Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting Family

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Brittnee Horting and the Horting Family.

Real Food Kitchen Tour: The Horting Family

Welcome to another edition of the Real Food Kitchen Tour. This week we’re featuring Brittnee Horting and the Horting Family.

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: The Horting Family

This week I’m featuring Brittnee Horting and her family. Britnee’s a mom living in Idaho.

I got to spend some time in Sun Valley earlier this year and I loved it! It’s totally gorgeous up there, with fresh clean air and wide open skies (although my daughter, California girl that she is, was not crazy about the snow). Britnee, I hope you take advantage of all that delicious Idaho trout!

Britnee doesn’t have a blog yet but plans to start this fall, along with homeschooling.

Making kefir popsicles
Making smoothies!

Blog Name: Fall 2012 I will be starting the adventure of homeschooling (my oldest child will be 5 then) and I will be doing a blog about that, as well as our “real food adventures”.
Blog Author: Brittnee Horting
How Long Blogging: Excited to begin!
Location: Gooding, Idaho
House or Apartment: House
Size of Kitchen: 14’x14′
Things You Love About Your Kitchen: I love that it is very open, there is so much room to move around and have my family all in there together! I also love the windows, they let in so much natural light and I can watch my kids playing outside. The view of the surrounding mountains isn’t to shabby either! Also, I LOVE all the cupboard space… there is almost more then I know what to do with!
Things You Would Change: The kitchen itself is great, but I would love to have more gadgets and accessories to play with!
Favorite Tools & Gadgets:  I love my blender… we make a lot of kefir smoothies and so it gets used almost every day. It’s an older model, but it’s perfect for our needs.
Biggest Challenges Cooking Real Food:  Finding real food! Almost all of our meat is homegrown and we get our milk and eggs from local farmers, but there are a lot of things I’m having a hard time finding around here. I’m pretty new to all this so I’m still uncovering hidden treasures…
Current Family Favorite Meal: I’m very blessed to have great eaters in my house, and they LOVE salad! I’m finding that my kids are willing to try new foods if I add them to a salad and so it’s a common meal here. We also like simple cucumber tomato sandwiches in the summer.
Favorite Cookbooks: I find most of my recipes online… at great websites like CHEESESLAVE!!

Here are some photos of Brittnee’s kitchen (her comments are in italics and mine are below not italicized).

The Horting Family: Our Kitchen
Our kitchen

“This is my “extra” counter space where I keep our fruit, ferment my kefir (by the gallon usually), and stash my blender so it’s always handy.”

Wow, by the gallon!? That is awesome!

The Horting Family: Our Kitchen
Another view of the kitchen

“This is my main cooking/prep area. Please notice the amazing bread box my younger brother made for me a few years ago in his middle school shop class… I love it and love him for thinking of me!”

I can barely see it; it’s too dark… I think you are going to have to post a link to a better (up-close) photo — maybe in the comments?

The Horting Family: Blue Star
Blue Star

“I’m a Blue Star sister… my brother is an Army Ranger and will be deploying on July 5th for his 3rd tour in Afghanistan.”

The Horting Family: Fresh butter!
Fresh butter!
The Horting Family: Shaking the butter
Shaking the butter.

“My son helping to make homemade butter, “Shake shake shake!” We also use the blender to make butter, but shaking it is more fun!”

It is so great that they are learning how real food is made!

The Horting Family: Kefir grains
Kefir grains

“I’m fermenting some kefir right now to make Vanilla Kefir Ice Cream with the new ice cream maker my parents gave us for an anniversary gift on June 23rd. 5 years!!”

The Horting Family: New tomato plants
New tomato plants

“More tomato plants ready to be planted! We make a TON of salsa, plus we love our cucumber tomato sandwiches!”

There is nothing better than homegrown tomatoes!

The Horting Family: Yogurt!
Yogurt!

Check Out the Previous Real Food Kitchen Tour Posts

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.