Author: Ali

Just turned out this sourdough polenta bread from the tin. It was made with sourdough barley polenta that I cooked up for breakfast and will give us easy-to-fix meals this weekend and into next week.
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Check the link in my profile to see a video on how to make sourdough polenta and polenta bread with whatever grain/s you fancy, along with the ever-so-simple sourdough porridge.
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This weekend my kitchen will see the fermentation of two sourdough spelt loaves, a sourdough millet and sorghum loaf, a sourdough rye loaf, some rolled oats, some sowans, and my usual sauerkraut, garlic and water kefir. That’s a lot of bubbles!
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Tell me what you’re fermenting this weekend! I’m taking Sat/Sun off here and I’d love to come back Monday and hear about bubble action 🙂

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This is Sowans, the Scottish oat ferment. My stirring action is so nifty that even my ‘posh’ camera can’t handle it!
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This one’s been fermenting a couple of days. When it’s ready, it’ll give me a super-easy-to-digest porridge and a probiotic-rich drink. Both are delicious.
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Check my story today: I’ve got quite the Sowans ‘factory’ going on here, having filmed a batch of videos explaining how to make this wonderful ferment this week.
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The course will be out next month, it’s going up at @thefermentationschool – a fabulous women-owned and women-led B corporation. I’m proud to be with them 🙂

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Climate change keeps me awake at night. How to get society to make the changes we need to? How to equalise injustice and give everyone the right to make fair choices? How to get governments to champion global health, not profit?
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I totally believe we can change the world by changing what’s on our plate. And, listening to @cfigueres #outrageandoptimism podcast last night, it was *so* good to hear climate experts speaking truth about the role that food plays in the issues that we are facing.
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Last weekend, the agriculture ministers from the G20 met in Florence and my family and I marched with small farmers and artisans who want and need to get their voices heard above the cacophony of industry, red-tape and marketing.
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But as @farmandhearth and I were talking about on a podcast recording yesterday, it’s everyday, repeated *action* that will make the difference. It’s this action that I want to embody and share through the work that I do. Yes, I love, love, love being in the kitchen, but I also love *real* food. When we chose real food we create community and we look after the world. I want that around me. I am fortunate enough to be able choose to run my kitchen and my life in the pursuit of that.
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What one thing would I have those who live, like me, in the affluent west, do? Buy local. Check out the @ancestralkitchenpodcast episode on Quitting Supermarkets if you need any encouragement, inspiration or help.
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I know there are so many more here that feel the same as I do, with their hands in the soil or on the chopping board. Thank you all for doing what you do. I wish I could hug you.

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There are a lot of chefs on Instagram. But I’ve never met one like Chef Aran Goldstein. Not only is he super-skilled in the kitchen, he’s also incredibly passionate about local, nutrient-dense food, being in the kitchen with children and creating the world we want through what we eat.
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We talk about that and more on the podcast interview he did with @farmandhearth and I. It’s today’s episode. You can find it in your app or download/stream via the link in my profile.
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Along with this interview, Aran also gave us an exclusive video cooking class on Injeera – the Ethiopian fermented teff flatbread. This class is available for all our podcast patrons. If you’d like to help support Andrea and I to keep the episodes rolling *and* watch Chef Aran’s, frankly amazing, pancake pouring skills, go to @ancestralkitchenpodcast to find out how to become a patron.

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Boza is a marvel.
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Let’s start with the taste: Thanks to the action of the probiotics, it’s tangy, fizzy, tart and sweet.
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It’s non-dairy, gluten-free, lectin-free and full of live probiotics. These probiotics are making the pattern of holes in this jar of Boza that is currently on my counter-top.
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You can make this in your kitchen. If you have dairy-sensitive or gluten-intolerant loved ones (or, frankly, any loved ones!) they will enjoy it…just like many thousands of people have in the Balkan area of Europe for many hundreds of years.
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If you want to get started, I’ve a straight-forward, non-costly video course on my website. Check my profile for details.

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My son started a new school this week. This move was a long time in the planning and is a big step for us all. It is the first time he has ever been full-time, the maximum we’d done before being 2 days a week.
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The school is amazing…a huge part of why we settled on it and it’s in our favourite street in Florence, which seems a good omen. This step will not only give him more opportunity to make new friends, I’ll also have some much needed time to follow other pieces of my calling and to, hopefully, rest!
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This flat bread, which is my recipe for a sourdough spelt ‘porridge’ loaf with chocolate malt and hazelnuts accompanied him this week. Putting it in his lunch box felt very symbolic; he goes out into this new world with all the goodies that he’s taken from the 7 years we’ve had together as a family.
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The recipe for the bread is in my profile. I’m off to enjoy my weekend with him around.
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Love from our house to yours…

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These are ‘niblets’, named that by my 7 year-old. He loves them. So do I.
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Niblets are the crunchy pieces of solid fat that are left-over after rendering lard in the slow-cooker all day.
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I had them here for supper last night. I sprinkled them with salt and served with some #lectinfree millet and sorghum sourdough warmed gently in the cast iron pan and topped with #rawmilk Parmesan. Alongside was a sliced tomato from Irene at our local farmers’ market.
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Eating real food, I consistently leave the table satisfied. My senses have been fed, my tummy’s been given something that it can digest and loves and my sanity and sense of economy knows that every penny spent on this meal went to places that I really want it to go.
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I love that I can harness the power of my plate in this way.

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Freshly rolled oats are such a beautiful food. Oats are good whatever, right, but freshly rolled, they become a heaven-sent food. Perhaps it’s something to do with the fact that they are high in fat and the freshness preserves that? Or perhaps it’s something more tangential, like the love that goes into them when you grind yourself?
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These oats are destined for sourdough porridge. There’s a video linked in my profile if you want to see how it’s done.
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Before I pop them in the porridge mix to ferment, I’ll put them in a sieve and agitate them over a large bowl. The ‘crumbs’ that fall into the bowl I’ll also be fermenting. These will become ‘Sowans’, the traditional Scottish oat ferment.
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My head’s full of Sowans at the moment. I’ve just spent two consecutive Sunday afternoons filming a Sowans course for @thefermentationschool. In it, there will be full instructions on how to make this ferment whatever equipment you have in your kitchen. I am excited about releasing it next month!

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Rendering lard today with fat from @valledelsasso. We use lard as a cooking medium (for everything from pancakes to chard) and also as spread, much like butter.
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It’s easy to render from back fat at home in a slow cooker. I get up early and put the slow cooker on low. I chop the fat into c. 2cm cubes (as you can see here) and then pop it in the cooker with the lid on. Every hour or so I tip the contents of the cooking pot into a metal sieve above a metal bowl. The liquid fat drains through and then I pop the solid fat back into the cooking pot.
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The whole process usually takes about 9 hours. By tea-time we have warm, crunchy lard ‘niblets’ (as my son calls them) which are truly heavenly. I freeze 2/3rds of the fat and the supply (from 3kg back fat) will last us a month.
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Do you render your own?

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