What’s cooking?

I’m working on getting all of my plate to have a face.
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And I’m getting closer…here we have slow-cooked goat (so tender that I shredded it like pulled-pork) from Francesca, onions from Irene and courgettes (including a beautiful flower) from Masi and a spent beer-grain rye/spelt bread topped with home-rendered lard made from back fat from Flavio’s pigs.
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Everyday I am grateful for those around me who are passionate enough about proper farming to dedicate their lives to it. Thank you @aziendaagricolapodereruggeri, @valledelsasso and #mercatointransizione.
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Now I need to find myself a grain-grower….

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All the little holes in this muffin were made from yeasts that came from the pineapple sage plant in my garden. How cool is that?!
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Gabriel, my son, mixed the muffins, which are spelt, adding his choice of cocoa powder and strawberries. We used a starter made with the pineapple sage yeast water (there’s a shot a few pics back in my feed) and also added the same yeast water as the liquid component of the dough.
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The cocoa powder was un-dutched, it makes so much difference to the taste and nutrient levels (if you’re a chocolate fan, check out my latest podcast).
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Thanks to everyone who suggested ideas to help make my muffin crumb softer a while back – this time I used olive oil. It made a huge difference. There’s more mileage here though and I’ll be experimenting again for the next batch.
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There are more photos and a little video in my story today.

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This is a 7-year-old’s view of my sourdough pizza. This one is Italian spelt grain, topped with pesto made from garden basil, local garlic and soaked, roasted walnuts and then decorated with the abundance of small onions I’m getting every week from #mercatointrasizione.
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It’s not always easy to keep my 7-year-old, Gabriel, calm while I’m photographing. And considering he’s the dough mixer, he’s getting a bigger claim on our pizzas as time goes on!
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This week @elliemarkovich told me about some smoked spelt flour. I really want to find some locally (or build a smoker) so I could try it out in my pizzas and breads. Have you ever tried smoked flours?
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(Recipe for the pizza is linked in my profile)

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Chocolate has a secret life.
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One where, instead of being formed into industrial bars, women combine it by hand with local herbs to make drinks. One where it is a healer, not a creator of addiction. One where it’s revered – held so sacred that it’s used in ceremony and as currency, not bought for a few pennies, wrapper discarded. One where it’s bitter, potent and intense, not sweet and sickly. And one where nobody feels guilt when they imbibe it.
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Today’s podcast is all about that secret life. Andrea and I had a fascinating, insightful, educating and entertaining with conversation with Marcos Patchett @nocturnalherbalist, who’s written a 700-page book on chocolate. A book that I’ve read from cover-to-cover and has completely rocked my world!
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Download the episode from your app or stream/download from my site (link in profile) and settle in (perhaps, may I add, with your favourite bean-to-bar by your side :-))

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Raw goat milk whey ice cubes. Andrea @farmandhearth turned me on to freezing whey in cubes. These will stay, conveniently, in my freezer and I’ll take a couple out at a time and use the microbes to ferment up some goodies.
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I want to have a go at root beer. Traditionally made with sassafras in the US (a plant that, until a month ago, I’d never heard of), I’ll have to find an alternative here. I’m wondering about carrot, maybe with some spices added like ginger and possibly licorice.
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Suggestions from root beer makers would be much appreciated!

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My pineapple sage bush was giving, giving, giving, so I’ve decided to make a yeast water and use it to raise some muffins. Smells good already!

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We have so much basil. Twelve plants that are going it like I’ve never seen before! We’ve had pesto, the leaves in kefir, it chopped up with strawberries….but today I decided to make a dressing, so I whizzed up a huge bunch of basil with lemon, olive oil and a little salt/pepper, then drenched my tomatoes in it.
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In a less-starring-role, but just as amazing, on my plate you can see liver from Flavio @valledelsasso, spent grain (from beer) sourdough, home-rendered lard (the fat was from Flavio too), salad from #mercatointransizione down the road and chives from the garden.
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I love liver, I love ‘waste’ sourdough, I love saturated fat *and* I love my basil.
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Anyone wanna give me some more ideas on what to do with it? I think I can actually see the plants growing back as I type….

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When we make ancestral beer, rye sediment builds up at the bottom of the ferment. We strain that out before bottling. I use the larger bits (mixed with some spelt flour) to make a chunky loaf. There are also some really small rye ‘crumbs’, I usually make these into a porridge, but this time I decided to try them in a ‘porridge bread’.
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This is the result. A sourdough spelt loaf which includes a porridge made from super-fermented rye crumbs. The porridge makes the crumb really soft and spongy and adds a sour taste that I really like.
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Nearly all of my breads these days have some ‘pre-used’ grains in. It feels like the right thing to do. Why should kitchen processes have waste? Fruit scrap vinegar and shrubs, stock from bones and vegetable ends, tea from cacao bean husks and bread from beer left-overs. Surely this is the way forward?! It is, at least, in this kitchen 🙂

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I made my ginger beer super-strong and it is *so* refreshing. It’s fizzed nicely too, thanks to my swing top bottle.
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The bug is in the fridge now. I’ll pull it out the night before I want to make the next batch and feed it some fresh sugar and ginger.
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What with sourdough starters, beer yeasts, my boza starter, this bug, sourdough porridges, sauerkraut and fermented garlic it’s sometimes getting hard to get ‘normal’ food into my fridge!
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@farmandhearth and I just recorded an @ancestralkitchenpodcast episode which is all about what’s in our fridges. It’ll be out at the end of the month, in case you’re curious!

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