Lectin-free bread doesn’t have to a lot of ingredients with names your Grandma wouldn’t recognise in. . It won’t feel like wheat bread does. But it’ll be good food. . It’s so easy for us to cling to food having to be a certain way. Let’s give our taste buds and our senses the space to experience something differently. . This loaf is millet, sorghum, salt and water. All Italian ingredients. It’s denser than the one I’ve been making with added psyllium husk. But it’s taste is better and it’s less hassle. . Some more pics about to go in my stories (under the highlight lectin-free).

Lectin-free bread doesn’t have to a lot of ingredients with names your Grandma wouldn’t recognise in.
.
It won’t feel like wheat bread does. But it’ll be good food.
.
It’s so easy for us to cling to food having to be a certain way. Let’s give our taste buds and our senses the space to experience something differently.
.
This loaf is millet, sorghum, salt and water. All Italian ingredients. It’s denser than the one I’ve been making with added psyllium husk. But it’s taste is better and it’s less hassle.
.
Some more pics about to go in my stories (under the highlight lectin-free).

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Usually I’m a good girl and let my breads fully cool before eating. I couldn’t with this one. I just about got a photo done before I cut through that crust and plopped some butter (which promptly melted!) and scrambled eggs on a thick slice. . It’s a spelt sourdough with a swats porridge included in the dough. Swats is a traditional Scottish ferment that I make regularly (check my story highlight for more details). . I’m hoping to get a little course out later in the year explaining how to make Swats. And I want to include a few ways of using the results – one of which is this loaf.

Usually I’m a good girl and let my breads fully cool before eating. I couldn’t with this one. I just about got a photo done before I cut through that crust and plopped some butter (which promptly melted!) and scrambled eggs on a thick slice.
.
It’s a spelt sourdough with a swats porridge included in the dough. Swats is a traditional Scottish ferment that I make regularly (check my story highlight for more details).
.
I’m hoping to get a little course out later in the year explaining how to make Swats. And I want to include a few ways of using the results – one of which is this loaf.

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I’ve always been a ‘too much’ kinda girl. . But as we cooks know, too much food, skillfully channelled, gives one leftovers for days. . This is a saucepan full to the brim with a millet/sorghum/farro sourdough porridge. It’ll do us breakfast, and the leftovers will be packed into a loaf tin and left to cool. Then, I’ll be able to slice it and provide fermented polenta ‘bread’ for packed lunches and easy supper for days. . I’d love to know one of your go-to °too much’ dishes :-)

I’ve always been a ‘too much’ kinda girl.
.
But as we cooks know, too much food, skillfully channelled, gives one leftovers for days.
.
This is a saucepan full to the brim with a millet/sorghum/farro sourdough porridge. It’ll do us breakfast, and the leftovers will be packed into a loaf tin and left to cool. Then, I’ll be able to slice it and provide fermented polenta ‘bread’ for packed lunches and easy supper for days.
.
I’d love to know one of your go-to °too much’ dishes 🙂

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Have you heard of Zombie Probiotics?! Crazy thought, right…but they are real. Seriously, there are dead but undead probiotics in many ancestral foods – sourdough bread, sauerkraut in stews, even the sourdough discard soup I posted last week. . And, so scientists are proving, these zombie probiotics do us good. How damn cool is that? . The technical term for these compounds isn’t zombie probiotics (shame) it’s actually paraprobiotics and postbiotics. Along with probiotics and prebiotics that’s quite a lot for a non-sciency head to hold. So I had to read about it a lot!! And then, of course, as it’s soooo cool, I wanted to share. Click on the link in my profile to read the short article explaining what these things are and how they do us good. . If you were to read it whilst eating a slice of sourdough, I’d consider my work done :-)

Have you heard of Zombie Probiotics?! Crazy thought, right…but they are real. Seriously, there are dead but undead probiotics in many ancestral foods – sourdough bread, sauerkraut in stews, even the sourdough discard soup I posted last week.
.
And, so scientists are proving, these zombie probiotics do us good. How damn cool is that?
.
The technical term for these compounds isn’t zombie probiotics (shame) it’s actually paraprobiotics and postbiotics. Along with probiotics and prebiotics that’s quite a lot for a non-sciency head to hold. So I had to read about it a lot!! And then, of course, as it’s soooo cool, I wanted to share. Click on the link in my profile to read the short article explaining what these things are and how they do us good.
.
If you were to read it whilst eating a slice of sourdough, I’d consider my work done 🙂

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Home-fermented olives gifted by @thelandofmint. . These are the best olives I have ever tasted. They are soft, giving when you bite into them, bitter and at the same time sweet. There is salt too, and herbs and a delicate tang of orange zest. . (And not a drop of omega 6 heavy sunflower oil in sight – yes!) . I am super-excited about fermenting olives. I was too late this year – all the ones around me had gone to the frantoio (olive mill) before I could get to it. Next year they won’t escape me!

