Sardines Sehnah

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Sardines are no fad in this household. Indeed, I’ve made this recipe perhaps more than anything else this year, despite only relatively recently finding it; and it’s the sardine recipe against which all others are now found wanting (except for the sardine recipes I’ve already shared with you, which are, of course, amazing.)

With our typical zest for life and uncanny ability to stack multiple frantic events; my partner and I are moving house this month—and I’m shaking with excitement at having significantly better light, space for a real dinner table and couch, and—!!!—a gas stovetop. We’re also spending four days away at a wedding, there’s the dismal general election to process with gritted teeth to the point where I literally damaged one of my molars in a way that I suspect will be costly; I presented alongside many accomplished women at an event last Sunday, and on Thursday, my debut novel Hoods Landing launched officially in the UK with Pushkin Press. I’m aware that I’ve been an absolute deadbeat dad to this blog in 2026, not for want of trying—every word committed to pixel has been clawed towards me and hard-won—and I really should be doing more packing for the move right now. Once you’ve tried these Sardines Sehnah, you’ll understand how they sailed to the top of the priority heirarchy.

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Sweet and sour celery salad

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A new low, mingled with a new high: I had to leave the country to finally carve out time to write one single blog post. On the other hand, I have finally left the country after fourteen years (to which I strenuously add, no one is owed a little holiday! It just really felt as though I had completely expired, viability-wise.) My partner and I are in Sri Lanka; I write this overlooking an exquisite beach in pleasantly stifling evening heat, as though I’m a more functional, yet objectively less culturally impactful, Ernest Hemingway.

In the month of September, I went to Christchurch for the WORD festival, went home briefly for Mum’s 70th, sent two lit4lit newsletters, recorded my Hoods Landing audiobook, and left the country (around working full-time and then some), which is why it’s been so long since I last blogged. And, why we’re lucky this recipe, via Ixta Belfrage, for sweet and sour celery salad is SO sensational, otherwise, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t remember a single thing about it or which adjectives to apply to it. Fortunately, I am always rich in adjectives.

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Roasted carrot kushari

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This weekend I asked my modest number of Instagram followers whether they were currently feeling burnt out. 54% of people said yes, medically, 38% of people said they were very tired and almost burnt out. A mere seven total people said they were fine. Why did I ask? Well, I would describe myself as currently spending time googling the symptoms of burnout, if you know what I mean. But as I suspected, burning out is rarely something you’re doing alone.

One such prong on the serving fork of tentative burnout claims is my famous ongoing inability to carve out enough time to keep this blog updated frequently—which then leads to time-consuming self-flagellation and further stress and misery as the last blog post fades further into the calendar—and the cadence of posts here has continued to dwindle so much that there’s barely any pattern-recognition to be had. Nevertheless, here I am in the month of August—just—with a recipe that has truly kept me tethered to the earth on a weekly basis, which is why I’m eager to share it with you at last: Roasted Carrot Kushari. To be clear, this recipe will in no way solve your burnout. But I promise it won’t add to it.  

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Sardine supper

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A white fish-shaped dish of sardines on a blue patterned background

I’m experiencing a certain sardine fixation of late; my partner and I each night serenely sitting on the floor (my apartment is too small for a dinner table) like two opulent cats attending to their suppers of glistening, omega-rich sardine fillets. And I’m yet to hit the wall of what is possible for this tiny fish. This includes:

  • Sardine and kimchi fried rice
  • Sardine curry with tamarind
  • Lemony sardine pasta with snap peas and ricotta
  • Teriyaki sardines, greens and rice
  • Pasta with sardines in a spicy tomato sauce

And the two parallel favourites: sardines with a Palestinian green lemon sauce, and sardines with Vietnamese flavours. Both fresh with herbs, boisterous with citrus, and jolted awake with chilli. Furthermore, they’re so very simple (and pair so well together) that I thought I’d include both recipes here today.

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Big green soup

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A bowl of soup on a wooden board with a bushel of flat leaf parsley and a spoon on it

Whatever it is going on in my brain, be it nameable or undesignated, it only occasionally manifests in the form of what is commonly known as ‘food hyperfixation’. I’ve always been emotionally fixated on the idea of food, specifically, cooking it—experiencing a certain scarcity-minded franticness when I’m unable to cook, which I suspect is, at the least, a bit weird. Now and then, though, a certain food will cohabitate with my habits, like having a writer in residence staying with you: this past week it was lentils. I yearned for their collapsing bodies, tipping them like a rainstick into a bowl ready to soak with cool water, endlessly testing little simmering spoonfuls—no, still not cooked yet.

This recipe for Big Green Soup actually uses split peas, but! Lentil Week is a state of mind type of nomenclature. Speaking of nomenclature, the recipe title misleads not at all: it’s Big (makes over a litre); it’s Green (if you have 400g of silverbeet drooping malevolently in the fridge, this is for you); and it sure is Soup. It is also, of course, delicious. That’s why we’re here.

