Year: 2020

Are you making sourdough pizza with me this month? I’m up to another one today, so thought I’d share how I stretch and fold my dough.
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I’ve always found it really helpful to see how something should look. Obviously, I want you in my kitchen so we can do it side-by-side, but saving that, at least I can use the magic of IG to show you a vid.
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The recipe is in my profile. If you have a starter ready, you could be eating pizza for lunch tomorrow!

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These are 5-month-old sourdough rye bread crumbs. They are my bread kvass starter. I’ve been using the this same sourdough bread over and over again to make a bottle of fermented kvass each week since March.
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The more time passes the stronger the starter gets. I know this as my kvass has been turning sour more quickly.
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Swipe to see the sugar that I use, the rye bread settled in the bottom of the jar ready to start its work, and the strained, bottled kvass second-fermenting with some fresh mint from the garden.

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Wholegrain spelt, beets from the garden and psyllium seeds.
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This sourdough was one of those thrown-together experiments. We pulled the first beetroot from our tiny container garden. I’d just watched @ellys_everyday video about using psyllium husk in wholegrain bread.
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Our local health food store only had *whole* psyllium, not husks, but I tried it anyway. It wasn’t as firm as it would have been with husks, so I put it inside our ceramic loaf tin to bake with support.
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It was more spongy then my normal sourdough, and lost most of its beetroot purple in the baking (if you look back pics on my feed you’ll not miss how purple the dough was!). But the taste was good and the feeling of having had fun along with eating something I had grown from seed was wonderful.

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For me, it is both a driving passion and an absolute duty to get as close as possible to my food sources.
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The pics above are a beautiful example of that: we visited Flavio, and his animals, at @lavalledelsasso a few miles from here.
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I start with the pigs because I could hardly drag myself away from them, such wonderful animals. But swipe to see the engine of the farm, Flavio, and one of his cows, along with the raw beef we ate under the shade of a tree.
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I often feel sad at the mess we’re making of agriculture in this world. Being part of something real and regenerative lifts me and I can do nothing other than give thanks for the work being done by so many to make a difference and give my resources to support it.
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The food we bring into our houses has the power to change the world. I feel that when I work with it in the kitchen. It moves me. It drives me onwards. It brings me hope and joy.

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Carrot-top pesto nestled with some fish and sauerkraut atop rye pasta. We made this with home-grown carrots! My son has been waiting for it since April – when he planted the seeds. It was a treat to enjoy the pesto together whilst also munching bugs-bunny-style on the raw carrots.
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The recipe/process is in my story today!

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Hello to you from me and my well-earned lunch!
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Are you cooking sourdough wholegrain spelt pizza with me this month? I’d love to have you join me 🙂 The recipe is in my profile.

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My recipe for Sourdough Wholegrain Spelt Pizza is on my website (link in bio) and is August’s #ancestralcookup.
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That means that you, with my step-by-step guidance can enjoy this ancient grain, crispy, tasty and gut-friendly pizza!
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I’m going to be cooking it up plenty this month. I’d love it if you’d do too.

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Love, gratitude, nourishment and hope. That, plus more, is wrapped up in food for me. Today at our table, me and my boys will celebrate Lughnasadh. It’s a Celtic festival that signals the beginning of harvest. Bread is symbolic to it. So, with my son, I dug up the first of our beetroot grown from seed and added them to a sourdough bread. Here’s the joyful mixture! We’re baking it now and will cut it for lunch.
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This is the fourth time we’ve celebrated Lughnasadh now, adopting it when we were living in Cornwall, south-west England. Whilst we eat, we each speak 3 things that have happened in the last year, for which we are grateful. We couple each one with something that we pledge to do in way of gratitude.
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It’s a tradition we’ve made together and I love it.

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My breakfast has so many sourdough bubbles it doesn’t know whether it’s a crumpet or a pancake!
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I love watching the batter cook. This morning I used local olive oil for the frying. Seeing its yellowy-greeny colour creep around the edges of the pancake pleases me.

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