Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Wannabe Homesteader

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Stephanie Larsen, author of The Wannabe Homesteader.

What’s a Real Foodie?

A “real foodie” is someone who cooks “traditional” food. We cook stuff from scratch using real ingredients, like raw milk, grass-fed beef, eggs from chickens that run around outdoors, whole grains, sourdough and yogurt starters, mineral-rich sea salt, and natural sweeteners like honey and real maple syrup.

We don’t use modern foods that are either fake, super-refined, or denatured. This includes modern vegetable oils like Crisco and margarine, soy milk, meat from factory farms, pasteurized milk from cows eating corn and soybeans, refined white flour, factory-made sweeteners like HFCS or even refined white sugar, or commercial yeast.

We believe in eating wholesome, nutrient-dense foods that come from nature. So we shop at farmer’s markets or buy direct from the farmer, or we grow food in our own backyards.

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Wannabe Homesteader

This week we travel to Ocala, Florida to tour the kitchen of Stephanie Larsen, author of The Wannabe Homesteader.

Blog Name: The Wannabe Homesteader
Blog Author: Stephanie Larsen
Location: Ocala, FL
How Long Blogging: Since January 2012
House or Apartment: House
Size of Kitchen: Approximately 15′ × 8′
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: There’s a lot to like about this kitchen because I’ve always had very old kitchens to cook in. I love the size of the kitchen and the big, pull-out cabinets. I love the tile floor and the fact that everything is relatively new. The two large pantries are really nice as well.
Things You Would Change: There’s not too much I would change but I do wish there was more natural light in the kitchen. I’m also a little annoyed at my dishwasher. I don’t think it’s working very well because there is always dishwasher detergent residue left on the plates which is pretty toxic stuff.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: I love my Rachel Ray knife and stainless steel pot set, I love my Blendtec, old retro juicer my mom gave me and my wooden spoons. I love my cutting board and my Lodge cast iron set of pots and frying pans. I’m also digging this cool kitchen scale that my mom got me at a garage sale. It’s from Noway and doesn’t need batteries or electricity. But my ultimate kitchen gadget would probably be the Berkey Water Filter. It’s pretty much indispensable.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Affording it and finding it. Right now, we are on a tight food budget because we’re getting out of debt. When we’re debt-free, I’ll be ramping up my real food cooking, especially in the grass-fed beef and cheese department.
Current Family Favorite Meal: It would probably be homemade pizza. I grind the grains, soak them and make a great thin crust pizza.
Favorite Cookbooks: I like all my cookbooks (besides the Atkins Diet cookbook — it just sits there) but my favorite is probably my own recipe binder. I made it and put all the best recipes I found around the net in it.

Kitchen view

Soaking lentils and rice for dinner and carrots and salsa fermenting on the counter

Some favorite gadgets

Small collection

Antique shot and wine glasses, Corning Ware, and jars that I’m saving for…something

Baking stuff, herbs, spices and supplements (I don’t normally use Agave but I couldn’t find raw honey)

Making whey

Experimenting with sourdough starter

Refrigerator

My strangely clean-looking fridge with local wine, Red Curry and rice leftovers, a lot of pastured eggs, homemade cream cheese, mostly all organic fruits and veggies and a lot of cultured butter.

CSA veggies, meat, fresh ground flours, and flax seed.

Very true!

My hubby frying tostones in coconut oil

The extent of my gardening…for now

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

Are you a real foodie? Do you have a kitchen that you’d like to see featured on CHEESESLAVE?

Please email me at annmarie AT cheeseslave dot com. Either send me a link to a Flickr set or email me your photos (minimum of 5, but more is better). Note: Please send me LARGE photos. Minimum 610 width. If they’re too small, I can’t use them.

Oh, and please send the answers to the above questions (at the very top of this post).

As much as I’d love to include all the photos I receive, I can’t guarantee that I will use your photos in the series. I’m looking for creative, good quality photos.

Some ideas for photos:

Show us what’s in your fridge or what’s fermenting on your counter
Take some snaps of some of your favorite kitchen gadgets, or show us how you organize your spices
Got backyard chickens? Send some pics!
How about a lovely herb garden?
Kids or pets are always cute!
Try to include at least one photo of yourself, ideally in your kitchen

And no, you don’t have to have a blog to be included in the tour.