Real Food Kitchen Tour: Natural Health at Home

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Nicole Kraft, author of Natural Health at Home.

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: Natural Health at Home

A picture of Nicole in her apron

This week we travel to Seattle, Washington to tour the kitchen of Nicole Kraft, who writes the Natural Health at Home blog.

Blog Name: Natural Health at Home
Blog Author: Nicole Kraft
How Long Blogging: Since 2006 (various personal blogs and blogged professionally), but Natural Health at Home started in July, 2011
Location: Seattle, WA
House or Apartment: We live in a sweet little rental house in a quiet Seattle neighborhood. We moved here so my husband would have a shorter commute to his office. The house is old and quirky (especially the kitchen!), but it works for us now until we are able to sell the house we own and buy again.
Size of Kitchen: 12×10
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I love the vintage feel, the morning sunshine and afternoon light. I love that we have a large pantry area and ample storage.
Things You Would Change: As an avid cook, I’d love to have a gas stove, a new oven and more modern fixtures. New countertops would be nice (we have Formica from the 70’s – gold specks andall!) and oh how I dream of a kitchen island!
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: Oh, this it’s hard to choose. My everyday practical favorites are: my cast iron skillets, a good whisk, and my slow cooker. I also love my blender, dehydrator and kitchenaid stand mixer.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: My son has been on GAPS (and is transitioning off now)for a little over a year so we’re making almost everything from scratch for him. My biggest challenge is having a variety of travel-friendly food for his preschool, playdates, etc. At this point, though, we are in a pretty good rhythm with things and are lucky to have a great co-op and an awesome farmer’s markets nearby.
Current Favorite Family Meal: A meal that everyone always eats and loves in our family is Red Lentil Soup cooked in homemade chicken broth. We make a pot almost every week!
Favorite Cookbooks: I find inspiration from so many cookbooks and cooking techniques. I love The Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Feeding the Whole Family, The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook, Nourishing Traditions, The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook, Uprisings: The Whole Grain Bakers Book, Thai Food, The Art of Simple Food, and so many more

Farm fresh eggs

We are so fortunate to get eggs from one of my husband’s patients! She sells us pastured, organic eggs for $2/dozen!

My main workspace

Things I use a lot — utensils, garlic, mortar & pestle, a jar of herbs for tea and butter!

The supplement, herb and tea cabinet

Also where we keep our knives — away from little hands. My husband is a naturopath after all.

The stove area.

Our spice & coffee cabinet

Pantry

Lower pantry shelves: this is where the bigger appliances live.

Pink Oven

Our original 1930′s pink oven! It still works great! Knock on wood.

Unloading after a trip to Trader Joe's.

A corner for fermenting, cooking and caffeinating.

Hearty soup

My older son having a bowl of soup and a view of the kitchen layout.

Another cooking day -- meatballs and chicken stock

The vintage and funky wallpaper inside the pantry door

Bunch of things

I store a bunch of things on top of the refrigerator and keep our family calendar there too.

A shelf of homemade fermented veggies + Bubbies sauerkraut

A fully stocked fridge is a good thing!

Upper pantry

A view of our upper pantry. You’ll see lots of coconut milk, honey, coconut oil, olive oil, gluten-free flours, seaweed, and all kinds of other goodies in there.

Play time.

My younger son, Noah, having fun with his coconut milk-raspberry smoothie

Prolific water kefir grains

Grass-fed pot roast with colorful veggies in the slow cooker

Baking with farm fresh eggs and homemade ghee

Our kombucha brew!

My youngest eating liver pate off the spoon!

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.

Photo credit: A warm welcome Project365(3) Day 10 by Keith Williamson, on Flickr and photos by Memories by Michelle

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Alison May 29, 2012 at 5:47 AM

love the instagram photos!!

Nicole May 29, 2012 at 10:34 AM

Thanks for featuring us, Ann Marie! I should add that our stove is actually from the 1960′s not the 1930′s. My mistake!

Jen May 29, 2012 at 11:12 AM

That’s a very cute kitchen! We love that grass fed cheddar from TJ’s. We buy 6 at a time. Our nearest TJ’s is about 45-50 minutes away, but only about 15 minutes from my husband’s work. He does our bulk shopping there about every 3 weeks, and we REALLY stock up… especially on cheese and Kerrygold butter.

Those letters on the fridge look familiar too. I have a 4 year old and an 18 month old and a LOT of letters and numbers on the fridge. I also store my gallon jars of fermenting kombucha on top of the fridge.

Did I see some Native Remedies products in your supplement cabinet? Just curious. We have a few that work pretty well for us. How fun that your husband is a Naturopath!

Beth June 1, 2012 at 7:20 PM

Loved the smoothie playtime pic!
Nicole, would you be willing to share your lentil soup recipe here or link to it if it’s already on your blog?

Nicole June 4, 2012 at 9:34 AM: Hi Beth,

Here’s the link to the lentil soup recipe: http://www.naturalhealthathome.com/?p=1156

Enjoy!
Nicole

Alicia June 5, 2012 at 3:49 PM

You’d be a good person to ask about dentists for children…do you have one you like that doesn’t push flouride? We’ve been in Seattle for three years and my 3yo needs his first visit.

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Real Food Kitchen Tour: Natural Health at Home

What’s a Real Foodie?

This Week’s Real Food Kitchen Tour: Natural Health at Home

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

Let Us Tour Your Kitchen

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