(or How I Lost 42 pounds and accidentally became a Food Blogger)

Photo by Derek Smith

Welcome to Danica's Kitchen

My name is Danica Thomas, and I’m excited to welcome you to Danica's Kitchen! This is the home-cooking blog I started in 2005 after I’d lost over 40 pounds on the original South Beach Diet and wanted to share my recipes. Now fast forward more than 18 years, and I’m still creating healthy recipes and have gone from teaching elementary school to being a full-time food blogger.

What kinds of recipes will you find here?

My site features Easy Carb-Conscious Recipes, with options for Low Carb and Keto diets, as well as other ways of eating including Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Vegetarian (including Vegan), and the original South Beach Diet (which includes both phase one and phase two). You can use diet-type icons above the title on every recipe to see which diets I think the recipe is suitable for.

How to Use this Site:

The site has a great Recipe Index where you can look for recipes by Course, Diet Type, Cooking Method, or Ingredient.

There’s a Filtered Recipe Search which lets you select search parameters from ingredients, diet-types, courses, and methods to find just the perfect recipe for the ingredients you have and your personal dietary needs! Here is the welcome post for the updated site with complete instructions for using Filtered Recipe Search.

If you’re following a certain eating plan, use the Diet-Type Index to help you find recipes for the type of diet you prefer.

On Fridays I feature my personal favorite recipes and you can find those in a category called Friday Favorites.

I don’t promote products for payment but you can find my favorite products that I purchase myself featured at Danica's Kitchen Picks.

And my weekly Recipe Round-Ups will show you a group of related recipes from Danica's Kitchen (and sometimes from around the web) to give you lots of options!

Why does my site feature recipes for the original South Beach Diet?

I started my commitment to healthier eating with the original South Beach Diet, and I’ll always be happy when my recipes are helpful for people following the low-glycemic way of eating that South Beach books recommend. If you’re a South Beach Diet fan, this South Beach Diet page may have helpful information. But in 2016 South Beach was sold to a company that sells packaged food, which is never going to be a lifestyle I have any interest in.

How my own way of eating has evolved:

Through the years my approach to maintaining my weight has become focused on carb-conscious eating in general. I’m not promoting one type of diet over all others, and personally I’m not always eating strictly low-carb or Keto, even though I eat plenty of foods that are low in carbs (and have been able to maintain my weight loss for many years now.) I consider my carb-conscious approach to eating to be a lifestyle and not a diet, and occasionally I do eat some things that are definitely a splurge. Just not too often!

Why I don’t recommend one specific diet:

I don’t believe I’m qualified to give diet advice, other than sharing what worked for me! More than anything I believe that everyone needs to find the way of eating that works for their health needs and food preferences. And I’m confident that my site will have recipes that work for nearly any kind of carb-conscious diet or most diets that restrict certain foods.

Information That May Be Helpful:

Have questions? Check out the Frequently Asked Questions which might answer them. And if not, here’s How to Contact Danica/b> and the Privacy Policy for this site.

How Danica's Kitchen Got Started

Often people ask me how I started the blog, and Danica's Kitchen actually began with an offhand remark made by my brother Rand. One day in early 2005 I was complaining about how hard it was to keep up with friends asking me to email them recipes, and he said, “Maybe you should just put your recipes on a blog.” At that time I had no idea there were people on the internet writing about food, and certainly could never have imagined how food blogging would ultimately change my life.

My Family is the Greatest

My talented brother Rand is still involved with this blog, and he creates beautiful pins and Facebook videos and also shares my videos on Instagram and TikTok, and Danica's Kitchen certainly wouldn’t be the same without him. (Thanks Rand!) He’s also a willing taste tester whenever he makes a visit to Utah.

I also have eight more brothers and sisters who do a lot to enrich my life. Thanks to my sisters, brothers, and their spouses, Sandee, Clayton, Pam, Kelly, Mark, Lisa, Janet, Dave, Amy, Laurel, Carl, Vida, Dan, Val, and Jon for all they do for me. There are also 39 nieces and nephews and 70+ great-nieces and nephews who occasionally make an appearance here, including my nephew Jake  and my niece Kara, who are my cooking assistants when I have a big recipe testing day.

My Life Before Blogging

In my previous life I had a business organizing catered houseboat trips at Utah’s Lake Powell.  That included a lot of fun trips to Lake Powell, but for my day job, I was an elementary school teacher for 30 years! It’s always fun when former students find me through the blog. During my teaching career I served as President of the Davis Education Association, and was also a board member of the Utah Education Association and the National Education Association. I retired from teaching in 2009 to become a full-time food blogger.

Other Blogging Adventures

In addition to working on Danica's Kitchen I also feature slow cooker recipes and pressure cooker recipes from food bloggers all around the web for my site Slow Cooker or Pressure Cooker.

For years I wrote about food at BlogHer.com and I’m still a big fan of the BlogHer/SheMedia organization.

Danica's Kitchen has received some nice mentions in print media and other places on the web, and I appreciate all the publications and sites who have featured my work (although the last few years I’m not doing a good job of adding things to that page!)

What’s Next for Kalyn?

In 2018 I had a milestone birthday and decided to start working on my bucket list a bit more. Since then I’ve been trying to do more traveling and less blogging! (Of course the global pandemic put a bit of a wrinkle in that plan, but I’m hoping to get back to more traveling as soon as I can.) Even with the long list of places I want to visit, I’m still far from being retired (or even semi-retired), and I plan to keep creating recipes and sharing them here for quite a few more years!

Danica's Kitchen Through the Years: