Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Melissa Combs, author of Unmistakably Food.
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: Unmistakably Food
Melissa Making Jambalaya
This week we travel to Montana to visit the kitchen of Melissa Combs. And how cute is she!? She looks like Scarlett Johansson in that picture!
Melissa’s passion for real food is contagious. It really shows in her photos and in her blog.
I love the name of her blog. In other words, this isn’t fake, processed food, people. You can’t miss it!
Blog Name: Unmistakablyfood.com
Blog Author: Melissa (Missii) Combs
How Long Blogging Three Months!
Location: Great Falls, MT
House or Apartment: Apartment
Size of Kitchen: 7.5′ * 4.5′
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: It’s the perfect size for our small family and it has bright lighting which gives it a homey atmosphere. I’m thankful for the counter space, the dishwasher, the stove that is easy to clean, cupboard space, appliances that work, and the fact that there is no microwave!
Things You Would Change: I do not like the carpet on the floor or the white counter-tops! Very hard to keep clean! Most of all, I do not like the absence of raw milk in my kitchen. I have been on the waiting list to get it for several months and don’t know how long it will be!
Favorite Tools & Gadgets: My Hamilton Beach crock pot from my husband Ryan! He somehow read my mind and knew I wanted one and got me one for Christmas! My ice-cream maker, my cast-iron grill pan and new set of Cuisinart cook-ware, my big bamboo cutting board and nice knives, my magic bullet blender, my juicer, and my spice rack with glass jars to store spices in. Everything on this list has been given to me by family as a gift, so I owe my kitchen to them! I also love my very small collection of glass jars for storing food.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food: Lack of access to most raw, grass-fed, or even full-fat dairy items. I am a dairy fanatic so this is difficult for me. I don’t like going without milk, sour cream, and of late, yogurt! Time, energy, and money constrains have been challenges. Probably the biggest challenge has been deciding which things to “cheat” on so that we can afford to buy other things top quality. Like buying regular chicken and produce so that we can afford grass-fed ground beef, pastured eggs and butter, and raw milk cheese to feed our baby! I think many people in our economy can relate to this.
Current Family Favorite Meal: Stuffed peppers with grass-fed ground beef, raw cheddar cheese, garlic, green onions, and lots of butter! Right now we are also loving our homemade eggnog with unfortunately conventional milk, but grass-fed cream, pastured egg yolks, organic maple syrup, vanilla and nutmeg!
Favorite Cookbooks: Whole-Grain Baking, and Homestyle Chicken (given to me by Ryan), and Food Lover’s Asian and Baker’s Chocolate (given to me by my mom and dad-in-law). The recipes that are not WAPF are easy to convert over!
Kitchen
My kitchen: small but homey. As you can see, I have gadgets lining the counter. All of them are gifts from family and I like to show them off!
Crock pot and Blender
Hamilton Beach crock pot: a Christmas gift from my husband! He also got me the big bamboo cutting board in the background. My mom and dad-in-law bought me the spice rack, my sister-in-law bought me the knives, and my grandma bought me the magic bullet blender. This comes in very handy for making baby food!
Stock
24/7 broth simmering in my new crock pot!
Prized Possessions
My beautiful ice cream maker (from my husband) and juicer (wedding gift from my family), two of my most prized possessions! Now if I could just get raw milk for the ice cream!
Hanging Utensils
My husband laughs at me for this, but it saves space and makes me feel like a real chef!
Top Shelves
Bottom Shelf
Natural Healers
I’m very proud of my medicine cabinet. You can see ancient minerals magnesium flakes, fermented cod liver oil, magnesium glycinate, adrenogen (adrenal support), bio-kult, echinacea (Bioforce,very potent), and Amerigel, a natural wound healer (it also clears up skin infections very quickly.)
More Chicken Stock!
Yogurt Delight
Yogurt in the making! I love all that yellow fatty goodness. Unfortunately I can’t get this pasteurized grass-fed milk anymore because it was pulled from the shelves so if I want to keep making yogurt, it will have to be with regular supermarket milk. What do you think? Should I give it up?
Bananas and coconuts, two things I like to keep around
Beautiful Eggs
Beautiful eggs from a local hutterite colony. The three of us go through 3-4 dozen a week!
Herb Garden
I like to have herbs in warm weather. I had these herb plants until the frost zapped them!
Lots of Oils
Homemade magnesium oil (thank you Ann Marie!), homemade ghee, and coconut oil.
My husband Ryan throwing in some seasoning!
Mama's Little Helper
My little helper! She likes to watch me cook and tries to grab everything!
How adorable!
Audrey Eating Christmas Dinner
Audrey Eating Egg Yolks
Eating her all time favorite food: pastured egg yolks
Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Health
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Prairie Homestead
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Bubbling Brook Farm
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Taste is Trump
Real Food Kitchen Tour: CHEESESLAVE
Real Food Kitchen Tour: GAPS Diet Kitchen
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Mom
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Radically Natural Living
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Amanda Brown
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Pamela Montazeri
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Cracking an Egg with One Hand
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Yolks, Kefir & Gristle
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Okparaeke Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Holistic Kid
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Artistta
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Nourished & Nurtured
Real Food Kitchen Tour: May All Seasons Be Sweet to Thee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting Family
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Hybrid Rasta Mama
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Granola Mom 4 God
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Devotee
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Real Food Forager
Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Leftover Queen
Real Food Kitchen Tour: Health Home & Happiness
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
Disclosure: cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you so much for featuring my kitchen Anne Marie! I’m happy to say that a couple weeks ago we finally reached the end of the waiting list and we have raw milk now! I don’t know how I lived without it before.
