Overall, it’s been an amazing year for Kitchen Treaty! Since I shared that I was back in the game last April, I’ve been working hard on both Kitchen Treaty and Good Gourds. Overall, I updated a ton of posts and created a ton of new content this year, and it’s felt amazing!

On a personal note, I finally made it to Europe for the first time ever last spring, and despite both myself and my kid getting sick, we had the most amazing 18-day trip to London, Bath, and Paris.

We had pre-reserved a lot of attractions that were non-refundable, and somehow my husband managed to avoid the germs, so he ended up being the only one of us three able to see a lot of the landmarks. It became somewhat of a running joke, and at one point toward the end of the trip, our kid made a phone album of his selfies in front of various landmarks – the Mona Lisa; Sacre Coeur; Stonehenge … the album was titled “Dad went to Europe alone.” 🤣

Still, we saw and experienced enough to fall in love, especially with London. Take me back! Next on our list: Italy and Scotland. And Germany. And everywhere else.

Probably the best memories of all of 2024 would be taking my kid to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour both in Paris while we were there and to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. We’re huge, unabashed Swifties and both concerts were core memory level for sure (if you know you know!)

But back to business …

The Year in Numbers

• Over 1.5 million people visited Kitchen Treaty in 2024!
• I published 55 new recipes
• Kitchen Treaty recipes received 117 five-star reviews! If you were one of the people who left a review, thank you so much! Whenever you try a blogger’s recipe and leave them a review, it means so much to the blogger and to the success of their business. It’s super helpful for other readers, too!
• On Pinterest, my images appeared on screens more than 6 million times! Dang!

2025 Goals

• Develop & publish at least 50 reliable, vibrant new recipes (be sure to sign up for my mailing list if you want to be notified whenever I publish a new recipe!)
• Take at least one culinary course (I recently learned there is a King Arthur Baking School just an hour or so away from me, so I’m thinking about taking a class with them!)
• Apply to my region’s Master Gardener program for 2026
• Publish two new e-cookbooks
• Start working on a print cookbook (!!!)

Leaning Into My Strengths (and Admitting My Weaknesses!)

My biggest takeaway from 2024 is that there is monumental value in leaning into your strengths. I love writing – always have – and other than coming up with new recipes, writing has been my very favorite part of my food blogging career.

So near the end of 2023, I put out some feelers and took on a handful of freelance writing clients. Basically, I write up copy for their food blog so that they can lean into their strengths. It’s a win-win!

Writing for others has had the wonderful side effect of adding wind to my sails. Working with successful, inspiring bloggers has really motivated me to build, grow, and improve my own food blogs.

Burnout cycles are SO real in this career, and I’ve had a few of them. So I took stock in where my pain points lie, and brainstormed ways to make them better.

The first was recipe testing and photography days. I was trying to test and photograph between three and six recipes at a time, by myself, and at the end of the day, I’d collapse with a kitchen full of dishes that still need to be washed, feeling like I’d just prepared a Thanksgiving dinner for 20!

So I asked my wonderful sister to come be my kitchen helper on those days, and it made a massive difference. Not only because she is an excellent cook and way more efficient at keeping up with the dishes than I am, but the conversation and laughter makes those days just fly by, in the best possible way – and they’re not nearly as exhausting. Thank you Kathy!

The second change (and massive improvement all around) is that I really had to admit to myself that I had grown to dislike the photography aspect of food blogging, and that my food photography skills had dulled. A lot. And around the time I was admitting that to myself, to my surprise and delight, I lucked upon the most amazing food photographer and hired her to photograph a couple of my recipes. It was incredible to have a great photographer shooting my recipes WAY better than I can, while also not having to worry about that aspect of the job that had become my weakness. So I hired her to photograph the majority of my recipes in 2025! Angie is so talented, makes my food look absolutely delicious, and will often send notes back after making my recipes with any suggestions after testing out the recipe, which is a huge bonus for myself and my readers. Thank you Angie!

