Day 4 Sugar-Free and My Tiny Kitchen

by Lacey Dumler

Hey there people!  Depending on when you’re reading this, you’re probably either wrapping up day four or getting started on day five of sugar-free week.  Some of you are reporting excellent results (over on my FB page) and I’m so happy to hear it!

Personally, I can’t say I’ve been an angel these last few days.  I’ve had entirely too many chips, and I must admit to eating (gasp!) a Clif Bar today at work when I was “under prepared.”  (Under prepared, my foot.  It was a six hour shift and I’d eaten a huge salad for lunch.  I surely would have starved to death without it.)  And while I haven’t been having peanut butter + bread + syrup-of-choice party, I have been having a bit of a peanut butter + rice cake + banana party.  I know, I know:  shameful.   You should scowl and point and do that weird shame-shame thing at me where you brush one index with your other index finger while looking at me disapprovingly.


Seriously though, I smile as I write this and I’ve definitely made some progress in the last few days.  I haven’t been perfect, but I’ve eaten waaaaaaay less sugar, no processed sugar (minus that brown rice syrup in the clif bar), no maple syrup, and no chocolate!  Most of the sweetness I’ve eaten has come from bananas, and I’ve done well to eat a lot of greens.  I’ve done well damnit!  Progress, not perfection.  Observation, not judgement.  For the next three days, I’m ready to do even better.  After that, we’ll see.  Maybe I’ll ride it out for a while.  Why not?

So I’ve had a busy few days and my camera seems to be on strike.  Every photo I take lately is either too light, too dark, out of focus, flat, etc.  I just can’t seem to get good shots lately.  Therefore, no new recipe today.  Instead, I figured I’d take this opportunity to showcase my tiny kitchen.

The reason I’m showing you my tiny kitchen to say – You can do it!  One needn’t have a big, extravagant, well-equipped kitchen to make some good, wholesome food.   Nearly all of the fabulousness that has appeared on this site over the last year has been created in this tiny space.

Here’s the kitchen when it’s lookin’ pret.ty clean and bright.  This picture is something of a lie because there are hardly any dishes in the dish rack:

Here’s the kitchen (out of focus) when you come home at night and a ravenous animal has spread trash all over the floor:
Here’s my tiny oven, not filling up its allotted space:
And here’s what it looks like inside my tiny oven when you try to use a standard sheet pan:

This is one of my kitchen’s prouder moments last summer when it was all filled up with plants, veggies and coffee.  I was in the middle of making a batch of baba ganoush, the recipe for which never made it onto the blog.  I probably didn’t get good photos or the recipe wasn’t quite right.  I don’t remember.  Basically all you have to do is rub a few eggplants and some garlic cloves with olive oil, sprinkle them with salt, and roast them in a hot oven until they’re soft.  Then, scrape the insides into a food processor and continue as though you were making hummus.  Add lemon juice, tahini, salt, and olive oil until you get the consistency you want.  Easy peasy.  Not so easy?  Taking a sexy picture of baba ganoush.  

Try not to get jealous when you check out our bleak awesome view:
Finally, a view of my kitchen from behind the computer screen as I write to you all.  

Wishing you all restful evenings and vibrant mornings.  Don’t forget to drop a line to let us know how you’re doing! 

Oh, and I’ll be cutting out the chips and the peanut butter for the next few days too!

-lacey

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