What’s cooking?

This ‘bread’ isn’t for eating…it’s for making a 5,000 year old drink!
.
I’ve decided to have a go at making ‘Bouza’ the ancient Egyptian fermented beer. I’m using Italian spelt grain (and that’s the only ingredient, other than water).
.
First, I soaked the grain. Half of it is being sprouted. I then processed up the other half to make these small loaves. They’ve been ovened for just 15 minutes – they’ve a crust, but the inside is still raw and as such holds the yeasts and bacteria which will ferment the rest of the spelt.
.
When the sprouts are ready, I’ll mix them, the water and some sourdough starter together, before breaking up this bread and mixing it in.
.
Exciting!!
.
I took a picture of the recipe, which is from #wildfermentation, I’ll pop it into my story in a bit.

… Read More

When I saw the jar of locally-collected rosehip powder I knew I had to get it. Up until this week, we’ve been sprinkling it on porridge. Then I saw the recipe by @rachellambertwildfoodforaging for rosehip crackers.
.
Rachel collects her own rosehip around the coast of Cornwall, where we used to live. It’s somehow comforting to know that rose hips are shared across many miles.
.
I altered her recipe, fermenting the oat and buckwheat dough overnight to make sourdough crackers. It took a lot of the sweetness out of the rosehip which gives the crackers a different flavour, I’m sure. Still, they were very good.
.
And when I realised we could make moons with the cutters, I took the opportunity get my lunar-inspired, feminine side on.

… Read More

Spelt, chocolate barley malt, hazelnut and sorghum porridge sourdough coming out of the oven, cosseted by my much-loved Emile Henry ceramic loaf tin.
.
One more little tweak to make and then I’m ready to write this up – it’s a bread that’s gotta be eaten outside this little Italian apartment!
.
You can find all my recipes via the link in my linktr.ee.

… Read More

We have a constant supply of two types of fermented vegetables in our house. One is sauerkraut, the other garlic. Here’s the latest batch ready for its 6-week fermentation.
.
All three of us eat this every day. Garlic is *such* a medicine.
.
Practically, all it takes is creating a jar like this every 6 weeks: Buying 8/9 heads, peeling, chopping the big cloves in half, adding a brine (5g of salt per cup of water) and keeping the garlic under the liquid (hence the cabbage leaf you can see). That’s it.
.
It takes an hour. Our sauerkraut-making also happens once every 6 weeks. That takes about an hour too. Two hours every six weeks for ample daily fermented veg is a good deal in my book.
.
There’s an article on garlic in my linktr.ee and a ‘recipe’ for sauerkraut on the resources page of my website (also linked in linktr.ee).

… Read More

These beautiful green tendrils are agretti, a green vegetable that I had never seen before I came to Italy. It’s everywhere at the moment, cooks quickly and simply and tastes a little like asparagus.
.
Do you have this where you are?
.
Served here with burgers using Flavio’s beef mince @valledelsasso and Italian millet.
.
Next I’d like to give it a go as a ‘pasta’. The lady at the grocer’s told me lemon, olive oil and garlic were the way to go and who’d argue with that?!

… Read More

I love it when I create a dish here in my little Italian kitchen, for my two boys, that comes directly from an IG friend’s creativity and sharing.
.
This is the delicious Pongal, something I would never have known about it if not for @kobofermentary. It’s an ancient Indian dish, traditionally made at harvest festival. I fermented rice that I previously ‘broke’ in the coffee grinder and then toasted it in coconut oil before cooking it long and slow with some tumeric.
.
To top it, I bloomed cinnamon, cardamom and anise in coconut oil, then added dried coconut.
.
Not very traditional – I left out the dahl and swapped out ghee (both sue to my son’s sensitivites) but very, very delicious.
.
And, excitingly, in zero-waste mode, I even have a use for the water I soaked/fermented the rice in; I’m going to wash my hair in it!! Check out my story today for the details 🙂

… Read More

Every time I make Sowans, the Scottish oat ferment, I have both a drink and an oat ‘porridge’ ready to use. There’s quite some competition for how it’s used!
.
Sometimes, we cook up the porridge and eat it for breakfast with crunchy decorations! Other times, I reserve it for this: Spelt and Fermented Oat Porridge bread.
.
The crust is crackly, nutty spelt and the crumb is soft from the addition of the porridge. It also helps the bread last longer.
.
There’s a slice shot in my stories. Wish I could feed you some!

… Read More

Doing chocolate research is satisfying 🙂 I’m learning about *so* much more than ‘just’ chocolate. Here’s my tuppence-worth (does anyone non-British say that?) about vanilla.

… Read More

My second batch of home-cured bacon is delicious. This time, the cure had salt, sugar, bay, peppercorns and juniper berries. When I took the lid off the spice grinder and sniffed, it nearly blew my head off!
.
I like my bacon crispy, but it’s *really* hard to cut bacon thinly by hand, so chunky and cast iron-panned has to do me. Chef also gets the first dibs on the liquid fat left in the pan! I love to pour it over my bread 😉
.
Pigs raised over the hill by Flavio at @lavalledelsasso. Thank you!
.
How do you like your bacon?

… Read More