Author: Ali

Pesto is not necessarily what you think it is…
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Basil? Yes (well at least if you live in northern Italy, in the south it’s more likely yours would be tomato-dominant). Oil? Yes. Garlic? Yes.
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Butter?? Yes! Butter has been and still is an ingredient of some pesto.
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Cheese? Hmm, maybe, in more recent history. Nuts? Again, perhaps in the post-industrial era.
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And pesto’s not always been a pasta-only condiment. Historically, the job of green pesto was a general condiment and it was most often stirred into soup.
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I’ll post some more surprising details of what pesto has been and is in my story today (and save in my local food highlight).
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Meantime, here’s my traditional pesto. Basil from the garden, olive oil, garlic and salt. I didn’t happen to have any cheese or nuts and I could see my basil was bolting. It’s delicious – I love to eat it on fried eggs.
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Do you make pesto? Have you tried without cheese and nuts? Have you found not pasta-ways to allow it to express its deliciousness?! I’d love to hear!

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It’s super hot here. This rye sourdough discard spice bread usually takes about six hours to ferment, but is ready for baking today in less than three!
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I’ll take 35 minutes of the oven churning out more heat in order to smell and then taste this beauty!
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The recipe is in the “what to do with your sourdough discard” section of my forthcoming @thefermentationschool course Rye Sourdough: Mastering The Basics which will be out in September.

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On Sundays, I like to cook something up that’ll make my life easier over the next few days. Yesterday it was this: a one-dish, cast iron ground pork and vegetable dish.
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I always start off with onion and garlic, but the veg, type of meat and spices vary based on what I have and what I feel like.
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This did Sunday lunch for us, went into my son’s packed lunch that I prepped last night and today I heated up the leftovers, sliced a thick hunk of spelt sourdough, spread it with lard and my own lunch was done in a few minutes!
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The template for this recipe will be going into the @ancestralkitchenpodcast cookbook that @farmandhearth and I are working on…we are so excited about sharing our favourite recipes with you!

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This is soup. Or it will be, once I’ve tamed all that gorgeous natural gelatin into a liquidy submission with some heat!
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My son wasn’t keen on the “blobby bits” (i.e. the cartilage) in my oxtail stew. So I hid them by blending the stew up and renaming it a soup. After leaving it for a day in the fridge this is what I found!
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So not only does he get the “blobby bits” without realising, but he’s also getting all that collagen in the jelly goodness.
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Sometimes it’s just about tweaking the packaging, as it were. A skill I’m acquiring through necessity as my son ages!
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Happy weekend to you all.

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I love sauerkraut. But making it can often seem like a chore. There are other things I’d rather be doing…baking some bread, reading about the joys of lard, trying to replicate a dish I just heard about…
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Creativity in the kitchen is important. Anything we can do to to minimise the time we spend on the routine – the things we want but the making of which doesn’t fire us up – allows us more time to engage with our passions, which keeps those fires of inspiration burning!
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Sauerkraut doesn’t need to take all day, bread doesn’t have to be complicated, your sourdough starter should not run your life, herbal ‘supplements’ can be easily incorporated into food…all things that @farmandhearth and I talk about in this week’s podcast. Listen in to hear some easy ways to make your kitchen quicker and simpler.
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And if you’ve got your own ‘easy way’, a time/energy-saving method that you’ve honed, do let us know!
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You can find us as @ancestralkitchenpodcast on your app, or download/stream via the link in my profile.

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Have you wet-rendered fat?
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I finally got some local grass-fed beef fat and since Ximena over at @thefunctionalforce opened my eyes to using water and salt in rendering I’ve been excited to give the wet method a go!
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I watched Marisa’s @bumblebeeapothecary video on You Tube twice then dove in! It was more fiddly and took more time than my usual dry rendering *but* I’ve ended up with a tallow that is really clean and virtually odourless.
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It’ll keep longer like this and I’ll be able to use it for face cream, something I’ve been wanting to make for ages.
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This pic is from the first render, I’m straining the ‘cooked’ fat through muslin and catching the liquid (a mixture of tallow and water/salt) underneath. After this I did a second render of the tallow, with more salt and water, to help eliminate impurities.
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Check my story today for more pictures and some video of the final product!
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Happy July 4th to my USA friends 🙂

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Here’s the beautiful broth from the beef bones in my story today.
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I’ve 6 jars like this. They’ll set like jelly, the fat layer available to take off or break up and mix back in.
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I’ll drink the stock on it’s own, sprinkled with salt. I’ll use it to cook grains in. I’ll let it loosen up leftovers when I pull them from the fridge to heat up for a quick supper. I’ll add it to one pan meat and veg dishes for extra richness.
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Do you have any unusual uses for stock you want to share?!
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If you haven’t yet, check out the @ancestralkitchenpodcast on stock (it’s number 26), our most downloaded episode – there’s obviously a whole lot of goodness there!
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Happy weekend from my kitchen to yours.

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Creativity in the kitchen – how do you express it?
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With me, it’s often in my bread and it often comes to life based on what needs using.
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I wanted a basically spelt loaf and I also wanted to make it up as I went along. There was a packet of rye flour in the cupboard that needed finishing so I added the remains of that. Whilst in my cupboard-clearing-out mode, I noticed the end of a tub of dehydrated orange slices. I whizzed them up in the spice grinder with a generous handful of caraway seeds and added that to the dough.
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There was some four-day-old rye sourdough starter in the fridge. I put a big blob of that in, added some honey, salt and water and got stuck in with my hands.
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The resulting loaf is delicious and makes me want to play some more with orange and caraway.
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Thank you to @ellys.everyday for making me feel OK about using ‘old’ sourdough starter and to @elliemarkovitch for being a wonderful intuitive baking ambassador! If you don’t already, go follow what they are up to in their exploratory kitchens 🙂
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I’d love to hear where you most like to ‘play’ in the kitchen.

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What’s your favourite grain?
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I think mine are oats. It’s that creaminess they create. I guess it comes from their higher-than-normal fat content.
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And I love to ferment oats. This picture is of a fermented oat bake – I fermented the freshly-rolled oats overnight and then mixed with eggs and cheese before baking. I want to try this again and add some bacon and onions, as well as herb-it-up!
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Check my story today for more fermented oats goodness.

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