Pain de Campagne (french heath sourdough bread)

Right. Let's put that baby to work!



Day 1. 8am. The first stage is exactly the same routine as making the starter. Water and dough slurry using the starter, add flour, stash in the airing cupboard. The gluten is very well developed, and the dough sticky.

3pm It has doubled. But only just. Still a big concerned that the starter doesn't have enough strength. Perhaps I let it rest too long? It smells tangy, but not unpleasant. Routine as 8am. Pre-warmed the bowl this time.




10pm. More of the same. The smell has reduced. Still concerned that it isn't rising sufficiently.


Day 2 9.30am. As 10pm yesterday. My four year old enjoyed helping to make a slurry with the dough and water. As a result, it took over an hour to mix!
8pm. The dough is rising very slowly now. It should have doubled at least after two to three hours. It has been nine hours now, and I'm being generous to say it has doubled.
8.30pm A Google search gave me lots of helpful, and not so helpful, advice. I'm quite sure now that the starter was left too long in between feeds, and won't be sufficient to rise the sourdough. The dough is quite heavy, so I added some extra warm water, and stashed it back in the airing cupboard until morning.

Day3. 7am. It's not looking good. Definitely not managed to double its bulk this time. As there is almost 3kg of bread dough at stake here, I decide it needs a helping hand and make a biga.




4.45pm.The biga is looking like a happy girl! Nice and bubbly, and growing well. I mix it into the sour dough, feeling both guilty and apprehensive, then pile the dough into two large bread tins.
 8pm. Still not doubled, but I can't leave it until tomorrow, so in the oven they go.
10pm. Surprise! The amount of rise in the oven was great! More than I was expecting. Typically, I forgot to take a photo of the end result! Maybe I should have waited a little while longer before baking the loaves? After cooling slightly, hubby and I decided the proof would be in the eating.....not the worst sour dough I've eaten. But not the best, either. At least it is edible, and I have a pot of starter in the counter to feed every twelve hours until I feel brave enough to make another batch.

Welsh Faggots

Loved in Wales, and the North and West Midlands of England, Faggots are a real, old-fashioned winter dish.
After sourcing a free-range pig liver, I was surprised  as to how large the liver was. Enough for four meals worth of faggots, and a little left over as a treat for the cat (lucky thing!)
 This recipe is taken from Delia Smith's 'complete cookery course' book, one of my kitchen stables for good, reliable food.

110g unsmoked bacon, cut into 2cm cubes

500g pig's liver, cut into 2cm cubes

175g belly pork, cut into 2cm cubes

2 onions, quartered

500ml beef stock

50g fresh white breadcrumbs

1tsp fresh chopped thyme

3/4 tsp dried sage 

1/4tsp mace

salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 190deg C

Place the bacon, liver and belly pork into a casserole dish along with the onions. Pour in the stock, cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Drain the liquid off, reserving it for later, then mince the meat and onions. Add the breadcrumbs, thyme, sage and mace, and mix well.

Form into eight balls, and place into a greased baking dish.

At this point, the faggots could be popped into the fridge for serving at a later date. If you wish to freeze them, freeze the liquid separately.

Pour over 275ml of the reserved liquid, and bake uncovered, for 45 minutes. 

If you want to be really traditional, serve with mushy peas, mashed potato and gravy. Enjoy their savoury goodness!

Longbush Pork

I've recently been in touch with Longbush Pork. A local farm that breeds traditional Large Black pigs on their farm in the Wairarapa. I had been looking for a local farmer to buy free range, healthy pork from for a long time. Especially as I wanted to make Welsh Faggots which entailed the use of the liver.

I firmly believe that good husbandry, natural food and happy animals produce the most nutritious and best tasting meat, and this is especially important where offal is concerned. I also wanted to buy bacon that had been traditionally cured and free from nitrates.   

Longbush Pork didn't fail me. I ordered a bacon hock, some shoulder bacon and liver. The hock went into a cassolet, the bacon was used in an asssortment of things, and the liver was turned into Welsh Faggots. Each dish was equally delicious. We noticed that the bacon in particular had a stronger flavour than the usual sort (by which I mean free range, supermarket bacon), but that didn't stop a plate of bacon and eggs being polished off in two minutes flat!
All in all, I would whole-heartedly recommend Longbush Pork to anyone who is interested in great quality, great tasting, and well-priced pork and bacon (and of course, offal).

Fermented vegetables

Last Wednesday, I went to a workshop on fermented vegetables at Commonsense Organics, Kilbirne.
Hosted by Nicola Cranfield, of the Brooklyn Kitchen, the workshop was packed full of like-minded people. Some were already on a well-established traditional food diet, others recovering from illness and some were just curious about what fermented vegetables could do for them.
First off, I learned heaps. Not just about how to ferment vegetables, but more about the role probiotics play in our health. Who knew that we have a kilo of bacteria in our gut, playing out its important role in digestion and immunity?
I decided to go to Nicola's workshop, because I had heard of fermented vegetables and their health giving properties, and was quite frankly, curious. I had read recipes, and thought they would have a high failure rate (at least to start with), and was not convinced my family would eat them. Thankfully, Nicola's demonstration alleviated my fear of failure, and her tastings showed that I should be able to incorporate the vegetables into my family's diet without too much trouble.
In fact, I was so enthusiastic, that I practically leapt off my chair at the end of the workshop when we were told that the shop was open if anyone wished to buy some veggies to make our first batch.
So it was, that I headed home a happy girl. Full of the excitement of another culinary journey.

