Searching for the Ranting Chef

The Rantings of an Amateur Chef gets a decent amount of traffic for a little recipe blog. A lot of that traffic comes from you, my loyal subscribers, but I do get a decent amount of fly-by traffic.

By far, Pinterest is the biggest driver of additional traffic to the blog. Whether it is pins that I created, or ones that you have, I get hundreds of visitors each day from Pinterest. I get a decent amount of traffic from Facebook and from other blogs (guest posters, reblogs of my posts or I am on their blogroll) as well.

What I am most interested in, though, is the traffic from search sites like Google or Bing. In many cases, I can see the search term that someone entered that eventually landed them at my doorstep. As you would expect I get a number of people looking for the site (ranting chef, rantingchef, etc..), or looking for a specific recipe that I’ve made (ranch chicken), but there are some others that I just don’t know how I came up in the search or why they clicked over to my site. Here are a few interesting ones:

• madea is cooking churkey – While I have used churkey, madea is nowhere in an actual post.

• 32 lb frozen turkey – That is one massive turkey and while I’ve featured a 22 lb turkey, it was cooked at 325.

• premademashedpotatoes – Nice word spacing. Yup. I’ve used the flakes in recipes.

• is there eel in hot and sour soup – I love this and the variations on this. I wrote a post about where I thought there was eel in hot and sour soup. I get hits almost every day on this.

• amateur dog – Versus a professional one?

• peanutbutter cheesecake and cleveland, ohio – I think this person was looking for a dessert RIGHT NOW!

• potato pick up lines – Um…”so you’re from Idaho”

• chipmunk cheeks picture of – My #1 post.

• amateur sleeping – My eldest son has won the amateur sleeping title and is ready to go pro.

• are chipmunks kosher – No, but squirrels are…..

• reames noodles redondo beach – This is a mash from a Maggie Monday post and where I lived for a while in high school.

• how much food is in the house – THIS MUCH.

• gangnam style – Those looking for Psy were disappointed.

• buffalo hookers – This searcher was REALLY disappointed!

This dish looks a mess but tastes wonderful.

I used thighs and drumsticks.

Getting the bacon cooked.

Then the chicken.

A great, hearty dish.

Slow-Cooker Chicken With Bacon, Mushrooms, and Onions

prep 35m ∙ cook 7hr 00m ∙ makes 6 ∙ source Realsimple.com

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 pound sliced bacon, diced

• 1 4- to 6-pound chicken, cut up

• 1/2 cup dry white wine (or 1/4 cup dry vermouth plus 1/4 cup water)

• 1/2 pound small white mushrooms

• 1 cup frozen small white onions, thawed

• 6 garlic cloves, chopped

• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary (or 1 tablespoon dried rosemary leaves)

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/4 cup water

• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-low heat until crisp. With a slotted spoon, transfer it to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Pour off all but a light coating of fat from the skillet. Add the chicken and brown over medium-high heat; transfer to the cooker.

2. Pour the wine into the skillet and scrape up any browned bits; add the skillet contents to the cooker, along with the mushrooms, onions, garlic, rosemary, and salt. Cover and cook on low heat for 6 hours, or on high for 3 hours.

3. Transfer the chicken, bacon, and vegetables to a platter; keep warm. Pour the sauce into a small saucepan. Combine the water and cornstarch; stir it into the sauce. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Pour over the chicken.