Social media has never been a strength of mine. But it’s an important part of being a successful food blogger. So this year, I outsourced to a team to manage my Pinterest account, and it’s been great to have much of that off my plate. Next up, Facebook! I have no idea what to do with Instagram …

So, in a nutshell, one of the things that has improved my food blogging career exponentially is leaning into my strengths … and seeking help for my weaknesses. It’s okay if I can’t do it all! And it feels really, really good to lean into creating ironclad recipes and lots of writing these days.

Top Recipes of 2024

So what has resonated with you, my readers, this year?

Top 10 Recipes Overall

These recipes received the most visits this year:

1. Homemade Vinaigrette Salad Dressing
2. Homemade Thousand Island Dressing
3. The Best Macaroni & Cheese Ever
4. Easy Dairy-Free Banana Bread
5. Vegetarian Onion Gravy
6. Easy Homemade Barbecue Sauce
7. Pizza Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes
8. Soft-Baked Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
9. Fresh Squeezed Lemonade by the Glass
10. Baked Boursin Pasta

Top 10 Recipes Published in 2024

Only one recipe, Baked Boursin Pasta, made it onto both lists. It was popular this year (for good reason, it’s pretty tasty!) Here are the top 10 most visited new recipes in 2024.

1. Baked Boursin Pasta
2. Chocolate Wacky Cake
3. Chickpea & Tomato Curry
4. Honey Dijon Mustard Dressing
5. Creamy Vinaigrette
6. Easy Cherry Crumble
7. Marinated Cheese & Olive Skewers
8. Vegetarian Lentil Taco Meat
9. Apple Cider Syrup
10. Broccoli Cheddar Chickpea Noodle Casserole

My Very Favorite Recipes of 2024

Here are my favorite recipes on Kitchen Treaty – both those I published in 2024 and those that have stood the test of time. This list is in no particular order – no way I could rank them even if I tried!

1. Instant Pot Golden Lentil & Spinach Soup – All these years later, still one of my favorite lentil soups!
2. The Best Mac & Cheese Recipe Ever – So many people come back to Kitchen Treaty for this one, and I’m so thankful. I’m one of those people, too – I make this one several times a year!
3. Mom’s Hazelnut Cake – I thought this recipe was lost forever after my mom passed in 2020. Then, earlier this year, I found a handwritten copy at the back of a three ring binder full of recipes. I’m so excited to have this recipe back in my life and it was really meaningful to me to be able to publish it on Kitchen Treaty.
4. Coconut Curried Green Lentils – These lentils are the ultimate pantry recipe. They’re SO tasty and easy to make.
5. Tahini Seed Chocolate Chunk Breakfast Cookies – This breakfast cookies recipe is so easy and so good! I worked really hard on getting this one right, and I’m still surprised how well it works to mix a bunch of nuts and seeds with tahini and you get a cookie out of it when you bake it! Because I have to watch my carb intake due to health reasons, these cookies are a life saver because they’re lower in carbs and high in protein and fiber.
6. Chocolate Wacky Cake – A family tradition! The batter for this cake mixes up right in the pan. Nothing better.
7. Vegetarian Minestrone Soup – I have this one memorized. I just love it! I’ll often switch up the beans and/or veggies depending on what I have on hand. It’s a great “clean out the fridge” soup!
8. London Fog Latte – This cozy hot drink is on repeat all fall and winter long.
9. The Laziest Lazy Lasagna Recipe Ever – This recipe is, indeed, LAZY. But it’s also kind of a revelation – literally dump everything together and bake, and it tastes just like a lasagna that took an hour to prep!
10. Easy Matcha Iced Latte – This is my favorite way to enjoy matcha! It’s so easy to make, too – just put it in a mason jar, place the lid on, shake shake shake, and plop in a straw.

If you’ve read this far, thank you so much! I appreciate you being here more than you know.

Here’s to a successful and delicious 2025 for all of us!

The post 2024: Year in Review & Top Recipes appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

But I was doing a lot of vegan and dairy-free recipes for a few years … and, now I’m sharing recipes with dairy again, and sometimes I post a lot and sometimes I don’t … what gives?

