Real Food Kitchen Tour

Real Food Kitchen Tour: A Real Food Apartment Dweller

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Melody Bentfield, author of the Listen to the Song of Your Soul blog.

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: Melody Bentfield, A Real Food Apartment Dweller

I think you’ll be inspired this week by Melody’s tiny kitchen. It’s obvious she’s got a LOT going on in there — and the fact that she pulls it all off in such a small space is admirable.

Blog Name: Listen to the Song of Your Soul
Blog Author: Melody Bentfield
How Long Blogging: 3 years or so, off and on
Location: North Denver Metro Area, CO
House or Apartment: Apartment
Size of Kitchen: Uber teeny!

Things You Love About Your Kitchen: The stone tiling, the open countertop that allows me to serve my guests in the dining room, and that all my appliances are black and stainless steel – pretty sexy

Things You Would Change: More space! Our entire apartment is just over 700 square feet, so storage can be a challenge at times. I’d probably also change my counter top to something smooth (it’s difficult to knead when the bread gets stuck in the grout!), and change my flat-top stove to a high-end gas stove (still black of course), with a grill feature in the middle. We might just move to solve all of these issues though

Favorite Tools & Gadgets: Danish dough whisk, digital scale, Cuisinart mini food-processor, Cuisinart ice cream maker.

Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Aside from adjusting some recipes for altitude, planning ahead! I don’t have a problem making real food as far as putting the effort into it, but sometimes I forget that if I want to make sourdough bread on Thursday, I probably should start with a very small bit of starter on Tuesday and really feed the heck out of it. I make sourdough bread (whole grain, mixed grain, etc.), Water kefir, kombucha tea, grow my own sprouts, container garden on my balcony (tomatoes, peppers, garden salsa peppers, Meyer lemons, a bunch of herbs,) and am currently saving up for a traditional sauerkraut crock. I also make raw grass-fed butter, raw milk ice cream, sometimes villi yogurt, and eventually will begin making raw milk Greek style yogurt as well.

Current Family Favorite Meal: My husband will eat pretty much anything! He’s in love with my sourdough bread, and we both absolutely adore my 100% whole spelt sourdough bread. I usually have to make 2-3 loaves at a time, and he’ll eat one loaf for dinner slathered in real butter. A close second is homemade sourdough pita bread with freshly made hummus, covered in sprouts!

Favorite Cookbooks: Naturally Nutritious (Healthy and Delicious Recipes using Whole Grains, Coconut Oil, Agave Nectar and Stevia) by Dr. Nicole Kurland, and a few different websites such as Cultures for Health, Breadtopia, and then really, I just searchon-line for what I’m wanting to make! I actually make up a LOT of recipes on my own from scratch, and really do not write them down… but I’m always happy to when people ask me for recipes.

“The joys and challenges of having little space. It really is somewhat organized… really… (It really is though, which is uber helpful)”

As long as you know where everything is — that’s what counts! Sometimes it’s easier in a small space because it forces you to be more organized.

I love how you are making use of every square inch!

“You can see the length of my kitchen here. Closest to the camera are my two easy-sprouter containers with two different seed mixes (we’re about to go on a week trip to Idaho so I’m bringing my own sprouts with me!), and then next to it to the right are two jars of Kombucha with peaches and ginger floating inside. I’ll strain out the fruit tomorrow. In the distance you can see my sourdough starter that was just fed and then furthest off, two 1/2 gallon mason jars of water kefir brewing.”

Mmm that kombucha looks so yummy!

“To the left of that is my sourdough starter with a scale next to it. I write on the lid of the starter jar with a dry-erase marker the amount fed and what time it was fed, or else I’ll forget… by staying on top of it, I find that I can keep it appropriately fed which keeps it from getting too sour.”

“This was once a rack full of tea. Now it has some pre-mixed tea left, but for the most part I make my own tea blends with herbs from scratch (I’m in love with my chai recipe). I’ve started using it to store extra Grosch bottles, mason jars, and to the right you’ll see one of my many 5 gallon buckets (color-coded of course) with bulk food storage. This one has pink Himalayan salt in it. I also have some natural flour and bread flour ones hidden behind some comfy chairs in my living room… always a wonderful conversation piece!”

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 realfoodmedia 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.

Real Food Kitchen Tour: A Real Food Apartment Dweller

What’s a Real Foodie?

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Melody Bentfield, A Real Food Apartment Dweller

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

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Comments ()

What’s a Real Foodie?

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Melody Bentfield, A Real Food Apartment Dweller

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

Read next

Comments ( )

Comments ()