hello, sweet friend!

hello!

i just made the stupidest, tastiest after-work snack. i reached for some tortilla chips to inhale with some hummus, but there were only lil bits at the end of the bag- disaster! or is it?

near delirious i grabbed half an avocado from my fridge, squeezed its delicious green meat into a mug, mishy mashed it up, and then - get this - added in my lil tortilla bits, mashed it all up, topped it with sriracha and ate it with a fucking fork.

stupid and delicious- it was like cereal except salty and with avocado instead of milk (i have an english degree).

Mashy Crunchy Taste Good (serves 1)

Ingredients

1/2 avocado, mashed The ends of a bag of salted tortilla chips 1/2 tsp sriracha

Method

mash your avocado into a vessel of your choice (i recommend a mug for maximum stupid)

add your dry ingredients (the bits). mish-mash to combine.

top with a splish of sriracha.

hello, sweet void. i've missed you.

the past two years (i keep reminding myself as i face my next birthday, two years) have taken its toll on us all, demanding payment after so long of getting through it, keeping it together, being brave. cooking hasn't been a feasibility for me lately, with exhaustion finally taking over, folding my body in half and demanding time, time. on the nights i have been able to drag myself off the couch and stand at the stove, i have been making what i like to call Kids Menu Dinners, where I cook a bunch of frozen stuff in the oven, heat up some peas in the microwave and enjoy the soft comforts of beige kinda-food.

lately, i've been trying to listen to the exhaustion, instead of trying and failing to shuck it off, and trust that this isn't forever. part of that is being okay with eating off the Kids Menu most weeknights. another part of it is learning how to make Kids Menu food secretly grown up, nutritious and fancy.

i've been making Nigella's Fish Finger Bhorta, Amended, for the past year and I want to share my heartier version. it's a cheap and versatile make, leaving behind minimal dishes. My favourite part is that it takes no longer than my last-resort oven dinner, and it gives me something chill and noodly to do while i'm waiting.

The result is a warm salad of sorts. it is unfailingly comforting, with flavour in every bite and packed with so much colour- dark green, gold, orange, bright pink. it honestly makes me happy.

I have listed some ingredients below- please know that this is an approximation, my interpretation of nigella's original. for instance, i call for red onions because i never buy brown onions because i like the colour of red onions. i am a nonsense person. please feel free to use this as a base for a dish suited to your life, your nonsense.

Ingredients (serves 2)

4 frozen breaded fish fillets

two big sweet potatoes, roughly chopped/diced

two red onions, sliced so so thin

a big pinch of chilli flakes

a load of squeezy ginger

a load of squeezy garlic

a little yellow mustard/some mustard seeds

salt and pepper

a big big handful of leafy greens (spinach is my go-to)

Optional: Pickled Pink Onions That Taste Like Meanies

one more red onion, also sliced very thinly

vinegar (any, in my experience, will do).

The Recipe

1. pre-heat your oven to the heat specified for your fish

2. prepare your potatoes. i dice my sweet peets, spread them out on a baking sheet with a bit of oil, salt and pepper and it goes into the centre of the oven for about ten minutes before the fish.

3. You can use these ten minutes to prep your onions! slice your onion lengthways, right down the middle. with each half, you'll see the rings now form lil semicircles. gently slice tiny crescents, taking your time- the thinner these slices, the easier they'll caramelise, which is what we'll be looking for. take one of the sliced onions, and pop it in a jar/bowl with vinegar (i use white wine vinegar, because it's what i have.) set this aside.

4. When both onions are sliced, put your fish in the oven and set your timer for them according to the package. During this time, we will be engaging in some low-level alchemy.

5. Get yourself a wide pan or a wok, and pop it on a medium heat. get your spices ready while the oil heats up, and when it just barely starts to shimmer, dump in the onions, chilli flakes, garlic and ginger. Turn your heat all the way down low.

6. Stir, and stir. listen to the sizzling, enjoy the acrid scent of the onions as it gives way to a soft, fragrant sweetness. Open a can of beer, or a fizzy situation, and enjoy this time. be mindful of sticking- the aim here is to cook these babies on low so that they become incredibly soft and sweet. check on your sweet peets every now and again, occasionally shaking the tray a bit.

7. Keep on mooching until your timer is nearing its end. Then, get your spinach and add it to the pan, stirring and allowing it to wilt into all the flavours of the onions. Keep your pan on low, this is not a high-pressured cook. Once your spinch is wilted, taste and season to your liking. I sometimes pop in some more garlic here, because i am a straight-up fiend.

8. Once your sweet-peets are cooked, add them to your pan, stirring them through the spinach and the onions.

9. Once you are happy with your fish and the coating is lovely and golden, use a spatula/butter knife to chop them up a lil bit, being mindful of the baking tray. then dump them into the pan and stir again.

I can understand on a very deep level the discomfort many people I love have with porridge. The name is almost onomatopoeic - it’s like, gloopy. I get it. But what I see in porridge (tender, stewed grains and oats) is a gorgeous base for delicious ingredients. Over the past couple of years, I have built up an arsenal of recipes for porridge, making free mornings something delightful. Porridge is your canvas for something incredible- you just need an open mind, babie.