Well … there’s not really a short answer to that question. I guess it’s safe to say that a lot gives, or maybe it’s just that, for me, food blogging has been this massive rollercoaster and sometimes, in the 12 years since I launched Kitchen Treaty and nearly 15 years of blogging in total, life has gotten in the way of me riding that roller coaster …

Back at the beginning of 2020, I made the intentional switch to posting fewer new recipes and instead focusing on “housecleaning” for the year – revisiting, re-photographing, and rewriting the recipes in my archive. Of course, oh-so-naive me had no idea about what was about to come in 2020. Trigger warning: COVID, death, and general despair.

By the end of 2020, I was reeling from everything that had gone down that year, and especially from my Mom’s death. She lived to a ripe old age, and I’m so grateful for that, but her health declined (unrelated to COVID) at the worst possible time. She was in the hospital for much of April 2020 and in bad shape, but with a hospital full of COVID patients and extremely strict visitor protocols, we weren’t allowed to be with her.

It was a very helpless feeling for my extended family and me, but especially my Dad. She was at a place health-wise where she needed advocates in there with her, and with the added burden of a large influx of COVID patients, the hospital was struggling to keep up in every way. There are many details I won’t get into here, but after a lot of fighting, we were able to be with her only at the very end. It’s not lost on me how fortunate we were compared to so many other families who did not get to be with their dying loved ones during that time.

For months after my Mom’s death, I would sit down at the computer to work on updating posts on Kitchen Treaty, and I just couldn’t. My brain literally would not, could not focus.

My Dad died a couple of years after my Mom. Things had gotten very complicated by then … my Dad was one of those larger-than-life types that had been with my Mom for nearly 65 years, and losing her, and especially the way it all went down, was hard for all of us, but especially him.

Ultimately, it’s been just a really weird, unmoored feeling; adjusting to a world without my parents in it.

Meanwhile, ever since schools closed for COVID, it became clear that homeschooling is the best fit for my kiddo. She attends an incredible homeschooling hybrid program with a neighboring school district and is thriving! Anyone who has homeschooled their kids knows that it can basically be an all-consuming, full-time job. A rewarding one with many magical moments! But it’s still a lot.

I won’t even get into my health, which has been a journey of its own. I’m still a vegetarian, but these days I am able to eat some dairy again, just not a lot – and I have to watch/balance the carbs and get as much protein as possible due to blood sugar issues.

Suffice it to say, when heavy life stuff gets in the way, I’ve had a really hard time pulling myself up by the bootstraps and continuing to work on Kitchen Treaty. I know it’s a luxury to work only when I choose to. Food blogging is amazing because it just keeps generating passive income (thanks to those annoying ads, sorry, but that’s how I’m able to make this my job!) So I know what a privilege and huge luxury it has been to be able to take long breaks.

Ultimately, I’ve paid the price for those breaks, though. Because when you don’t post and update your blog consistently, the page views start to die down, for a number of reasons. Page views = ad income, so more is better, obviously!

So, financially, Kitchen Treaty has struggled the past couple of years after I neglected it.

There was also a huge shift toward social media a few years ago, too, and I missed the boat there. I just didn’t have time to try to play the algorithm game while also producing content, and, to be totally honest, I really don’t like being in front of the camera. I’m awkward, anxious, private, and being on camera makes me extremely self-conscious.

The idea of me being an “influencer” makes me chuckle, to be honest, no shade to the hard-working food blog influencers out there! They are amazing! But it’s just not me, a total introvert. Put me in the kitchen fiddling with new recipes, behind the camera photographing them, and in front of the computer writing. That’s my happy place, not in front of the camera! 😬 Which is complicated in a blogging world where video rules. But I think (and hope!) there is still a place for food bloggers like me, too.

And now, here’s a gratuitous photo of our newest dog (we have three now!) This is Petunia, who came to our family from Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in 2022. She is tiny, fierce, and a force. We love her.

Okay, so here’s where I am now (and I thank you so much if you are still with me). I’ve made it out of the other side of grief and the general pandemic nightmare, and our family has found our groove with homeschooling. My kid is older and more independent than ever, and I’m really enjoying creating new recipes again! I started up a second blog that I’ve been slowly growing, and I’ve also started a freelance writing leg of my business so that I’m not solely dependent on ad income, and it feels good to diversify.

