Hello my loves,

It’s been another beautiful week at Hearth 2.0: The Soup Kitchen Edition, with so many amazing souls coming together to create nourishment for those who need it right now (thank you amazing humans!!!). We have now raised enough to serve over 2,000 free meals (😱😱😱), and the temple is humming with a lovely gentle prep-and-serve rhythm that is a joy and a privilege to be a part of.

There’s never been a better time to turn inwards to your own kitchen, so this week I’ve created a video showing you how to make one of the easiest and most nourishing things you can create at home: bone broth (or stock as we called it for the entire history of the earth until 2015). Please don’t roll your eyes and dismiss this as a another plug by an over-zealous 'health' guru: there's no escaping that in recent years bone broth has become a bit of a thing, but in reality this is far from a modern invention. What we now call bone broth is quite simply stock, a fundamental building block of deliciousness, and one that uses up your kitchen scraps and offcuts to boot. This is an ancient, basic way of imparting insanely delicious flavour and deep nourishment to anything you make. It's also a one-pot wonder which takes approximately 5 seconds of effort and yields bucketloads of nourishment.

Let me be clear: I never, ever want you to buy packet stock or pre-made bone broth again. In fact, I forbid it. It is a crime to pay $5 for a cardboard package of stock with god-knows-what in it, when you can make litres and litres of the stuff for a fraction of the cost, using up your kitchen scraps along the way, and filling your house with the delicious aroma of nourishment to boot. It’s a no-brainer. So, what should you make with it? Quite literally anything and everything your heart desires. I made a batch of beef stock this week and so far it has featured in slow braised beef with barley and rosemary, a lentil and vegetable soup and a pho-like broth with noodles.

Essentially, every time a recipe calls for stock, use your own. Risottos, soups, stews, braises will all become exponentially more delicious and nourishing with the addition of some home-made gold. You don't need to fiddle about with getting precise types of bones for precise types of stock either, a simple chicken stock for light dishes and and beef or lamb one for heavier dishes will see you right. And of course, please make sure you're using bones from well-raised animals - it's the least you can do for them given the gift of nourishment they're giving you.

It's also the perfect time to hark back to another very ancient and very nourishing act of love: baking bread. I know flour is scarce right now (SERIOUSLY, WHO HAS THE FLOUR??!!), but if you have it, then I encourage you to enter into the tactile and sensory pleasure of baking your own bread. If you've never baked bread before, the beautiful Kristine Lindbjerg shared an incredibly simple and incredibly delicious bread roll recipe this week which is a great place to start. You simply mix everything in a bowl, leave it till doubled in size (either a couple of hours in a warm place, or overnight in the fridge), dollop out the dough and bake. Cue a house filled with the intoxicating scent of home-baked bread, and a deep and fulfilling confirmation of your own cleverness. You can find her recipe here, and I encourage you to get creative with flavouring these gorgeous little bread-nuggets with ANYTHING your heart calls you to. I stirred some rosemary and olive oil through mine, but you could take a walk on the sweet side with cinnamon, cardamom and dried fruits, spice things up with some dried chilli, or go all out with some cheese. Just throw it all in the bowl with the base ingredients and see what happens!

So my loves, as always I wish you a beautiful weekend. The autumn weather is incredible in Sydney right now, so I'll be making the most of it with beautiful walks, long soaks in the bath (not weather-related but essential in my life), and likely several stints watching my cats like a creep (seriously I can watch those two going about their day for hours - I don't know where the time goes). I wish you an equally nourishing weekend, full of the things that ground you and bring you joy.

Love, Rachel xxxx

PS A fun story to finish: my phone always tries to auto-correct ‘Hearth & Soul’ to ‘Hearth & Soup’. When I was running the restaurant this used to annoy the pants off me, but now that I’ve transformed her into a soup kitchen, I’m wondering if it was a sign 😂