What’s cooking?

If we’re going to survive as a species, the world needs changing.
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And, in wanting to play my part, I often feel either completely overwhelmed or as if I have to do something wild; something defiant.
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But the truth is this:
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We don’t have to rebel; we don’t have to stand with placards; we don’t have to fight; we don’t have to march.
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We just need to *stop*shopping*at*supermarkets*
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That’d shake things up so monumentally, the waves would drown a lot of our issues and what was born in their wake would be transformational.
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But it ain’t easy! Habit is strong, ‘saving’ money is a constant worry, time seems not on our side, advertising bombards us relentlessly, convenience is such a balm to our crazy lives.
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Today’s new episode of Ancestral Kitchen Podcast focuses on my own desire to get supermarkets 100% out of my life. The conversation is partly the reasons, partly the difficulties and partly asking for ideas to help.
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Thank you @farmandhearth for letting me get on my soap box somewhat and express something that burns so deep within me I had to get it out! If you’d like to hear why supermarkets are so bad, get some inspiration for getting to your local farmers’ market or pick up some tips for avoiding supermarket ‘pitfalls’, listen in – You can find us on your podcast app by searching for Ancestral Kitchen Podcast or you can stream the episode from my website (link in profile).
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I’d *love* to hear what you think.

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Spelt, lemon and poppy seed muffins risen with a starter made from wild yeast water made from lemons and raisins.
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These were a semi-success.
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The yeast water starter was brilliant. Gave them tonnes of lift.
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The ingredient mix not so great. I wanted a soft dough without having to add fat or milk. I tried using a portion of scalded flour (as I know this softens dough incredibly). It made the crumb soft, but the crust was far too bread-like.
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I want a muffin without milk (dairy or plant) and ideally without fat (though I’d consider olive oil).
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Anyone got advice/ideas? Gratefully received 🙂

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Beef heart, slow-cooked whole earlier in the week. Italian asparagus bought from the local health food store. Sourdough bread made from spent spelt grain (previously used to make ancestral beer) spread with home-rendered lard made from fat from @valledelsasso.
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Simple, local and delicious lunch which I ate with sauerkraut and a small side of beer.
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I’m just uploading some videos I took in my garden early this morning – so if you fancy a nose, head to my story today.
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Happy Saturday. What are you up to this weekend?

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How gorgeous is this?!
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It’s our lunch. A sourdough spelt pizza, topped with home-made pesto, and thinly sliced fresh garlic and spring onions.
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The pesto (and all it’s glorious olive oil) soaked into the pizza and the crumb was divine.
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Pesto:
Previously soaked and dehydrated walnuts and almonds
Handfuls of basil from the garden
Some garlic – half of which I roasted the day before, half raw
A bit of salt
A lot of local olive oil
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The recipe for the base is in my profile and there are more delightful green wavy, curvy photos in my story today (to be saved to the pizza highlight – I’m liking the collection of pics in there!!)

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Yes, this is actually what my fermenting garlic looks like. Gorgeous, eh?! I got clear on what this colour-change is (the allicin reacting with the fermentation acids) thanks to @savage.craic who does a whole lot of interesting ferments.
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Seeing colour changes like this in my ferments makes me feel even more like an alchemist! I like that 🙂
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If you don’t ferment garlic, I totally recommend that you give it a go. Peel the cloves, chop the big ones, cover with a brine (5g salt to 1 cup water is what I use) and find a way to keep the cloves under the brine level (using a cabbage leaf here).
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Then pop the jar in a corner for it to hide for 6 weeks and you’ll have a wonderful stash of cloves that aren’t as strong as raw garlic, but haven’t been as ‘denatured’ by the cooking process (which destroys the medicinal powerhouse, allicin).

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This ancestral beer, made with Italian spelt, gets fermented with the help of sourdough starter and the yeast and bacteria I have living around me. There are no commercial yeasts in it. And there wouldn’t have been in any beer further than a hundred or so years back, as yeasts were not a commercial thing.
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For centuries, before industrialisation, yeasts were valued so highly that they were associated with divine intervention and when they appeared they were honoured and nurtured.
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My favourite example of this is the yeast log. This was a piece of carved wood that was placed in the fermenter as the beer was in progress. It would catch the yeasts and bacteria. When brewing was complete, it’d be taken out and hung up to dry. The live organisms would remain on it in a dormant state. Then, when it was time to brew again, it’d be taken down and placed in with the liquid. Crazy simple, yet so effective.
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I want a yeast log. I can’t tell you how much I want a yeast log.
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Getting all my ancestral beer inspiration kicks from the #stephenharrodbuhner book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. Will put a few pictures in my story if you want a nose.
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Shame you can’t have a taste of the beer too. It’s unusual. But good.

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I love bread that bursts where it feels like.
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I’m not into ‘ears’ and I haven’t got the patience for patterns on my bread. As you can see, sometimes I even forget to score!
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There’s such beauty in the cracks that loaves naturally make, left to their own devices. The processes involved in bread are so much bigger than me and, as a home-baker, I control so many of them. Why not just let this one be?
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And I often wonder if, like tea leaves, bread ‘bursts’ could be read.
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I wonder what this one’s telling me? Any ideas?!

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This is porridge – but not like I’ve ever known it. It is porridge made out of ‘waste’; left-overs from my ancestral beer-making process.
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To make the beer (which is again, not like any beer I’ve ever known!), I use local spelt, that I sprout and bake before fermentation. When the drink is ready, I sieve out the large spelt chunks and use them in bread-making. I then pour the liquid into bottles, flavour and then leave for a few more days to ferment. As that happens the sediment falls and settles on the bottom. It’s this that I use, after we’ve drink the beer, for porridge.
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This batch of beer was flavoured with molasses, fennel seeds and orange zest.
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Those flavours sit so beautifully on top of the tangy spelt and the consistency is smooth and creamy.
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It’s pre-digested and full of postbiotics and paraprobiotics.
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And, it makes the beer that we love completely zero-waste 🙂

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We made lard this weekend and, as always happens, after we’d created a stash of the creamy-white fat we had, leftover, the crunchy, delicious ‘cracklings’.
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Last time, I ground these up and made a sourdough layered Slovakian biscuit (thanks to @almostbananas). This time, I thought I’d keep them whole and stay in Italy – so I made this sourdough spelt sea salt,
rosemary and lard crackling focaccia.
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It was delicious, the lard cracklings gave off even more of their fat into the dough whilst cooking. Think crunchy, salty, nutty, fatty. We ate it warm from the oven.

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