In a world of AI and when food blogs/recipe websites are a dime a dozen, I know that human-generated, ironclad recipes are more important than ever. If one of my recipes fails in your kitchen, I know that you might not return to Kitchen Treaty, and I don’t want that to happen!

So my goal is to create and share dependable, tried-and-true vegetarian recipes with options, whenever possible, for adapting them to various diets – vegan, dairy-free, carnivore, gluten-free. Life is complicated (oh boy, can it be complicated). And dietary needs can be complicated. But dinner doesn’t have to be.

Thanks for sticking with me! I’m excited about the future here at Kitchen Treaty and I am looking forward to growing, recovering, and thriving over here in my little space on the web!

xoxo
– Kare

The post Kitchen Treaty 2024: An Update appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

I mean, from photos of dinner to photos of a toilet. Why the heck not?! 😉

wall paint / vanity / light fixture / faucet / towel ring / wall shelves / floor tile / fern scroll art

If I’d known how rewarding our downstairs powder bath remodel would be, I would have gone for it so much sooner! Instead, we put it off for years.

When we first moved into our house over five years ago, we noticed some dry rot around the base of the toilet in our hardwood-floored downstairs half bathroom. There was no current leak and it wasn’t getting worse. But we knew we’d need to replace the hardwood with a more bathroom-friendly flooring material at some point.

But other home improvement projects – those that I thought would be way more exciting – took precedent. Like our kitchen, which STILL isn’t done! It’s close, but not quite there.

Anyway, our half-bath remodel ended up being seriously satisfying – from start to finish in about three weeks. And the outcome? We LOVE it. Like, I just kind of want to hang out in there. Weird, but true.

Okay, so here’s how it looked when we first bought the house. Sponged walls (all the rage back in the day!); elevated bowl sink (which by the way, my daughter and her friends thought was the coolest thing ever). All in a very odd-shaped bathroom that’s rather large for a powder bath but super awkwardly laid out, and with no windows, to boot.

Eventually, my guy and I painted the walls and trim a creamy white to get us by until it was time to do the full remodel. And then finally, we went for it! Here’s what our windowless half bathroom looks like now (I don’t have a super wide-angle lens, so this is the closest I have to the before):

Our first decision was deciding to go with a daring (for us), graphic tile – because why not be a little playful and unexpected in the powder bath? These tiles mimic the popular cement tile look but are actually printed ceramic tile – much more affordable and a little lower-maintenance. We went with a dark grout so that it wouldn’t compete with the patterns the tile throws out, and we absolutely love it. The floor is what everyone comments on first – tons of compliments.

Along with the dark tile, I also decided to embrace the naturally dark, windowless situation by also going super dark on the walls. I considered charcoal or even straight-up black, but eventually dialed myself back to a nice, deep, rich gray – Chelsea Gray by Benjamin Moore. I love how it’s warm without being beige; gray without skewing green, blue, or purple. It might be the perfect darker gray!

For the vanity, we decided to remove the long, wall-to-wall unit and replace it with a freestanding, narrower unit. We lost some storage, but gained a spot to put the animals’ water bowl – a huge (and very intentional) bonus. Hi Fern!

(Can I just say how tough it is to photograph a tight, awkwardly shaped space with zero natural light? To all of you home decorating bloggers out there who make photos like these look effortless, I salute you. OH HOW I SALUTE YOU.)

Anyway, I shopped vanities for MONTHS, let me tell you. Originally, we were going to go with lighter walls and a rustic wood vanity, but every wood vanity I came across was super expensive – $1000+! A tough pill to swallow. We even bought an antique dresser and were going to convert it into a vanity by placing a round white vessel sink on top, which would have been so cute – but not so practical with a kid in the house. Eventually, we decided to go with the simple white vanity and the darker walls for contrast.

The vanity we ended up buying was from Lowes, and while it’s not the highest quality vanity around, it does have some nice soft-close doors and a cute curve along the front that gives it some personality. Plus, grey-veined Carrera marble countertops and backsplash strip to boot. All for under $500! Sold.

The light fixture is quite possibly my favorite element in the entire bathroom (aside from the tile). It took me forever to track down this industrial spin on schoolhouse lighting from Ballard Designs – the instant I finally laid eyes on it, I was sold. It isn’t satin nickel like the rest of the bath hardware, but in this nice matte black with white shades, it totally works. I wanted something that would take standard bulbs and had full shades because I wanted to put some 60-watters in that bad boy without it blinding all who entered.

