Welcome to my kitchen!
It looked like this five years ago, when we first moved into this sweet place. The previous owner (& now dear friend) lived here for 80 years - 80 years (!) before moving to a nursing home.
I've written before about the magical story of finding our home. Though I love this house, I didn't exactly love this kitchen. But I was thankful to have it.
After two years of making do--without any cabinets, with an oven decades old that wouldn't quite shut all the way--we were blessed to renovate and create our dream kitchen.
Now (from the same angles) it looks like this:
Quite the transformation, don't you think?
Having a workable kitchen is such a gift...especially when you're a vegan for 30 days.
Many of you asked me to report back about my vegan experience. I'm over halfway through the 30 days now, and overall the experience has made me realize how much I love the way we eat normally.
We rarely have meat in the house (can't remember the last time), though we eat organic meat on occasion. I like using dairy products lightly, because they make me feel heavy. But I don't feel the need to give them up forever. We only use organic dairy and eggs anyway, and I feel they are perfectly healthy in moderation. I gave up drinking milk over a year ago, so that isn't a huge transition for me now.
What has experienced a transformation as a vegan is my pantry. Want to take a look?
Inspired by Heather's photos, I spent time putting many of my pantry goods in jars--and I just love it! Plus it has seriously helped reduce the number of pantry moths reproducing in there.
The first ten days as a vegan I felt pretty energetic and up for the challenge. The past few days have been more difficult.
I tried a couple of recipes that, shall we say, didn't meet with rave reviews. Like baked tofu, roasted root vegetables, and sauteed kale. Steve, always up for something new, said, "I never expected it would come to this."
But we're still on the vegan wagon. (At least Steve and I are; the kids jumped ship after the first week.)
What I'm enjoying the most is how detached I feel from sugar. Most of the time we use natural sweetners (like maple syrup, honey, and sucanat); I find myself very satisfied with those and not really wanting processed sugar. For this Southern girl who almost always had a soda in hand until five years ago, that is quite the accomplishment.
It's one thing to make changes. People force change on themselves when it comes to food and diet every day.
But it's another thing completely when you find your changes make you feel so good that you want to live this way, because you love the person you're becoming.
*Let's chat kitchens: Are you in a "make-do" kitchen, a dream kitchen, or somewhere in between?*