Real Food Kitchen Tour: Our Nourishing Roots

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Kendahl, author of Our Nourishing Roots.

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.

Kendahl

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Our Nourishing Roots

This week we travel to the beautiful state of Arizona to tour the kitchen of Kendahl, author of Our Nourishing Roots.

Over the years, Kendahl was always an active commenter on my blog, and many of the Real Food Media blogs. When she told me she wanted to start a real food blog, I had a feeling she’d be a natural.

And I was right (I tend to know about these things). She started her blog in October of last year — that’s less than 6 months — and it’s already grown to 15,000 visits per month.

This, by the way, is totally awesome.

Blog Name: Our Nourishing Roots
Blog Author: Kendahl
How Long Blogging: Several years on a personal blog, then started Our Nourishing Roots last year
Location: Tempe, AZ
House or Apartment: House: we bought it last year at an excellent time in the market, we love the layout, the location, the backyard, and especially that we have a gate that opens into the school field so our sons can walk to school with us. It’s perfect for us!
Size of Kitchen: 10 feet by 12 feet
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: It’s gorgeous. We were lucky enough to find this house right after the previous owner redid the kitchen with granite counters, black and stainless steel appliances, and new cabinetry. And then when we moved in, we painted the whole house and put in new floors. I also love the space, which I didn’t fully appreciate at first. But then when I moved all my things into the kitchen and had room for ever jar, I was ecstatic! I also love that the pantry off the kitchen is so large.
Things You Would Change: I would add some outlets to the bar side of the kitchen, so that I could use appliances there where there is more room and I can see more than just a wall. I would also move the washer and dryer out of the pantry and add more shelving on the other side and add an extra fridge.
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: I really love my dehydrator of all things. It keeps bread dough warm, cultures yogurt, and dehydrates 9 trays at a time of soaked nuts, seeds, or sprouted grain berries. Plus I still haven’t even tried making jerky or fruit leather in it! The other item I love most is probably my slow cooker. I love being able to put dinner in it in the morning and have it ready at night. Plus I can put it outside during the hot Arizona summers.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: I think it’s mostly being able to puzzle-piece together food to be the most economical and green-minded. For example making butter and then using the buttermilk to soak pancakes for the next morning. I need to get better at using all the parts of my food together in a whole food mindset that is nourishing and easy on the food budget.
Current Favorite Family Meal: We’ve been loving soaked quinoa cooked in beef stock and then flavored with herbs and cheese, alongside steamed veggies with lemon butter and various meats.
Favorite Cookbooks: I am really loving Mastering [easyazon-link asin=”0714862576″ locale=”us”]The Art of French Cooking[/easyazon-link] because I like the challenge of transforming those rich French dishes to be real food friendly (whole grains, . I hope to put some of my hybridized recipes up on the blog soon. I also love my newer book [easyazon-link asin=”0316118400″ locale=”us”]The Flavor Bible[/easyazon-link], which is giving me all kinds of ideas for flavor combinations and spins on tried and true recipes that I have been making for years.

Kitchen view from dining room

Fruit basket, filtered water container, stove, sink, window that looks out over the pool in the backyard.

Kitchen, long view

Blogging at the Countertop

Stove, stainless steel tea kettle, cast iron skillets, spoon rest

Inside of the chest freezer

Grass-fed beef from our purchase last September!

Inside of my fridge

Lined with cod liver oil, probiotics, maple syrup, milk, peanut butter, lacto-fermented mustard and ketchup, Bubbie’s pickles and sauerkraut, and a HUGE block of cheese on top!

My wire rack for kitchen appliances

Mixing bowls, bread pans, cookbook stand, Le Creuset French oven, Emile Henry ramekins and gratin dishes, cast iron skillets, food processor, blender, Kitchen Aid mixer, Excalibur dehydrator, and LOTS of cookbook.

My spice and tea cabinet

Organic rooibos tea blends, organic fair trade coffees for my husband, Teeccino for post-GAPS, bulk herbs and spices in bags.

Spice cabinet

My Italian seasoning blend & taco seasoning blend, spice jars filled with sea salt, spices, and steak seasoning.

Tea and spice cabinet, the whole thing!

On top you can see my mortar & pestle, kitchen scale (handy for things like cocoa butter), syrup pitcher, large bags of fine and coarse sea salt.

Baking cabinet

All my extracts from vanilla to mint to hazelnut, baking spices like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and clove, Cultures for Health starters, glass measuring cups, large mixing bowl for soaking and straining broths.

Pantry

Top shelf: soaked and dehydrated nuts and seeds, homemade coconut sprinkles
middle shelf: coconut flour, almond flour, cocoa butter wafers, late harvest olive oil, chia seeds, coconut oil
bottom shelf: apple cider vinegar, white beans (GAPS-legal!), canned seafood, condiments
right side: buckets of oats, spelt berries, kamut berries, sucanat, supplements (cod liver oil and butter oil blend, vitamin B complex, vitamin C, magnesium, medicinal tea).

Bottom shelves of pantry

Top shelf: bonito flakes & seaweed for making quick fish stock, apple cider vinegar, white beans (GAPS-legal!), canned seafood, condiments.
Bottom shelf: organic canned soup, arrowroot powder, olives, tahini, roasted bell peppers, applesauce, mineral water.

Cookbooks

[easyazon-link asin=”0307593525″ locale=”us”]Mastering the Art of French Cooking 2 [/easyazon-link]volume set by Julia Child, [easyazon-link asin=”0615409318″ locale=”us”]Internal Bliss GAPS[/easyazon-link] cookbook, [easyazon-link asin=”158761345X” locale=”us”]Almond Flour Cookbook[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”0967089735″ locale=”us”]Nourishing Traditions[/easyazon-link] (of course),[easyazon-link asin=”0811856240″ locale=”us”]The Best Casserole Cookbook[/easyazon-link], my collection of recipes from my mom, grandmother and aunts.

More Cookbooks

Various cookbooks, including [easyazon-link asin=”190492011X” locale=”us”]Irish Traditional Cooking[/easyazon-link] (I’m 1/4 Irish), [easyazon-link asin=”0142003646″ locale=”us”]The Mood Cure[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”075660365X” locale=”us”]First Meals[/easyazon-link] (babyfood book), [easyazon-link asin=”1596913428″ locale=”us”]Real Food[/easyazon-link].

Last Stack of Cookbooks

[easyazon-link asin=”0316118400″ locale=”us”]The Flavor Bible[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”0954852028″ locale=”us”]GAPS Guide[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”1936608936″ locale=”us”]Paleo Comfort Foods[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”060980930X” locale=”us”]Pasta[/easyazon-link], [easyazon-link asin=”0002550296″ locale=”us”]The Beautiful Cookbook for both Thai [/easyazon-link] and [easyazon-link asin=”0681152672″ locale=”us”]Italian food[/easyazon-link] (I’m also 1/4 Italian).

Chest freezer

Juicing/Toasting

My juicer I’m borrowing from a friend until I can buy a Breville, toaster for morning toast.

Cutting board station

Set of knives, cutting board, pitcher of spatulas, spoons, and strainers, grass-fed butter in a dish, jar of goose fat. 🙂

Savory corner of the kitchen

Produce corner, cutting area, water kefir fermenting.

Coffee corner, produce corner, kitchen sink, dishwasher, stove, new tile.

Coffee Corner

Magnesium, raw honey, coconut oil, single cup coffee maker (also makes tea and cocoa!), sugar jar with sucanat. coffee cup holder, palm shortening, cocoa powder

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.