Real Food Kitchen Tour: GAPS Diet Kitchen

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. I’m a little late today but better late than never!

This week we’re featuring Alison Westermann, author of the Frugally Nourishing blog. I think her kitchen will inspire you, especially those of you on the GAPS Diet.

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: GAPS Diet Kitchen

Alison and her family live in Maryland and they are following the GAPS Diet. As you can see, she has a precious little girl who has 15 food allergies.

I admire you, Alison, for doing the GAPS Diet for your daughter! I can’t think of a better gift.

On GAPS for this little girl. See the discoloration on my front two teeth? That's detox from oil pulling.

Name: Alison Westermann
Blog name: Frugally Nourishing
Blogging: 1 year with some time off for GAPS
Location: Central Maryland
House or Apartment: Townhouse
Size of Kitchen: 6 by 15 ish
Things you love about your kitchen: Storage! I never thought I would use it all when we bought the house, but I didn’t know about real food back then! I love looking out into the living room since its one big open space and watching my daughter play while I cook.
Things you would change: More light. I wish I could grow herbs on a window overlooking the sink.
Favorite tools and gadgets: Dishwasher. I love my gadgets, but being on GAPS intro, it gets run 2-3 times a day. I love my crock pots. I just got a Hamilton Beach one to add to my collection. My food processor is wonderful and gets used at least once a day, too.
Biggest challenges cooking real food: Keeping enough food in the house….on GAPS intro we are going through our share of veggies and eggs. I go to the co-op or farmers market 2-3 times a week and drive to Pennsylvania frequently to get good soy free pastured eggs.
Current family favorite meal: We are doing a lot of soups, but to switch it up we do ‘deconstructed soup’. I cook a chicken or roast beef in the crock pot, serve with a side of squash thats been simmered in stock (with plenty of fat on top) and a mug of broth/fermented veggies as a side.
Favorite cookbooks: I love the Reversing Food Allergies course recipes and refer to them frequently! Pretty much any real food blog/recipe is bookmarked on my computer.

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

You know you're on GAPS when you have a lot of squash!

Aww… I love squash but unfortunately my family hates it. When we all tried to do GAPS recently as a family, I went out the first day and bought a ton of squash. My husband announced that he hated squash and would not eat it. It’s bad enough if your kid won’t eat it, but if your husband won’t, it’s pretty tough!

Chicken stock and a duck cooking

Alison, it was seeing these photos in my email that gave me the idea to buy two more crock pots. I’m so glad I did! Now I have 3 crock pots and it is awesome! I can keep one or two of them going for broth (my husband is still on GAPS so we go through a lot of broth) and use the others to make yogurt or slow-cook a roast. It makes a huge difference!

There is almost always soup going on the stove.

Nuts for almonds

I drink a lot of almond milk (I’m nursing) and I am making the nut butter pancakes in the GAPS book. Can’t wait to get these soaking!

Outdoor pantry.

Lots of filtered water and my canning stash so far

Awwww — what a cutie!

Extra fridge

We go through about 5lbs. of carrots alone a week between juicing and soup

View from the kitchen

My wonderful husband gives me an hour of prep time in the kitchen every night and several hours on the weekends!

You are so lucky!

Supplement junkie

Haha! I can relate! My supplements are always overflowing in my cabinets and on my countertops.

For stock

Squash for the week

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.