Once again thank you! You and your blog are an inspiration to me
I love the metal high chair! And that’s a pretty sweet cutie sittin in it.
I really liked touring your kitchen and seeing the diffrerent foods you make..I make my chicken broth in the slow cooker. In fact, I just made a fresh batch this afternoon. I threw in some vegetables…and it’s tasty good..
Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 
Thank you Heather! Chicken broth in the slow cooker is so easy isn’t it? It can just simmer for days and you don’t have to think about it
Hello fellow MT blogger! Don’t you just love the Lifeline cheese? How did you get on a waiting list for raw milk? I’m down in Bozeman and for a while I was getting some through a friend but I don’t have a source now
Yes I LOVE Lifeline cheese! It’s pretty much the best cheese there is
My local WAPF chapter leader helped me with the milk. On their website, I found a chapter leader in your area: Rebekah Mocerino (406) 209-1987, loverealfoodmt@gmail.com
You probably already know about her but just in case!
They just started that chapter so I’m on their list to know when meetings are. Thanks for the info I’ll see if any of them have a source!
So happy you brought back this series. I love it!
Congrats on making it to the top of the milk list! I know the pain and agony of it being unavailable!
Too cute! Love your baby. I just ordered that same ice cream maker yesterday….can’t WAIT to make some GAPS friendly ice cream!!
Thank you Alicia! You’ll have to tell me how it turns out!
Very cute. I love your simplicity. Isn’t that what eating traditional food is all about?!!
I agree Alison, that’s one thing I love about real food! Get rid of all the extra unnecessary junk and just get back to the basics that have been used for thousands of years!
Tip from an oldie, never put your tomatoes in the fridge. It alters the flavor somehow. I’ve forgotten the reason why, but it has something to do with arresting the ripening enzyme so that the tomato never gets beyond that point of flavor development.
Thanks for the tour!
Thank you for the tip Carol! I still have so much to learn! I had them in there for a couple months and they didn’t go bad. I was wondering why!
Don’t quit with the yogurt even though you can’t get the best milk. The cultures make it healthier for you.
I was going to say the same thing!! Kefir grains are another idea: you can kefir the milk, then make kefir cheese, use for smoothies, even kefir ice cream!!
Thanks for the answers Jeanne and Magda. Fortunately, I now have access to raw milk so I don’t have to worry about it anymore!
You guys took the words right out of my mouth. I just recently found a great source of grass fed raw milk, but until then I was using my Viili Yogurt starter to make yogurt by the gallon, using Organic Valley milk from the supermarket. If you haven’t tried a Viili Culture i can’t recommend it highly enough! It cultures overnight cold, with no extra heating required. The texture is medium to thick and creamy, and the flavor is sweet enough, that no extra fruit or sweetener is required. I love my yogurt! (you can buy a really inexpensive starter at Cultures for Health dot com)
Don’t give up the homemade yogurt! Storebought yogurt is cultured quickly so it doesn’t have nearly as many good beasties in it.:0)
So great, Melissa! I can tell there is a lot of love in your home!
That stuffed pepper dish sounds delicious!
Awesome! Thankyou so much for sharing your kitchen, so inspiring to see other people doing the same kind of things I do!! Most of my local friends don’t. One thing, if you need space in your fridge ever, we keep all our eggs on the benchtop and have never had a problem with them, apparently in the “old days” people never refridgerated eggs. Then again, could be just ‘coz we go through them so darn quick!
May I ask, how do you take the echinacea?? Do you put it in something and will your daughter take it??
Thanks again,
Nicole
Australia
Nicole, I’ve been wondering about why we refrigerate eggs when people used to leave them out. I wonder if it has anything to do with the conditions battery chickens are kept in. About the echinacea, I mix it with water. 30 drops I think is the standard adult dose, 3 times a day, although more can be taken. If I’m trying to boost my immune system, I’ll take up to 50 drops 3-4 times a day and it works wonders! I have given it to my daughter before. I just mix it with water, and squirt it in her mouth. She takes it with no trouble.
I especially liked to see you have A LOT of eggs. I always feel self concious about my egg collection!
Great blog as well. I’ve just started sharing my journey via blogging, it’s great to share without ‘preaching’ at people who don’t want to know.
Thank you! I am now following your blog
Thanks for sharing your kitchen! It seems like such a silly little thing, but I always get so excited to see a fellow Montanan on a ‘celebrity’ food blog. Must be something to do with being raised in a small town. I’m very encouraged by your fridge and medicine cabinet. I’ve been using real food for over a year now but I’m still phasing out some condiments and various items we “can’t” live without. I was thinking our fridge was looking a little bare, but now that I see yours I realize it’s so much more beautiful! Keep up the good work!
Hi I loved the tour of Melisa’s kitchen, I live in the UK and I’m a natural cook who prefers to us as much as possible all natural ingredients but find its not always possible to do so as the natural/organic products are so highly priced. I have prepared the ground for my kitchen garden which I cannot wait for the winter frost to go so I can get started planting most of my own veg herbs tomatoes and potatoes.Could you tell me please how to make this homemade magnesium oil and homemade ghee?
I have really enjoyed this tour and look forward to the next one, thank you so very much.
Vennette
United Kingdom
Hi I loved the tour of Melisa’s kitchen, I live in the UK and I’m a natural cook who prefers to us as much as possible all natural ingredients but find its not always possible to do so as the natural/organic products are so highly priced. I have prepared the ground for my kitchen garden which I cannot wait for the winter frost to go so I can get started planting most of my own veg herbs tomatoes and potatoes.Could you tell me please how to make this homemade magnesium oil and homemade ghee?
I have really enjoyed this tour and look forward to the next one, thank you so very much.
Vennette
United Kingdom
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