This light fixture completely fits the bill and lights up our windowless bathroom perfectly.

Initially, I really wanted two side sconces, but in the interest of keeping to our budget, we decided to use the existing electrical box instead of having to seal that one up and add two new. I’m over it now because again, I love the light fixture we ended up with.

The toilet paper holder and towel ring were Anthropologie splurges. They’re nice and solid, and best of all, have a pattern that mimics the petals on the floor. Score.

The mirror was a tough one. I really wanted to do something round or a fun, quirky shape. But because of the single light fixture above and the fact that we have a 4-foot person and a 6-foot person that will both want to look into it, I decided on a more practical rectangular shape. I found this mirror at a local superstore on clearance and it was a steal – only $30!

Lastly, we decided to add shelves behind the toilet for a bit of added storage and interest. Because of the large fern wall hanging, I felt we needed some smaller-scale items on the other wall for balance.

These rustic behind-the-toilet shelves are perfect, and – bonus – they hold a basket with a spare roll of TP and some first aid supplies in the woven bath canister (easy-to-access bandaids are important when you have a young kid in the house, I’ve learned). I love the juxtaposition between the sweet shape of the scallops and the rustic reclaimed wood rounds they’re made of. Meanwhile, my guy was just happy they weren’t floating shelves – his nemesis when it comes to installation.

wall shelves / woven bath canister

All in all, we’re super pleased with how our powder room remodel turned out. It’s playful and fresh and, maybe best of all, no more five-year-old dry rot around the toilet. Woo hoo to the loo!

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click a link and buy something, I may receive a small portion of the proceeds. Thank you for supporting Kitchen Treaty!

The post Our Gray & White Half-Bathroom Remodel appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

Most successful bloggers wrote their posts memoir-style, with an intro – sometimes related to the recipe, often not – a few (or a lot of!) photos sprinkled in, and then finally, the recipe. It was a format that felt right at the time – title-story-photo-story-photo-recipe. Pretty much all food bloggers fell in line. This is how we wrote our blog posts because it’s how it was done. It’s also one of the reasons I got into food blogging. I love to write.

For better or worse, memoir-style is still how it’s still done.

Five or six years ago, things really began to change. Mobile views began to surpass desktop views – over 80% of my readers now read my website via phones or tablets. At the same time, more and more people turned to recipes online instead of phoning mom or flipping through cookbooks. Food bloggers flooded the space with their story-recipe posts, the readers followed, and the best recipes – fueled by ratings, reputation, viral videos, Pinterest, and/or Google juice – rose to the top.

Not related.

At the same time, our readers became more task-oriented. Sure, we have our loyal readers who come to us via email lists or social media, but if they really have the time to want to get to know the story behind the writer or the recipe, they’ll follow us on Instagram.

Meanwhile, if they found us on Google or Pinterest, it’s true – most of the time, they just want the dang recipe. They didn’t type  “Best blondie recipe and a touching golden retriever rescue story” into the search bar. The format that served food bloggers and their readers 10 years ago has become at best a distraction, at worse, a hugely annoying obstacle. Especially when having to scroll and scroll and scroll on a phone.

I surveyed my readers a couple of years ago and they were evenly split between wanting to read a story vs. just wanting to get to the recipe. I figured that if only 50% of my loyal readers wanted a story before the recipe, the average person who finds my blog via Google is probably much less likely to want it.

And you know what? Most of the time, when I’m in reader mode, I just want the dang recipe too! I don’t want to scroll and close pop-ups to get to it. I do get it. When people say “just get to the recipe” I nod and say “I know, I know.” I believe way, way more readers feel this way than food bloggers realize.

But dear readers, please just know that when a food blogger has poured heart and soul and hours and hours of their life into a recipe blog post, “just get to the recipe” stings a little. So take it easy on us, will you please? And for us food bloggers, we need to remind ourselves that it’s really not personal … this is just how things have evolved. And will, I’m pretty sure, continue to evolve.

