
Making it more user friendly equals more long time visitors!
Kate
I hope! :)
Nicole
Kate – These new features are so great! I was fortunate enough to find your blog a couple years ago while in college. Your easy, healthy, delicious recipes changed the way my roommate and I cooked. Prior to finding your site, we were all about boring pasta and spinach with grilled chicken… Through your site, we found countless tasty options to make for dinner and then throw in a mason jar to bring to campus for lunch the next day. Now I’m a fifth grade teacher and still come to your site as my first choice for meals when I’m doing my weekly planning. I’ve never commented, so I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all your hard work.
Kate
Hey Nicole! It’s great to hear from you. I’m glad to know you’ve been reading along. It sounds like your college cooking was far superior to mine! Thanks again for your note.
Jessie
Thank you. I’m excited about the new features.
Kate
Thank you, Jessie! :)
Amanda
I love your blog and was just the other day wishing for an ingredient index :) This post includes all sorts of good news as I am also dairy free and tomato free. Thanks for sharing so many wonderful recipes and for making these improvements to the website!
Kate
Thank you, Amanda! I’m glad you enjoy my recipes! I made a special page for you for dairy/tomato free recipes: https://cookieandkate.com/dairy-free-tomato-free-vegetarian-recipes/. My menu space is limited, but I thought you might like to bookmark it for future reference!
Amanda
Thank you so much! This is wonderful!
Kate
You’re welcome!
Kelly
I love how you organized your site. Very user friendly!
Kate
Thank you, Kelly!
Phi @ The Sweetphi Blog
Yay to fantastic new website features :) Looks amazing
Kate
Thanks, Phi!
lisa @Garlic+Zest
Seriously? You’re so ridiculously organized, you put me to shame. Head in sand – do you have a recipe for that?
Kate
Haha! Thanks, Lisa. This project took months… so much longer than I thought it would!
Joana
Thank you SO much for the diet feature. Dairy free, egg free, gluten free, gf and vegan, so much appreciated! Your recipes are an inspiration for food sensitivies cooking :)
Kate
Thank you, Joana! I hope you find the new pages useful!
Jenny @ BAKE
This is fantastic! I can’t wait to explore all your recipes!
Amanda
Yay! I’m so excited you have a sugar-free category now! Although I’m pretty good at subbing stevia in for sugar, it’s nice to have ones that just don’t have sugar in them period.
Ashley
You are amazing! Most organized blog ever!! I’m about to start a huge blog revamp in a few weeks and I know it’s going to be a pain in the……. :)
Kate
Thanks, Ashley! And oh boy. I know what you mean. I’m excited to see your revamp, though!
Sandy
Obviously, a lot of hard work and thought went into all the new features and organization. Kudos to you and your assistant, Jillian. As always, cookieandkate.com is my go-to site for fresh ideas and yummy vegetarian recipes. I really love the new features!
Kate
Yay, thank you so much, Sandy. I appreciate your comments!