You asked for it, and we did it. We finally did it! Alison and I have written our first Ancestral Kitchen Podcast cookbook, called Meals at the Ancestral Hearth. It’s available now at farmandhearth.com/shop.… Read More
Most of my meals aren’t dreamy instagrammable shots. They are simple, the work of previous days, repeatable and hopefully as local and nutrient-dense as I can get them.
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Here’s pig’s liver from @valledelsasso (choose pigs liver over beef liver if you find the strong flavour difficult – it’s milder). I try to eat liver twice a week – sometimes simply fried like this in the cast iron pan, sometimes mixed with ground beef in meatballs or bolognese.
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We’re eating it with the last of the Brussels sprouts from @radiciumane (I’m so sad when Brussels sprouts finish, they are one of the best things about winter!). Plus there’s sourdough bread made from the spent grain from my home-made ale topped with home-rendered lard.
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The three cups have the actual rye/oat ancestral ale in them (yes, my 9-year old drinks our ale). It’s low in alcohol, isn’t bitter and feel like a digestive tonic.
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@farmandhearth and I are super-excited to announce our @ancestralkitchenpodcast cookbook…coming tomorrow. It includes 20 meals from our kitchens that you can take into yours play with and enjoy!
What’s your ideal for an oatmeal cookie? Crunchy throughout? Chewy inside with crisp outer? Smooth or jumbo oats?
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Oat cookie experimentation means there are lots to try at the moment in my house! There are two types here – one with egg, one without. They were both made with a long-matured dough (the first picture): honey and oats left for 9 weeks to ‘ferment’ before being mixed up with butter/spices and baked.
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Turns out I prefer the non-egg, crunchy-throughout ones 🙂
Sourdough oatcake pop tarts!
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When I came up with a recipe for sourdough oatcakes I never imagined sandwich-ing two of them together with a fruity jelly to make a pop tart. But man, it works, and I am ever-so-grateful to @mrsachase for taking my oatcakes and coming up with this idea in her kitchen!
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The recipe for the sourdough oatcakes is on the resources page of my site (ancestralkitchen.com). Check my story today for some step-by-step photos (I’ll save them to my oats highlight).
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You could also make a version of these pop tarts using a traditional Scottish, unfermented, oatcake (again, recipe on my site). The Scots didn’t ferment many of their oat products – I’ve got a newsletter going out tomorrow talking in depth about that fact. If you’d like to receive it go to ancestralkitchen.com – there’s a sign up at the top of every page.
The Weston A. Price Foundation published my article So Much More Than Scottish Porridge: The Rich Culinary History of British Oats in the Winter 2023 edition of their journal Wise Traditions. It is an exploratory dive into the wonderful legacy of … Read More
Ale in medieval England was made with a portion of malted oats. Until now, I’ve not been able to replicate this as standard oats won’t sprout (they are heat-treated as threshing damages them).
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But then I learnt about naked oats, with their paper-thin hulls. And I scoured Italy for a supplier. Having sourced them, I’ve soaked and sprouted them and here we have my first brew with malted oats included 🙂
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Note the wooden spoon. I use kitchen equipment to brew. If you want to know more, check @ancestralkitchenpodcast #54 where I get super-enthusiastic about all things ancestral ale.
This post describes the health benefits of the ancestral technique of fermenting grains. It then explains that very few Scottish (and Welsh) traditional oat recipes included fermentation and yet the oat-eating communities enjoyed incredible health. It asks why this could … Read More
Making the Weston A Price principles accessible, simple, and approachable for everybody is what Anita is so good at. Anita is a wife and mother living in Colorado, USA, serving up delicious, nourishing meals every day. She has mastered the ancestral food principles, and she can teach you how to roast a whole chicken and make the gravy in just a few sentences!… Read More
Imperfection is so damn sexy!
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In food, I equate perfection with mass production: Industrialisation required us to not only make food ‘keepable’ (hello packaging and chemicals) but also the *same*each*time*. And I find that so boring!
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Imperfection shows that your food is REAL. It’s been made with hands, in an environment that changes everyday.
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Imperfection is how we learn what works and what doesn’t; what we like and what we don’t like; how each litte thing we do influences the end result.
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Imperfection is so interesting. Each time I make chocolate at home the eating part becomes an adventure – it’s always a different experience.
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We swim in a food system that teaches us to want the same thing, exactly that way, again and again. I encourage you to rebel by making some imperfect food with your own hands today!
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If you want to have a go at the bean-to-bar chocolate, I have a low-price course that’ll walk you through it! Click on the link in my profile and scroll down to the courses section, or go to my story today, I’ll put a clickable link there.
Oats have been used with meat and spices in sausages for many centuries. Here’s my first attempt at bringing them to life in my kitchen: oats, leek, pork, lard and lots of spices. After making them into sausage shapes I prepared them for steaming (the traditional way of cooking) by wrapping in parchment paper and then aluminium foil.
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Check my story today for pictures of in-progress sausages and the finished product!
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They were delicious and I want to try them again so have been researching sausage casings and way to stuff. I don’t have a machine that can sausage-stuff, so it’ll be by hand which I’m sure my 8-year old will love!