Here’s the thing, though. There’s no solution – not yet. We can’t “just get to the recipe,” and here’s why.

1. Google doesn’t like it.

Earlier this year, I ran an experiment. On a handful of my well-performing recipe posts, I moved the recipe up to the top and the story down below. (Google likes more words rather than less, and many times there are some great recipe tips within my story, so deleting the story entirely isn’t an option.) So rearranging seems like an easy solution, right? Welp, within a few months, all of those recipes moved down in search results – and, of course, pageviews for those recipes, in turn, had gone down too.

2. My ad network doesn’t support it.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my ad network. But their philosophy on this issue – which echoes that of many food bloggers – is that food blogs are different than your standard grab-and-go recipe website like AllRecipes. Their perspective is that food blogs have heart; a story; a person to get to know. We want people to settle in and stay awhile. Our goal as writers should be to make them want to. My ad network is my bread and butter, so I at least need to consider their perspective.

Also, those in-content ads? The ones that pop up in between paragraphs? If the paragraphs don’t exist, those ads don’t exist. And they need to load fully – not be skipped – in order for revenue to be made. For many of us these days, our food blogs are our full-time jobs – or at least, our side hustle. We need to make money in order to keep doing this. Would you like to know how much good, solid, fast web hosting costs for Kitchen Treaty? $2200 per year. I LOVE my food blog and I love that it’s my job, but it IS my job. It’s a business. And I need to make money in order for it to continue to exist.

My solution for the past few years to the “just get to the recipe” conundrum is a “Skip to recipe” button at the top of every post. It’s not a perfect fix, but it gives people an option to skip the fluff and just get to it. As far as the in-content ads go, I’m okay with sacrificing some income for a better user experience. (It’s a balance.) My ad network thinks those are a bad idea too, and here are some good reasons why, if you’d like a little inside perspective.

3. I don’t know what the solution is.

If I go back and edit all of my posts – delete the story, remove all but one photograph, and just post the recipe – as of right now, my blog will fail. And moving the recipe to the top of the post was a bust, too. So what’s the solution? I don’t know. 

I do believe that food bloggers need to evolve when it comes to the format of their recipes. But evolve to what? That’s the million dollar question.

What do you think?

Are you a food blogger that’s tired of hearing “Just get to the recipe?!” Are you a reader frustrated with food bloggers’ mile-long preambles? I welcome your vents, thoughts, and especially your ideas in the comments below.

Update: I just learned of this very similar article written by Cadry’s Kitchen. YES! Great read on the subject. 

The post Why I Don’t “Just Get to the Recipe” appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

It was a good one, though (personally, at least – I’ll not get into politics).

I started the year determined to strengthen my culinary knowledge, and spent half of it going through a professional certification program. It was definitely a great education, and I now feel like I know so much more about how to create a successful recipe. Though the program is plant-based, my own diet is primarily plant-based, and I LOVE creating plant-based recipes, I still plan to create a wide variety of recipes – especially those with non-plant options – moving forward. I’m definitely evolving, though. Don’t we all?!

I’m excited to continue focusing on our unique mixed-diet perspective going into 2018. It’s not so unique anymore though, is it? I swear, everyone I know knows someone who is dealing with mixed-diet situations. Friends who have gone vegan but still have a meat-eating spouse; parents whose kids are exploring vegetarianism; friends who are learning, like I did two years ago, that dairy is not kind to their bodies amidst living with cheese-loving families. Flexible recipes are where it’s at, and I’m looking forward to continuing to create them – along with many delicious plant-based recipes that appeal to ALL – in 2018.

Another focus in 2018 for me will be to revisit many of the recipes in my archives. This blog goes back more than 8 years, and there are quite a few recipes that I want to tweak, rephotograph, and resurface. So in 2018, not only will you see new recipes from me, but you’ll also see a lot of recipes from years past. I really want this blog to be a quality, reliable resource of recipes for you all, and now that I’ve expanded my culinary knowledge, I feel like it’s time to revisit some of the old stuff. Past time, actually. Plus, it’s always fun to add new options to recipes, and that’s what Kitchen Treaty is all about: Options for all.

Happy New Year to you and yours. Thank you so much for reading. It truly means the world to me.

