Wow. Today marks a big, fat milestone. Today, Kitchen Treaty is one year old! I decided to celebrate by making funfetti birthday pancakes with sprinkles. But more about that in a minute.
It seems a little weird to wish Happy Birthday to a blog, but I couldn’t let the day go by without recognizing it. Yes, I’ve been blogging for awhile, but Kitchen Treaty was a long time coming and I was so excited on March 5 of last year when I finally launched this bad boy – and I’m even more excited that it’s been going strong for a year now.
I started this blog with the idea of featuring our somewhat unique perspective: my carnivorous guy and me – a vegetarian – are managing to live together happily despite our opposing dietary preferences. It’s been a ton of fun spending the past year developing scrumptious veggie recipes and one-dish-two-ways meals with optional meat add-ins.
I also keep finding myself wanting to blog sweet stuff and beverages (especially cocktails and smoothies) – good thing these categories are usually naturally vegetarian, so no conflict there.
When I launched Kitchen Treaty, I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed. As a new stay-at-home-mom who is admittedly a little lost in this crazy new world that revolves around baby (I miss having a job-job so much, but I would miss my daughter even more if I had to be away from her 10 hours per day), Kitchen Treaty is my opportunity to satisfy my yearning to work and contribute financially to our household. Yes – this is absolutely a labor of love and I have so much fun blogging my little heart out – but blogging is hard work, especially when you consider it to be much more than just a hobby.
Naturally, there have been some hiccups along the way. A redesign project went horribly wrong last fall, but eventually I was able to make things a little prettier and more functional. I was posting a Tuesday Tip for awhile, until I realized I really didn’t have as many tips to share as I thought. Same thing with a series of posts with random links called “bits and bites.” I’m still learning (and re-learning) to roll things out slowly until I really know they’re going to stick.
And then there was last May, when I called my husband nearly in tears (or I might have been in actual tears) after trying to churn out a post while doing my best to care for a cranky child. I wasn’t sure I could do this, I said. And nobody’s reading, anyway! Sob! I know, I know – how very Julie & Julia. Without the movie and the cookbook deal.
Anyway, the very next day, my white strawberry lemon sangria post went viral on Pinterest. That single post has now been pinned over half a million times, and traffic overall has climbed slowly but steadily since. And occasionally, I’ll get a comment or an email from someone who is also living in a mixed diet household, which makes me beam. That feels like success to me.
I now work on Kitchen Treaty on Sundays while my guy takes care of our little one (he just brought me lunch as I was typing this – what a guy), and on weekdays, I try to get up early – depending on how the baby slept over the course of the night – to work as well. I don’t get to spend as much time as I want working on the blog, but during the day, my daughter is the most important thing. Besides, less crying while trying to do two things at once – from both the baby and me – is a good thing.
So! I’m just going to keep churning out recipes and I hope you keep reading, sharing, and commenting on them. And thank you so much for making my first year fabulous!
Now! More about these pancakes! They’re your basic buttermilk pancakes – tender, fluffy, buttery – but made with sprinkles. And whipped cream. And a candle. And they’re guaranteed to make the birthday boy or girl (or blog) smile, huge.
If you’d like to make your pancakes a little healthier, you can sub whole-wheat flour for half the all-purpose flour. Still delicious, still colorful. (If you noticed the stack in the second photo was larger, you’re not seeing things! For that pic, I alternated whole-wheat funfetti pancakes with regular).