Making your Oat Stew Sing

Creamie creamie

I personally don’t quite buy into the idea that milk or water will result in a different or “better” oat stew. Non-dairy milks in my experience are a little less forgiving because there are non-solubles present that just won’t absorb into the grains. It sometimes tastes almost chalky? My general approach is to use water, and then if it gets a little dry to top up with oat milk for a little more c r e a m i e n e s s

Go slow!

Oat stew is a stew and therefore must be cooked, gently, on a low heat, until it is beautiful and gloopy and coooooked. if you are cooking on the hob I truly advise against trying to blast it with heat- this will scorch your lil oats and make a big gross bowl of bad. Go slow and low. Let the grains soften and absorb the water/milk. My nana would leave them to soak overnight, so having them the next morning would be a simple matter of heating them up. I am not going to do that ever, because I truly love standing over my hob, bleary-eyed, staring into a pot of beige while my coffee brews (I’m paranoid about bugs getting into it in the night).

Go FAST!

That being said, there is also a lot to be said for microwaving your porridge. It’s faster, and might not be quite the same as hob-made (it loses a lot of texture when it’s microwaved) but if you add just a little more water than you need, stir often, and add in spices afterwards, it’s totally sufficient.

Use spices

Spices are what make porridge so beautiful. You can heap anything into it! My usual is a triad - nutmeg, cinnamon & ginger, all in powder form. Sometimes I steep star anise, or cardamom, and fish them out before eating. I read somewhere once that adding the spices in as it’s cooking can like, kill the flavour or something, so I usually add them in towards the end. This could be based on total superstision but it is my rhythm, and when you find yours, making this hot, comforting bowl food, might become a joyous part of your morning off.

Create Texture

At its best, every bite of porridge is a variety of flavour, texture and always a comfort. If you are not a Gloopy Guy, texture is key. This can be done with slices of crunchy apple, nuts & seeds, raisins, who cares, toss some lego bricks in there, I don’t care!

Nut Butters

I don’t fucking eat porridge if there isn’t some nut butter glomped on top. I don’t care which one, I just need it- it improves the overall Mouth Feel, crunchy varieties add texture, it keeps you full for longer. It can also switch up an old favourite - For example, I make a lot of banana & blueberry porridges, and before eating I do a glormp of Healthy Peanut Butter. But when I’m feeling Flirty I gloog some of the chocolate Harrys Nut Butter (fancy Nutella) on top and I close my eyes and I slowly lift out of my own body because banana, chocolate and blueberries is my favourite sweet combination in the whole wide universe.

Things I put in/on my hot oat soup

Microwaved banana + nut butter

A gentle, loving way to make use of your old nanas without committing to baking and then eating a whole ass cake. I got up one morning and looked around sadly, realising I had no bread, no eggs, no cereal and no fr- oh. I did have fruit. I had one very dubious-looking banana, well on its way out after a life hardly-lived. I stole this idea from Jack Monroe but put it in a porridge context which makes it new and also better.

Put your oats in the bowl you want to eat them out of. Cover the oats with water, and bonk it in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Add some cinnamon into it after to cheer it up. Your porridge is done! Congratulations. Slice up your overripe nana, out it in a mug and microwave the banana cup for about a minute. Stir it up and be so careful because sugar, when hot, is hot!

Top your porridge with your gloopy hot nana mess, and glomp some crunchy nut butter in there for good measure. This will take a matter of minutes. The result is a soft, sweet breakfast situation!

Caramelised pears, cardamom

This is a Fancy Lady Breakfast, one I make for my girlfriend on sleepy weekend.When you’re cooking your porridge, throw in a good pinch of ginger and about three cardamom pods per person (you will have to fish these babies out so just. Beware.) On a low heat, slowly warm some sliced up pears in a saucepan with a little honey, and some spices (I use cinnamon and ginger). Let them heat all the way through, and top your bowls of beautiful soft oats with the pears. They will let off lots of liquid in cooking, so pour over the remaining syrup. This is stolen from Anna Jones, who has such lovely, fancy recipes that I'm far too busy to actually make.

Berry pie porridge

This is my favourite seasonal switch em up breakfast- While my porridge is on the hob I take a punnet of blue or blackberries and I pour them into another small saucepan on a medium heat with some syrup and lemon juice. During this time I stare into these two saucepans, watching the slow, steady alchemy in silence. Stirring frequently, I like watching the berries swell and darken, popping them against the wall of the pot as the mixture becomes part compote, part jam. I usually grip a cup of coffee because my kitchen is bitterly cold. The heat from both rings and the fragrance of the food fills the coldest room in the house, and the space too, slowly transforms.

It seems trite and insufficient somehow to say my history with food is complicated. Growing up, the dinner table was a site of tension and threat. Finishing a meal meant you could leave- and the quicker you could leave, the better. And so food at once became a trap-door and escape route.

Growing up, snacks became the only way I could consume food and not feel miserable. I soon became an adept food thief- a fantastic mister fox, stowing away food to sustain me through the winter of my household. During family gatherings, addled with what I could later identify as a bourgeoning mental illness, I would often slip away into my relatives’ kitchens and look through their fridges, seeing if there was anything worth squirrelling away with.

I have only recently begun to allow myself to think and write about this time in my life. The thing about imposed trauma is that no matter how much you want to talk about it, the truth of the events are going to reverberate and hurt people. So, this collection is not about the truth of a terrible childhood. This is about my healing relationship with food, how moving out of my family home and a bout of unemployment led me to love cooking with all my tiny, tender heart.