And now, finally, Kitchen Treaty’s Top 10 Recipes of 2017! These are the recipes that I created and published this year that resonated most with readers (in the form of page views).

See any trends? (Hi, Instant Pot!)

10. Plant Protein Power Breakfast Bowls – Best rib-sticking breakfast ever. Aside from lentil soup, that is.

9. Massaged Kale Salad with Avocado & Chickpeas – Healthy, simple, hearty. Love this salad.

8. How to Make Hard-Boiled Eggs in the Instant Pot – The only way I made hard-boiled eggs this year. And I made a lot of them!

7. Healing Soba Noodle Soup – Seriously, move over chicken noodle. Love this anti-inflammatory, uber-comforting soup.

6. 3-Ingredient Healthy Caramel Apple Dip – Date caramel joins up with creamy almond butter for this super easy dip.

5. Vegan Creamy Lemon Pasta with Peas – Ah, the magic of cashews. This is a great recipe for vegans, vegetarians, and carnivores living together – each person can customize to their tastes.

4. Crowd-Pleasing Vegan Vanilla Waffles – This one’s a great example of how a recipe can be plant-based yet still appeal to the masses. Everyone loves these!

3. Instant Pot Banana Walnut Steel-Cut Oats – Love all the omega-3 action going on here.

2. Instant Pot Curried Carrot Red Lentil Soup – Red lentils add satiating protein to the mix here. A great hearty soup.

And, by a landslide, my most popular new recipe for 2017 was:

1. Instant Pot Vegan Golden Lentil Soup with Spinach! – Probably my most-made soup of 2017, too. I make this a couple of times every month!

That’s it from me for 2017! Happy 2018 to you all!

The post Top 10 Recipes of 2017 appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

Love, festive wishes, and a tinful of virtual cookies from the Kitchen Treaty house to yours.

xoxo,
Kare

The post Merry Christmas appeared first on Kitchen Treaty.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Kitchen Treaty and how I want to shape the blog as we move into 2015 and beyond. People evolve, and so do blogs! For awhile now, our family has been moving more toward real, whole, unrefined, plant-based foods – and in 2015, you’ll continue to see more of that in my recipes. Whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose; pure maple syrup instead of granulated sugar – those kinds of things. Simple will remain key; health will be a focus. Frankly, this vegetarian needs to eat way more vegetables – and a lot less of all the other stuff. As long as my motivation holds, you’ll probably see that reflected here. 🙂 Instead of strictly one-dish-two-ways recipes, I’m thinking about posting more vegetarian and vegan recipes, but with meaty additions suggested in the notes or within the blog post – we’re still a mixed-diet home, after all, and we don’t see that changing.

These days, though, our “kitchen treaty” extends beyond vegetarian vs. carnivore. There are many kitchen battles that can be had (and at least semi-peacefully resolved, for that matter): Dealing with a picky toddler. Check. Lack of time to make the kinds of family-friendly, home-cooked meals you want to make for your loved ones. Check. Needing to step away from the kinds of foods that aren’t so great for you and embrace those leafy greens. Check check.

So, in 2015, this Kitchen Treaty is likely extend into other areas of potential kitchen conflict, with a (hopefully) happy resolution for each. In 2015, let’s keep our kitchens simple, peaceful, and fun. Make Food, Not War.

But let’s take a quick look back, first, shall we? It’s always fun to see which recipes were the most popular among Kitchen Treaty readers, pinners, and Googlers over the course of the year. I go by the most-visited recipes I created within the year. And I can honestly say I’m always surprised at what resonates the most (and what falls flat, for that matter). One word that defines every single one of the most popular 2014 recipes, though? Unfussy. Which is great! Because we’re definitely about simplicity around here these days.

Here are the 5 Top Recipes of 2014!

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Kitchen Treaty might be a new food blog, but I’m not a new blogger. My blogging career started in September 2009 with a blog named The Hazel Bloom. When I started out, I blogged about pretty much everything that has to do with keeping a home. I was in full-on nesting mode when I started it, and my tagline was simply “Domesticity rules.” Gardening, home projects, thrift store treasure upcycling, and, of course, recipes.

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