What’s cooking?

Soft crumb, nutty spelt, sourdough tang (and digestibility), smokey barley and crunchy hazelnut.
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We’ve eaten this every which way. Still warm (cheating, I know, but sometimes I just can’t resist), spread with lard for lunch, as sandwiches, toasted with butter and cinnamon…now I’m thinking about how good it’d be in a bread and butter pudding!
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You can make it (how cool would this look in your kitchen?!) and eat it (yum) too. I’ve written up all the details, with clear instructions and lots of photos. The link is in my profile.

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Lasagna with home-made sourdough spelt pasta.
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The pasta is egg-free and made with organic, Italian spelt. It was put through the hand-crank #imperia pasta machine by my 7-year-old and I. The sauce is beef mince from my #farmerman Flavio @valledelsasso complimented with a tomato sauce bought at our town’s contadini market (from @radiciumane), tuscan onions and oregano from my crazily-growing plant.
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I grated some parmesan (which is always from raw milk here) on the top because I love the crunch and taste.
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Tomato doesn’t happen that often in our house, because, as we’ve worked out, my son is lectin-sensitive. A long health journey has taught me, that in our case at least, food intolerances can be complicated and health is a continuum, not static. Every so often we find out where our boundaries are with tests like this. Having food this way – fermented, local and organic – gives us the sure knowledge that we’re giving every ingredient the chance to tell its tale clearly.
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More pictures of the lasagna process in my story today (and saved in pasta-making highlight).

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Making Spelt Sourdough Pasta with my 7-year old son. He can *almost* do it himself but the pasta-maker is a hand-crank and we can’t channel Italian-Nonna enough to operate it single-handedly! Anyhow, it’s much more fun as teamwork.
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We have to clear the decks, literally, so there’s enough room to lay out the sheets of pasta to dry. And I have to accept flour everywhere!
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I’ve upped the pre-fermented, sourdough, portion of this dough to 50%. Once that is mixed into the main dough (which is egg-free), I leave it an hour to sit.
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We’re planning a lasagna with this. I’ve never done one with home-made (let alone sourdough spelt) pasta before.

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Spelt Sourdough Pizza. I made a bit more dough than I usually do this time, and felt super-indulgent as I bit into the thick, crunchy, warm, soft cushion that held my local food goodies.
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If you have a starter, sourdough pizza is not hard. You can find my recipe – where I hand hold you through the steps and cooking options – via the link in my bio.
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And if you’ve not done it before, trust me, eating your own home-made pizza is *so* rewarding (as well as darn tasty!)

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Lunch: Fennel seed-studded sausage from the farm in the hills (it is *so* good – one day I’ll get to making salume myself), salad with leaves from @radiciumane, topped with capers and olives (because I live in Italy!), served with home-made local spelt sourdough, spread with home-rendered lard (from the same piggies who gave us the sausage, those of my #farmerman @valledelsasso)
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5,000-year old beer would’ve been really good with this, but it isn’t quite ready yet – you can see the filtering and second-fermenting in my story today.

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New batch of the ancient fermented grain beer, Bouza!
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I’m still following #wildfermentation instructions (because @sandorkraut is The King!) but again using local spelt instead of wheat. I’ve flavoured these three ways: One is cacao nibs, another barley malt and caraway seeds and the last chestnut and rye malt.
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I took some videos of how I strain it and will post them into my story tomorrow. For now this will sit for a day or so to bubble up and I’ll get on with making bread from the spent grain.

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Why just ferment, when you can ferment *and* talk about fermenting as well?!
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I’m in heaven 🙂
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So much bubbling happening in my kitchen right now, this pink-hatted lady (a jar of the Turkish fermented drink, Boza) is not alone.
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Tune into today’s episode of the podcast to find out what is happening in my kitchen as well as what is fermenting in @farmandhearth’s kitchen (and possibly under her bed too – it has been known!).
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I think we got 14 different ferments in total.
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I wonder what the record is? I want to go for that 🙂

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Oškvarkové pagáče are a traditional Slovakian soft biscuit made with layer upon layer of blended up lard cracklings. As soon as @almostbananas told me about them, I knew I wanted have a go.
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We rendered some lard with fat from @valledelsasso at the weekend. Instead of eating the cracklings right from the pan (like we usually do!), I bagsied them and blended them up ready for baking.
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My interpretation of this recipe isn’t very traditional. I left out the dairy and eggs and instead made the dough (which is 100% spelt here) a sourdough ferment. I had such fun spreading the lard paste on it and folding and they smelt unbelievable cooking – probably the hardest photography without eating I’ve ever done!!
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Check out my story today for lots of pics and vids of the process.

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Fermenting this ground unhulled millet has reminded me of visiting the English coast as a child and seeing little shops filled with glass jars of layered sand! The colours of the different parts of the grain are so pretty, and when I stir it I can’t help but watch and smile.
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It’s been in a warm place for 5 days so far, and is starting to sour. I’m hoping that in a few days I’ll have a tasty probiotic liquid and some tangy ground millet to make into a porridge.
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Looking around for something else I can ferment now 😉

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