Cinnamon Swirl Muffins

I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical when I saw the recipe for these. A muffin, that doesn't contain flour? Surely it would be either very heavy, or very non-muffin like?
But, curiosity getting the better of me (that and a need for low-carb goodies) I decided to make a batch using xylitol. They didn't last long. I would even go as far as saying that they were better than a normal muffin. Make them and revel in their glorious goodness!

2 1/2 c. ground almonds aka almond meal
1tbsp coconut flour
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp baking soda
1/4tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2c milk (I used raw milk, but you could also use coconut milk)
1/2 c. honey or 1/4c xylitol of you are avoiding all forms of sugar

Topping


2tbsp honey
1tbsp ground cinnamon
1tbsp melted butter or coconut oil

Preheat the oven to 180deg c.
Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the wet ingredients and mix well.
Pour into a 12 hole muffin tin, or 24 hole mini muffin tin (they are quite filling, so if you are making them for children, the mini muffins are probably big enough).
Mix the topping ingredients together and drizzle over the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool before scoffing the lot!

Biscuits for icing/sandwiching

This is the recipe I always turn to at Christmas to make our iced 'Christmas tree biscuits'. As it is relatively low in sugar, it can cope with any amount of icing or jam the children load onto it.
I substitute stevia for sugar too. Even with the icing, that makes it just a teaspoonful of sugar or less per biscuit depending on the size. (Using a pear or grape juice based conserve to sandwich them together instead of jam will also reduce the sugar levels, or use my sugar free butter cream recipe)

125g butter
60g sugar*
1/2tsp vanilla extract
220g plain flour**
1 egg, beaten
30g cornflour
1/2 tsp baking powder

royal icing for decorating, or butter-cream and/or jam to sandwich together

Preheat the oven to 180deg c. Butter several baking sheets.
Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
Sieve flour, cornflour and baking powder together, and mix in with a spoon. Work into a soft dough using your hand.
Roll out on a floured board and cut into shapes.
Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the baking sheets and cool on a wire cooling rack.
Once fully cold, they can be iced using royal icing, or sandwiched together with butter cream and/or jam.

*If you prefer, omit the sugar and replace with 60g xylitol, or 1/4tsp stevia powder.
**If you are eating a wheat-free diet, Spelt flour can be used as a replacement.

There is no limit to what you can do with these beauties. If you have a biscuit cutter collection to rival Nigella Lawson's, then you will have a heaps of inspiration, but here's a few more suggestions:

• Cut half with a circular cutter, and half with a ring cutter. Sandwich them together with one of the following:

                  Jam
                  chocolate ganache
                  icing flavoured with lemon or lime
                  vanilla, chocolate or orange butter-cream (especially good if you cover the top with chocolate!)

• Cut the dough into rectangles, cutting three holes in to half of them with a mini circular cutter. Fill with three different coloured jams to make traffic light biscuits for the kids.
• make a chocolate biscuit dough by sieving 30g of cocoa into the flour, and cover the baked biscuits with chocolate
• cut out mini circular biscuits. Once cold, dip into milk, dark or white chocolate using a chocolate dipper.
• Let the kids go wild with an assortment of cutters, icing and decorations

Sugar free butter cream

This is my standard butter cream recipe that I now use. Based on a german butter cream, a thick 'custard' is made first, which needs to be chilled before whisking in the butter. Occasionally, t can be a bit tricky to get the temperature right. You are basically making an emulsion of fat and liquid, so if the custard is too warm, or the butter too cold they will not blend well and the butter cream will separate (curdle). Likewise, if it is too cold, the butter will harden and you will see flecks of butter in the mixture. Both problems are easily remedied by standing the butter cream above a bowl of hot water, or standing it in a bowl of cold water depending on which problem you have encountered. It is less cloying than the usual 'butter and icing sugar' blend, with a creamy texture, so persevere. It is worth it!


1tbsp cornflour
1/2c milk (or use 1/4c coconut milk and 1/4 c rice milk if you are dairy free)
125g butter, softened
1/3c xylitol or 1/8-1/4tsp stevia powder
2tsp vanilla extract

Blend the cornflour and milk together. Heat in a pan, stirring continuously, until thick.
Spoon into a bowl, cool to room temperature then refrigerate.

Once the thickened milk is completely cold, whisk in the xylitol and vanilla extract. (An electric stick blender is handy for this) gradually add the softened butter until it is smooth and slightly fluffy.

The butter cream can be flavoured with 2-3 tbsp of fruit puree, or the vanilla can be omitted and 1-2tbsp of cocoa powder blended into the cornflour before the milk is added.