Real Food Kitchen Tour: Jody Brantley

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Jody Brantley from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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: Jody Brantley

Me having a cup of yerba matte and browsing Cheeseslave

This week we travel to Raleigh, North Carolina to meet Jody Brantley, her super-cute kids and adorable coconut-oil-loving dog. Jody’s on the GAPS Diet, so her crock pot and juicer are getting daily workouts.

I hope this real food kitchen inspires you!

Name: Jody Brantley
Location: Raleigh, NC
House or Apartment: House
Size of Kitchen: 16×12 approx.
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I love how open it is. I can see what is going on in the family room as I cook and clean. I love the counter space and the island. I have plenty of room for my many gadgets and food projects.
Things You Would Change: I would change the lighting. It is fluorescent right now. I would like to hang some modern hanging fixtures to make the light a bit softer. That’s about it. I love my house and kitchen. 🙂
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: Wow..It’s hard to narrow this down. I am such a gadget buyer! It’s an addiction. Probably my most used tools are my ceramic knives, food processor and Blendtec. I also love my ice cream maker and rice cooker.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Planning ahead for sure! I do real good for a week and then fall short for a month! As long as I make a weekly menu I do well, but ahhhhh. Also, I’m on GAPS right now, so making sure I have enough snacks and grab n go food prepared is a challenge. We are always in social situations that require me to be strong! As long as I have “my” special food, it makes it MUCH easier to say no to the off limits foods.
Current Family Favorite Meal: Garlic chicken from Food Lover’s Primal Palate. Oh my it’s delish, served over some sprouted Quinoa. (For everyone but me of course.) I’m eating a lot of chicken soup with sauerkraut. Chicken Pot Pie topped with Coconut Flour Bisquits is a favorite right now as well.
Favorite Cookbooks: I’m using several Paleo cookbooks right now, as most of the recipes are acceptable on GAPS. Paleo Comfort Foods is my fave. Elana Amsterdam’s books, from Elana’s Pantry is probably my most used cookbooks. I follow lots of food bloggers who give me daily inspirations as well. You included!

My beautiful children

Our baby Jada. She loves coconut oil!

My first successful batch of sauerkraut

You can't beat this. Probiotic chocolate from Beyond Organic and Yummy Pastured Butter!

My farm fresh raw cow and goat milk. Love me some bubbies pickles!

My juicer gets a lot of use. I juice my veggies every morning.

See my boochie babies. 🙂 Some sprouted bean chips and lots of crispy nuts!

My beautiful mixer, continuous kombucha brew system and the ultimate Excalibur dehydrator.

My very small backyard and my containers for gardening. Tomatoes and Squash are my favorites.

My juicer gets a lot of use. I juice my veggies every morning.

I love my glass water bottles. There is some kefir and yogurt culturing on the counter

My raspberry botch and fermented cod liver oil

Meal plan for the week and the oft used crockpot

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.