If brunch can be defined as not quite breakfast and not quite lunch, occasionally you require a similar framework applied to your dinner, whether through heat, haste, exhaustion or the lingering memory of prior repletion. I shall not wring a cramped portmanteau out of ‘dinner’ and ‘lunch’ — though others have tried — but I shall offer you this recipe for roasted green beans, potatoes, fennel and feta, which occupies that nebulous yet necessary space.

This recipe is inspired, quite directly, by one I found in The New Basics by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. I have another cookbook of theirs — one found, triumphantly, at Hard to Find, and one from the always-lovely The Open Book — and their bygone era of breezy New York luxury gives me almost embarrassingly enthused vicarious thrills.

It’s not exactly hands-free but it is pretty hands-off, the oven and a sheet pan taking care of it for you. Roasted potatoes are never going to obfuscate their reason for existing, and here their inevitable deliciousness has its surface area increased by slicing the potatoes thinly into coins, ready to become crisp and browned. Fennel becomes a whole other character when roasted, sweeter and almost caramelised, eagerly absorbing the olive oil and releasing it in every bite, its cool, clean aniseed flavour still present and welcome. The green beans blister in places, their grassiness intensified.

Making it feel more like an occasion is the snowfall of crumbled feta and resinous, fragrant thyme leaves — and if it’s unclear from the comma placement in the recipe title, they’re the only ingredients not roasted. There’s nothing stopping you serving this alongside, say, a roast chicken, or the burnished half of a roasted butternut, or with chickpeas added at any stage, but it has enough substance on its own. It couldn’t be simpler — just four ingredients, really, and some olive oil — and yet, it doesn’t feel like a side plate of roast vegetables pretending to be a main, and the relative flavour distance between the combination means it doesn’t feel like anything’s missing. Cohesion is as important an element as anything else when it comes to dinner, and something that tastes unconfident will fail to satiate. Fortunately, this recipe is sure of hoof — and knows it.

For recipes that lightly occupy the between-zone between lunch and dinner, I recommend this Lemon Halloumi Angel Hair Soup, my Green Oats, Fried Egg, Bloomed Paprika Butter and Salt and Vinegar Chips, these Prawns, Gruyere, Rocket and Lemon or my Lentil, Radish, Avocado and Fried Potato Salad.

Finally, it was SO GOOD to be able to share my exciting news in my previous post (if you missed it: me — a novel — happening!) and it is also very exciting to see the Āporo Press Boosted campaign already at 68% only halfway through the month; if you wish to donate — tiny or significantly — to an independent Māori press and support myself and the two other books Āporo is publishing this year by Jo Bragg and Nicola Andrews that would be amazing and majorly, hugely, massively, enormously appreciated.

Roasted green beans, fennel, potato, and feta

A low-key but luxurious light meal for two. If making for just myself, I reduce the potato to one, use slightly fewer beans — and leave everything else the same. Inspired by a recipe from The New Basics by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins.

• 1 large fennel bulb
• 2 medium-large red potatoes – about 400g or thereabouts
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• A hearty pinch of salt
• 200g green beans
• 100g feta
• A few sprigs fresh thyme leaves

1: Set your oven to 220C/425F. Trim the frondy top and end off the fennel bulb and then slice the bulb lengthwise into about eight pieces. Some pieces will unfurl apart into strips, some will hold together — this is fine.

2: Thinly slice the two potatoes — no need to peel — into coins, aiming for about just under 5mm thick. Pour the four tablespoons of olive oil into a bowl along with the hearty pinch of salt, followed by the fennel pieces and the potato slices, turning to coat everything. Tip the fennel and potatoes onto a shallow-lipped baking sheet, spreading everything out into one layer, and roast for 30 minutes.

3: Meanwhile, trim the ends of your 200g green beans — only if they’re particularly spindly and obtrusive. Once the 30 minutes is up, scatter the beans on top of the fennel and potatoes, now significantly browned and crisp, and roast for another 10 minutes.

4: Crumble over the 100g feta and scatter the fresh thyme leaves on top.

Serves two.

music lately:

Rocket, by Smashing Pumpkins. I speak as someone who, comparably to the bus in Speed, needs a constant feed of tremolo effect or I shall explode but nonetheless this song is a collection of the most celestial sounds I can fathom compressed into four astonishing minutes. When that riff re-emerges at 3:23 I practically start levitating like a well-inflated helium balloon caught in a vigorously anabatic headwind.

Ramona by Half Hexagons, described here by David Feauai-Afaese as transportative to “a rainy, night-of-assassins, cybernetic reality where you’re on a mission to terminate replicants and rehearse memorable one-liners” and, exactly that! Purposeful with increasingly wet shoes is a vibe you need when city-dwelling, aspiring to, or remembering the act of, and this is the perfect soundtrack.

Em (oceans) by Lauren Jauregui. Look, there’s not a whole lot of current-day pop music that I enjoy because it all gives the impression of trying to resemble how a sentient Typo corporation brand collab metal 1L drink bottle would sound but I love the watery, moody guitars and Jauregui’s guttural vocals here.

A Step Too Far, performed by Sherie Rene Scott, Adam Pascal and Heather Headley from the musical Aida. The texture of their voices together — like whipped cream, gravel, and red wine reduction respectively — are unbeatable, especially when skimmed across this Elton John composition that’s so very Elton John-ish that it’s hard to imagine how he didn’t keep it for himself.

PS: Despite the people of Gaza being beyond crisis point and surviving under barbaric cruelty, locally-based humanitarian org ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal continues to work to deliver food and water so give it if you’ve got it. Recently we went to the Defying Destiny protest in Albert Park held by People Against Prisons Aotearoa, it was powerful and invigorating and frequently joyful and heartening, if grim in its necessity. The parliamentary petition to deregister the violently erroneous charity status from Destiny’s Church that I linked to last time continues to grow in signatures, I couldn’t tell you how much weight it carries but it only takes a moment to correctly agree with it and sign. Finally, I highly recommend Emily Writes’ recent post, Five Ways To Help Your Community Right Now, for exactly that, making it easy to read, take in, and make decisions “whether you have five minutes or $5, or both”.