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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 🙂

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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First go at sourdough spelt halušky – Slovakian pasta/noodles.
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I love being inspired by other cuisines and Naomi (@almostbananas) showed me (and all the other @ancestralkitchenpodcast patrons!) how to make these on camera from her Slovakian kitchen.
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They aren’t authentic – I didn’t use potato as my son can’t eat it, and I served them with an Italian twist: pancetta, kale and pecorino. But they were good and so much easier to make than sourdough pasta.
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We used a spaetzle-maker (I’ll put pictures in my story) and my son pushed the batter – which had been fermenting overnight – through the holes into boiling water.
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If you’re daunted by sourdough pasta, these might be worth a try in your kitchen.
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And do check out Ancestral Kitchen Podcast #49 where I talk with Naomi about traditional Slovakian Food; it’ll make your mouth water!

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Up to 2 years ago, when I thought of beer, I thought ‘bitter’ and ‘it’s a man thing’.
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So when I started researching historical brewing I was floored to find out that, for most of history, in most of the world, women have been the brewers.
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Add to that the fact that the brews my ancestors in England would have made in their kitchens (yes, kitchens!) was sweet, not bitter and I realised that everything that I thought I knew about beer was wrong.
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If you’re curious, listen to today’s @ancestralkitchenpodcast. In it, I share much of what I’ve both learnt and experimented with the last two years.
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I’d love your feedback on this episode! Tell me what you knew, didn’t know, what surprised you the most and how you feel after hearing what @farmandhearth and I share 🙂

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My new *free* sourdough course is all about your starter. 10 video tips that’ll help super-charge your starter whether you’re new to sourdough baking, have tried and failed at a starter or are experienced but would like some extra help.
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You can sign up for the course via the button ‘*Free* course: 10 Tips for Creating & Maintaining a Sourdough Starter’ in the courses section of my profile link.
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Do pass this on to any other sourdough bakers (or wanna be sourdough bakers) you know!

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Have you ever lived without an oven?
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For several months I had no oven. I had to change how I cooked. That’s nothing on kitchens a few hundred (let alone a few thousand) years ago though; ovens are a really recent thing.
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Before ovens, in England, many dishes were steamed instead of being ovened.
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Here’s my most recent steamed oat pudding. These were common in the UK (where in many parts oats were the staple cereal) and were often as simple as oats, stock and a bit of onion. Here I’ve added pork, walnuts and orange too. I steamed this for two hours in a glass bowl resting raised off the bottom of a large saucepan that had two inches of simmering water at the bottom.
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It’s delicious and the recipe will be going in the book on oats I’m dreaming of writing!
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See my story today for more information (and details of how I messed up the first one of these!)

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Seeing wholegrain rye bread come to life in someone else’s kitchen thanks to the work I do fills my heart with such joy!
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Repost of @jenniferments
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Whole grain rye sourdough plus a bonus rye spice bread made with sourdough discard. I have been baking for a long while but shied away from making a whole grain rye sourdough. First, because I thought it was too difficult to get a good result. And second, because my kiddo and I have been basically gluten free for the past 4 years or so. Last year I discovered that we can tolerate Einkorn sourdough, and recently I’ve been reading that folx with gluten sensitivities might also be able to tolerate rye (and spelt – that’s next on the list to try!) I have been following Alison Kay @ancestral_kitchen for a while and I am so inspired by her food journey, plus the practical and down to earth manner in which she shares and teaches. So when I had the opportunity to take her class called Wholegrain Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics at @thefermentationschool I took the plunge! I watched every video and with her experience and knowledge I felt very confident that I would be able to make a great loaf of rye sourdough… and I did! Not only a loaf of WHOLE GRAIN rye sourdough, but I also used my discard to make a rye spice bread! I am so grateful that @ancestral_kitchen and @thefermentationschool have made learning so accessible and easy! The photos show 1) the finished whole grain rye sourdough that I baked in a Pullman loaf pan, 2) rye starter bubbly and ready, 3) rye berries before milling, 4) my old “Whisper Mill” which sounds like anything but a whisper 😂 I’ve had this thing for ~18 years and though it’s loud it still works great! 5) preferment all bubbly, 6) finished rye spice bread- it has golden raisins, pecans, molasses and honey, plus cinnamon, ginger, and freshly grated nutmeg. It smells heavenly! 7) a slice of the spice bread – it was absolutely delicious with butter! 8) bubbly main dough after fermenting and ready for the pan, 9) beautiful crust on the finished whole grain rye sourdough straight out of the Pullman pan, 10) dense yet airy crumb that had a rich, gorgeous flavor!

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