Home-fermented olives gifted by @thelandofmint.
.
These are the best olives I have ever tasted. They are soft, giving when you bite into them, bitter and at the same time sweet. There is salt too, and herbs and a delicate tang of orange zest.
.
(And not a drop of omega 6 heavy sunflower oil in sight – yes!)
.
I am super-excited about fermenting olives. I was too late this year – all the ones around me had gone to the frantoio (olive mill) before I could get to it. Next year they won’t escape me!

Read More

After fermenting a whole cabbage for #sarmale at Christmas, I had some leaves left over. I loved wrapping using them, and also love the Italian ‘fegatelli’, liver parcelled up and cooked with bay and fennel seeds. . So was born this experiment: Fermented cabbage-wrapped local pig’s liver, to be baked with onions and shredded sauerkraut in sauerkraut juice. . My 6-year old son made some of the parcels. It was the first time he’d worked with raw liver and he was enamoured (it’s kinda like slime!) . Check my story today (saved as the nose-to-tail highlight if you’re coming at this later) for photos of the prep and how we ate it.

After fermenting a whole cabbage for #sarmale at Christmas, I had some leaves left over. I loved wrapping using them, and also love the Italian ‘fegatelli’, liver parcelled up and cooked with bay and fennel seeds.
.
So was born this experiment: Fermented cabbage-wrapped local pig’s liver, to be baked with onions and shredded sauerkraut in sauerkraut juice.
.
My 6-year old son made some of the parcels. It was the first time he’d worked with raw liver and he was enamoured (it’s kinda like slime!)
.
Check my story today (saved as the nose-to-tail highlight if you’re coming at this later) for photos of the prep and how we ate it.

Read More

I regularly make the glorious Turkish fermented drink ‘Boza’. I mix cooked millet with a home-made starter and golden cane sugar. After 5 days in the warm it has transformed into a lacto-fermented, fizzy-on-the-tongue, sour, sweet-edged, probiotic-rich drink. . Having got the basics under my belt, I’m starting to experiment. Here’s the latest two batches both using alternative sweeteners – the first with local, raw honey from @thecreatorscastle as the second using seriously dark unrefined cane sugar. My son’s looking forward to trying the results!

I regularly make the glorious Turkish fermented drink ‘Boza’. I mix cooked millet with a home-made starter and golden cane sugar. After 5 days in the warm it has transformed into a lacto-fermented, fizzy-on-the-tongue, sour, sweet-edged, probiotic-rich drink.
.
Having got the basics under my belt, I’m starting to experiment. Here’s the latest two batches both using alternative sweeteners – the first with local, raw honey from @thecreatorscastle as the second using seriously dark unrefined cane sugar. My son’s looking forward to trying the results!

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I am so happy that #jerusalemartichokes (do you know them as #sunchokes?) are still in season here in Italy as I’ve got quite a taste for them fermented. A week of lactic acid magic, with some added flavours (here garlic and black pepper) and they are crunchy and super yum. . Look good, don’t they? And fermenting them is a great way to get the prebiotic, inulin (which our resident gut bacteria need to do their work) in a less windy way than eating them unfermented. . Apparently these can be foraged by waterways here. When I find my personal forging and ancestral preserving wise Nonna (I’m looking for one!), I’ll ask her to show me some :-)

I am so happy that #jerusalemartichokes (do you know them as #sunchokes?) are still in season here in Italy as I’ve got quite a taste for them fermented. A week of lactic acid magic, with some added flavours (here garlic and black pepper) and they are crunchy and super yum.
.
Look good, don’t they? And fermenting them is a great way to get the prebiotic, inulin (which our resident gut bacteria need to do their work) in a less windy way than eating them unfermented.
.
Apparently these can be foraged by waterways here. When I find my personal forging and ancestral preserving wise Nonna (I’m looking for one!), I’ll ask her to show me some 🙂

Read More