Category: Vegetarian

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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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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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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Fruitcake with cream cheese icing

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A full iced fruitcake on a piece of crumpled baking paper

Let’s get one thing out of the way: the photos aren’t good, having been taken on the most gunmetal grey leadenly sunless free half hour I’ve ever had in my life, but the idea is worth your attention. I’ve been even more time-overwhelmed than usual this month and was frantically planning to stay up all night to bake and ice another cake to photograph in the four minutes of sunshine yet peeking through the wrapped scaffolding enrobing my apartment before I have to run to work and it just…did not happen. And ultimately, it doesn’t really matter; these photos have no impact on the state of the world, though I wish they would. The important thing is to persevere, because this idea is a very good one indeed, and I must impress upon you calmly, yet with absolute accurate hyperbole, how EXCELLENT the combination of fruitcake and cream cheese icing is.

To that end, one of the reasons for me being overwhelmed and time-broke is also very good indeed: my debut novel Hoods Landing is shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. Am elated, ecstatic, and full of cake (wholeheartedly and with a clear conscience because I’ve at last now fully recovered from the dental surgery I complained about last time and can both chew and crunch again; I celebrated the aforementioned shortlist news with a bowl of well-blended lentil soup.)

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Pappardelle with roasted carrots, hazelnuts and dill

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a fork resting on a pink and white plate of pappardelle with roasted carrots

Having emerged this week from major dental surgery into recuperation mode, I am finally afforded some time to write this blog post. I am also, unfortunately, still firmly quagmired in the soft-food-only stage for another couple days so the act of crunching or chewing anything is but a poignant memory. Which perhaps will add a yearning piquancy to my description of this pappardelle with roasted carrots, hazelnuts and dill. I was joking with a best friend that I shouldn’t be this excited to have ‘me time’ via major surgery, but such is modern life! This anticipation also distracted from fear of the real and present risk of permanent nerve damage, which, I am relieved to inform you, didn’t come to pass. One day I shall enjoy this pasta again. Luckily for you—although I assume everyone cool is probably also suffering dentally in some regard, there’s a lot of crossover—it’s so quick to make, that you could enjoy it within about half an hour if you hop to it.

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Carrot granola muffins

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A tray of carrot granola muffins with two butter knives

Though all baking has ebbs and flows of what makes the process appealing and easy for the baker, the muffin stands alone—I believe—in not being weighed down by visual pressure. By which I mean, muffins are the baked good least susceptible to yassification. Muffins should look sturdy and muffin-shaped, adorned at most with a snowfall of sieved icing sugar. No more, no less. Couple that with the necessary under-stirring and a quick oven time and they not only alleviate any baking-related stresses, muffins go so far as to alleviate other, unrelated stress you may be undergoing with their eagerness to make life easier. These carrot granola muffins do involve grating carrots, which is mildly annoying, but their flavour rewards all efforts and as you can see from the photos, you really don’t have to worry about how they look.

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Spiced Pearl Barley Pilaf

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A red casserole dish of barley pilaf with a serving spoon and sprigs of thyme in front of it

If you’re not convinced that eating barley is a great way to spend the summer, think again—unless it’s winter where you are, in which case, I guess you can just continue thinking steadily. My mother got me a second-hand Lynn Bedford Hall cookbook for Christmas—Ms Bedford Hall, the author of one of my already most-beloved, most-1980s cookbooks, and this new-to-me volume was every bit as full of camp panache and gelatine despite being published in the futuristic year of 1993. Rocket is a “trend-setting herb”, tuna mousse is “ubiquitous” but “impressive”, while chilled broccoli and apple soup has “a quiet dignity”. It’s all charming stuff. It’s also surprisingly practical, and by and large alluring to both cook and eater—even the light-refracting wobbly solidity of gelatine starts to call one’s name after some persistent repetition and my desire to “add a splash of drama to a ladies’ luncheon”. From this volume, I’ve lightly adapted her spiced pearl barley pilaf recipe and in turn, urge you to adapt it further as you see fit. This pilaf is a stunningly bolstering dinner or packed lunch, and so delicious (and cheap, or as Ms Bedford Hall would say, “economical”) that it overcomes all unphotogenic shortcomings.

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Pea, mint and feta dip

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A blue dish of pea and mint dip with pretzel crackers and mint leaves

A new year is upon us. And like so many before it, we once more stand upon the precipice of a fresh 365 where things are ALREADY dreadful, globally-wise. I myself am no stranger to the minor inconveniences that can feel like they’re setting the tone for the year ahead against your will: wisdom teeth (that I thought had been removed! At great expense!!) dancing a merry ceilidh directly into my nerves, a will-they-won’t-they of trying to find the singular nice affordable apartment to rent in this city with my girlfriend only to have previously accepted offers retracted, like riding a rollercoaster directly into a brick wall. One only has to glance at the internet briefly to put all this into stark perspective and I was still blessed with a charming and delightful Christmas and an antic-filled, if woefully brief, summer break. While I feel neither rested nor organised, I nonetheless have spatula-d myself together for 2026 to bring you this recipe for pea, mint and feta dip. Much like the summer break, it’s quick.

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