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The last chocolate chip cookies

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a chocolate chip cookie surrounded by more cookies on a sheet of baking paper

There is a certain serendipity to the connections forged through community that almost make you weep at the tenuousness of it all: in this case, I was generously invited to attend the Bookish Ceremony Hoods Landing book club; one of the attendees brought homemade cookies, which were captivating; I asked for the recipe and learned they were by Mariam Daud, a food writer who was previously unfamiliar to me. I might have found her eventually, but would I have made these cookies? Who knows! And just how good can cookies be? Well, now I know. Hence why I’ve re-christened them The Last Chocolate Chip Cookies because I’m quite certain they’re the final recipe I’ll ever need to broach on this matter. I realise hyperbolic titles like “the best” and “the ultimate” are more about trying to entice your blog onto SEO’s dance card over any actual commitment to excellence, I hope you understand this is true sincerity and not low-hanging overkill. Plus, one of the most important things you can do as a recipe developer is to know when to concede to someone else’s excellence—I can happily cross “invent your own chocolate chip cookie recipe without thinly ripping off the Toll House one” off the list now.

You’ll see why, after one bite.

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35 recipes for the cost-of-greed crisis

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A plate of gnocchi in front of a serving tray of more gnocchi


I hate not having enough time to write. And I hate starting a blog post with “it’s been ages since we spoke”. This month both remain true, and I thought I’d circumvent the circumstances by doing a round-up post instead of a new recipe; forgetting just how monumentally time-consuming round-ups actually are.

However, with the government dropping a typically cruel and economically lacklustre budget and Chlöe Swarbrick coining the “cost of greed crisis” as a useful way to augment the frequently called-upon but admittedly passive phrase ‘cost-of-living crisis’, I figured now was as good a time as any to round up, specifically, recipes that might meet people where they’re at.

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Pasta with two chillis

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A fork resting in a white plate of pasta and chilli

Despite having never actually worked as a chef—which I doubt surprises anyone who’s seen me try to poach an egg—I occasionally like to evoke the feeling of being an off-duty chef. A feeling that usually involves deli containers. I did famously spend five years as a bartender which lends some modest credence to this notion; I nonetheless respect and fear the actual dinner service shift. This recipe for pasta with two chillis is the kind of hastily-won, stupid-simple dish that you might bleary-eyedly whip up for yourself after many hours of plating filet mignon for uncaring customers, or indeed, after many hours of doing anything. It’s fast, it’s furious, it revives and recalibrates, and it’s so delicious that I’m feeling self-congratulatory in a “my viral pasta with two chillis” way (even though the word ‘viral’ next to any recipe is foul and vulgar and we shall speak no more of it!). And really, this is merely a descendent of say, Pad Kee Mao, and the sacred art of throwing spoonfuls of Lao Gan Ma onto noodles.  

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Lentils, feta, dates and mint

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A fork resting on a plate of lentil salad on a wooden board on red and brown fabric

To paraphrase Billy Bragg, who himself was paraphrasing Paul Simon, I was 21 years when I started this food blog, I’m 40 now (as of last Friday, that is) and still writing it, obstinately unchanging as the internet around me evolves but also largely turns to sludge. I was student-broke back in 2007, and now everyone is sucked under by the economy; whether or not you have a solid salary and full-time job, you never quite feel like you can see further than the next week, jaw perpetually clenched. A year ago I canvassed people’s opinion via instagram story polls to find what they sought in recipes; “girl, the cost-of-living crisis” ranked highest. A year later, the vibe prevails, and I’m not sure how many more birthdays will tick over before it’s simply considered endemic. It certainly feels well on the way. Amid this context, I bring you a fairly modest recipe, which nonetheless enraptured me: Lentils, feta, dates, and mint.  

(Also, my birthday was terrific and I’m delighted, if mildly startled, to be 40—it really seemed like something that only happened to people much older than me—but let’s face it, the real landmark birthday on the horizon will be when hungryandfrozen.com turns 20 next year.)

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Vietnamese-adjacent noodles with beef, chilli and mint

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Chopsticks and a mint sprig on a pink and white plate of beef and noodles

Now, ‘adjacent’ might be a clunky suffix for this recipe when ‘inspired’ is right there for the taking. As someone who isn’t Vietnamese, I intend to acknowledge the combination of flavours, familiar in nước chấm among other Vietnamese recipes—while making clear that I’m not breezily swooping in with entitlement to improve upon anything. But then, I think recipe titles should tell a brief story in and of themselves—in the case of Vietnamese-adjacent noodles with beef, chilli and mint, it’s flagging necessary attribution, that the noodles are as prominent as the beef, with a warning siren for chilli, mollified by the promise of mint’s tempering coolness. It also tells you, I guess, that I am amused by words, and like to play with them as much as I do with ingredients. Whether ‘adjacent’ catches on as a modifier or even makes sense to anyone else, we’re nonetheless never eating anything devoid of context, are we?

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