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Day 3 of the #veryfarmish challenge and I’m choosing ‘alternative’ with some fermented cheese made at home from cashews.
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My son cannot eat dairy. Imagine all the Italian cheeses he sees around here! It’s not the only thing he cannot (currently) eat and sometimes I long for him to have extra-specialness…especially when he literally jumps up and down to be involved in the making of it.
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So, despite wanting as much of the produce that graces our table to be local, sometimes I make an exception. These are organic, fair-trade cashews bought from a local store. We made cheese with a recipe that @lvtrevino passed over the Atlantic to me…there’s a lot of garlic, some fresh and dried herbs and a generous spoon of sauerkraut juice to kick-start the ferment. We left it in the fridge for 5 days before tucking in (high five to a 6-year-old for having that much patience, right?!).
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It was delicious and, as you can see, made his month.

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At 9pm on the night before we were due to move our entire life from the UK to Italy, the van that was to drive our things hundreds of miles across Europe turned up. We then found out it only had a 3rd of the space we needed. A blow is not the word!
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In that moment, I said goodbye to my two slow cookers. I went almost a year without one and how I missed it!
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My new one is my ‘handy gadget’ for this month’s #veryfarmish challenge.
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Meat stock and bone broth in the slow cooker are a must for me. I put the cooker on when I get up, plop the bones (here beef, some with the wonderful marrow) in, add an onion and a carrot, a dash of vinegar and some salt and pepper and leave it. By evening I have an amazing, life and food-enhancing elixir.
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Interestingly, not all slow cookers are created equal and this new one I have is more my style…it cooks at a much lower temperature which is better for stock.

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Do you like rye? Have you baked with it? It’s lower in gluten than wheat or spelt and easier to make than a wheat or spelt sourdough because It doesn’t need kneading – the gluten just isn’t activated that way.
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There are a lot of northern and eastern European breads with rye. This month’s #ancestralcookup is based on a Russian recipe. It’s called ‘Borodinsky’ and my version includes toasted malt grains (like ones used in brewing), caraway seeds and molasses.
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You can find the recipe in my profile. If you fancy giving it a go, you won’t be disappointed – it’s cakey, dense, rich, deep, toasty and ages very well. Good bread.

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This is by far my favourite rye bread. It’s dense, but not too dense. It’s cakey in a really good way. Its flavour is rich and deep, made a touch sweeter by the addition of a little molasses. And some … Read More

Several times this summer, I’ve literally dreamt about owning a pig. The reality of my home is, however, very different. I love, love, love to cook up regenerative agriculture produce in my kitchen but I live in a 1-bedroom apartment in a town close to the hubbub that is Florence, Italy.
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Still, as my gorgeous new-found IG friends:
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@farmandhearth
@untamed.nourishment
@thebyefamilyfarm
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…keep telling me: You don’t have to live on a farm to be farmish!
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So, the four of us have cooked up:
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The Very Farmish Challenge.
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Some fun sharing for the month of September. The checklist is above, see what takes your fancy, no order necessary, interpreting the prompt in whichever way you like. Follow the hosts and use the hashtag #veryfarmish when you post!
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I’m excited about seeing and reading and learning from everyone who wants to join in.

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Breaking food habits has often been very revealing to me. I don’t want to give something up, but when I do, I notice what life is like without it. Sometimes, I never go back to it.
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Not true of sourdough pancakes though. Me and them will go a long way I think! I’ve just got back from 3 days away, at lake Trasimeno, 2 hours on the train, with my hubby and son. It was wonderful. I lake swam (I miss swimming since ditching chlorine), I ate lake fish (my idea of local food!) and I sat around a lot.
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And now I’m home, I get to cook up a breakfast pancake again. Yum.
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I’ll try to get some pictures off my camera and share the glorious lake – aka My Happy Place – with you in my stories 🙂

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The first time I’ve grown beetroots. This is our harvest: leaves and roots. Is one a turnip?!
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I’ve learnt a lot. That hailstones the size of massive olives can ruin most of your leaves and that beetroot seeds are actually a cluster of many seeds and should be thinned out when they shoot (whoops). Here’s to next year’s growing season. Maybe I’ll get enough for a jar of beet kvass then?

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When I looked through the lens and saw my pizza and this empty seat, my heart ached. I love, love, love sharing my food – in all its local, seasonal, sourdough gloriousness – with my two boys, but I want to share it further.
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For now, that’s where #ancestralcookup comes in. I share my most-loved dishes with you, holding your hand through the process. I know, you’re not at the table with me, but you are cooking, eating and sharing food with other wonderful people. And I hope that comes with lots of love and smiles.
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This month’s cook up is my Wholegrain Spelt Sourdough Pizza. The recipe is in my profile. It’s super good and a wonderful way of celebrating food together. Give it a go and let me know how you like it.

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I’m determined to get supermarkets out of my life. I was almost there in the UK, but moving to another country set me back somewhat! I’ve managed it for meat, some flour and a lot of our vegetables, but I’m not there yet.
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Over breakfast, I got super-focused on my next food moves. They are:
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1/ Go to the Florence Fierucola bread festival and scout for locally-grown and milled wholegrain spelt and rye flour.
2/ Visit our local co-operative store and try to find a super local organic vegetable grower.
3/ Get on it with fish! Go visit Fabio Gallerini at the Sant’Ambrogio market in Florence and see what local fish I can find.
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And my general foodie plans also include:
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4/ Finding a butcher to teach me how to cut up a pig and how to make the wonderful Italian sausages I see all around me, and
5/ Getting more offal next month from Flavio at @lavalledelsasso, maybe even cooking some brains for the first time?
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I’m very excited about all of this. That’s what keeps me going when I find dead ends and my language skills fail me. I will get there!

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Garbage Pail (or if you’re English Rubbish Bin) Pasta is a thing: Sicchie d’a Munnezza, Neapolitan dialect for the kitchen waste receptacle and a pasta dish! 
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This is more of my homemade sourdough wholegrain spelt pasta (check out my stories if you want to see it coming to life). I got a little carried away with the toppings, so let’s just call it Rubbish Bin Pasta! If you’ve never put walnuts on wholegrain pasta, it’s a good match.

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