Real Food Kitchen Tour: Amanda Brown

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Amanda Brown.

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: Amanda Brown

This week we’re featuring Amanda Brown and family. Amanda is not a blogger but as you can tell from her kitchen and backyard chickens, she’s dedicated to feeding her family real food.

Name: Amanda Brown
Size of Kitchen:About 12 x 12
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I love the amount of counter space, the window in front of the sink so I can see my kids, and our garden. I also love my deep double sink and moveable island.
Things You Would Change:I would make it more open to the den area, and have another window in the dining area. I am a HUGE fan of natural light!
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: The one I use the most and is counter worthy is my Blendtec blender/mixer. We make lots of smoothies, and soaked bread with it! Others that I love are my stoneware for cooking, my slow cooker, my food processor for many raw desserts, and my large silver mixing bowls. My family just gave me a Cuisinart Ice cream maker, so I am super excited about that one!
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food:TIME! I could spend many hours every day soaking, sprouting, cooking, and preparing ferments. My solution is to stick to my menu. My menu helps me to not overspend on groceries, and it reminds me to soak, sprout, or defrost food for the next few days. I do my best to buy in bulk from co-ops, and farmers, which helps in long term budget, but often tough at the time of purchase.
Current Family Favorite Meal: A made-up casserole (spinach, rice, chicken, raw cheese, onions, garlic, farm eggs, topped with raw cheese, raw milk, spices, and homemade bread crumbs), fresh salad, and raw milk ice cream.
Favorite Cookbooks: Nourishing Traditions, Real Food Cookbook by Dr. Axe, & Simply in Season.

Here are some photos of Amanda’s kitchen (with her comments in italics):

Natural Light in my Kitchen

Beautiful!

Sink Area

Kitchen Wonders

“One angle of my kitchen. Can you see my jumbo batch of kombucha? We also have local honey out (in a mason jar) to add to oatmeal, teas, etc.”

Dehydrated Veggies

How smart! What do you do with them? I’m guessing add to soups and stews?

From One Generation to Another

This old kitchen cabinet has been passed down in my family, so its really special, but it also houses kitchen equipment, cookbooks, and homeschool items. It’s across the kitchen in the eat in area.

Precious!

Spice & Baking Cabinet

Well-Rounded Jars

“We use Mason jars to drink out of, store things in, ferment…..or for just about anything!”

I’m envious of all your jars!

MOST used books

I do not have enough room in the house for my grain mill and buckets of grains, and rapadura, so the garage is their home for now. They normally are organized on the shelf there, but they were used recently, so I am just being “real” here. 🙂

“My deep freezer. I LOVE it! It allows us to buy grass-fed beef in bulk, free range chickens, and other meats in bulk. I also freeze a lot of berries, peaches, chicken/beef broth, and veggies!”

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.