Back Once Again

With a banging brunch recipe, notes on imperfection, and - WTH? - another move

Cheesy eggs with greens and peanut rayu

Well this is embarrassing. I popped back into your inbox in September promising a return in “a couple of weeks,” and now it’s November. Whoosh! What can I say? Life has been FULL. Of joyous things and stressful things, and of all the nibbly bits in between. We moved house, got sick (multiple times – hullo winter), tended teething and coughing babies, didn’t sleep very much, started weaning, had an unfortunate episode with the pooch and a raisin scone, and - yup, you’re going to think I’m completely wild when I tell you this - we’re moving again next week.

This is what tired people look like when they try. On a recent, and very rare night on in London last weekend for our friends’ wedding

We haven’t even unpacked half of the boxes, because we knew this was going to happen. There was a brief period of about 48 hours where Jamie and I shoved on rose tinted glasses and wistfully, in our exhaustion, said to each other, ‘perhaps we don’t need to do this renovation after all, perhaps we can live with the house how it is for a few years and see how it goes’…

And then we lived in it for a few weeks. And, as much as we love this house – its feeling, its garden, its fish pond, complete with koi carp – living in it ‘as-is’ has been, let’s say, challenging. To give some context here, there’s a huge, windowless room full of cupboards with no appliances which is ‘sort of a kitchen’ but isn’t, and then there’s a teeny, tiny kitchen offshoot in a strange corridor-like room with a washing machine, oven and induction hob where I’ve been doing all our cooking. There’s no family bathroom or bath for the kids, the boiler is on its last legs, just in time for the baltic weather we’re experiencing here in the UK, and there are too few bedrooms.

Autumn colours in our new garden

Basically, the amount of remodelling we need to do would be untenable to live amidst with two little ones and two adults who are both WFH, so we’ve admitted defeat and decided to rent while we tackle the reno to make this place the family home we know it can be. I have visions of a terracotta-floored pantry, and a cosy kitchen with a log burner and dining nook. These are my fever dreams: they are quite possibly unrealistic. As yet, I haven’t actually made one concrete decision on the kitchen design... decision overwhelm is real my friends. 

What my Pinterest dreams are made of

So very many lovely options. My new thing is sourcing the free samples online and then hoarding them without making any actual decisions.

I’ll spare you the full saga, but I wanted to share what’s been happening this end because, honestly, I’ve been putting off returning here to the point of self sabotage for a few reasons, perhaps mostly because I didn’t feel ready for my maternity leave to end, but also because life’s just been so busy and chaotic, and I’ve felt this slightly paralysing pressure after being away for so long. I kept waiting for the perfect time to relaunch, but of course - we all know that moment doesn’t exist. Life is messy. Even when I have my dream kitchen a year from now, I’ll still be the same me. 

The current cupboard room/kitchen situation

So here I am, imperfectly showing up, because I’ve missed this – sharing stories, recipes and moments here with you – too much to wait any longer. And, as weird as my current kitchen set up is, I’ve still been slinging out some very tasty food I think you’ll enjoy cooking. As is always the case when I feel a bit out of control, I’ve been cooking a lot, trying out new things and revisiting old ones, and I have so many recipes that I’m keen to share with you, plus, with the Christmas holidays approaching, it feels like the right moment to restart.

And so, after a long pause for maternity leave, I’m turning subscription payments back on. This means – yay! – comments and conversations are open again with my wonderful paid subscribers. To those of you who’ve stuck with me through this hiatus (and thank you for your lovely messages on that other app): I see, you, I love you, and I can’t thank you enough. Your support means the world, and, now more than ever, your paid subscriptions are the reason I can keep creating this space. 

If you’re a free subscriber, you’re very welcome here too – I value anyone taking the time to read my words and work and cook my recipes, and if you’ve been waiting for this space to come alive again before joining as a paid subscriber, now’s the time. For those of you who’ve joined during my break (hello to many new names, thank you for being here!), I want to take a moment to share what you can expect from this space going forward.

Paid subscribers will continue to receive exclusive recipes, deeper insights into my travels and lifestyle, and the kind of personal stories that turn a recipe into something you want to cook right now, as well as being able to write comments, join chats and shape what we do here. Most of my content (recipes, recommendations, deep dives and the really juicy stuff) sits behind the paywall, though free subscribers will still get a joy-filled monthly newsletter from me as well. If you do upgrade to paid, know that your subscriptions make it possible for me to write, develop recipes, and keep this thing going – it’s truly a collaboration between us all, and I’d love for you to be part of it.

So, what’s next? Loads! I have some wonderful recipes to share, including next week’s ‘Something For the Weekend’ where I’ll be sharing an showstopping roast rib of beef recipe that I think is a must-make over the festive break, either as an alternative to Christmas turkey (failsafe recipe for mine here) or as a party piece for NYE or NYD. I made the best Yorkshires of my life when I cooked this, and I’m keen to share some of my top tips for those too. I’ll also be sharing some ideas and thoughts on making your table look festive and fun with very little effort, because I know we’re all short on time. Longer term, we’ll be looking at getting back into a rhythm with new seasonal recipes - a mix between Midweek Marvels and weekend feasts, and I’m excited about collaborating with some other other foodie friends and food and drink Substacks as we get going again. And of course, a peppering of behind the scenes content and updates on the house progress. Eek!

Coming for you next week

In the meantime, I wanted to share a wonderfully easy recipe - also a collaboration of sorts - that has been the absolute banger of our lunch table lately, and which I’ve been making on repeat for Jamie and I as we work from home, because it’s a total gem to have up your sleeve when you’re low on time and energy. Spoiler alert! It involves fried garlicky cheese, folded into the most deliciously silky eggs on toast with wilted greens and crispy chilli oil, and it was shared with me by the lovely founders White Mausu, whose craft peanut rayu - a crispy, peanut-based chilli oil I basically can’t run out of without feeling a bit panicked.

Of the recipe, White Mausu’s Katie Sanderson says, “It comes from this great cafe in Dublin where me and my partner met and worked. It’s a golden one for busy days.” And I couldn’t agree more - I love it so much and I think you will too. This stuff is outrageously tasty (and now available at some outposts of M&S in the UK, whoop!), though if you can’t get hold of it, you can have a go at making your own by roasting off and skinning peanuts and mixing them with crisp frazzled garlic, Korean chilli flakes, sesame seeds, soy, agave syrup and sesame oil and plenty of sunflower or rapeseed oil. Then you just spoon it over whatever you fancy - noodles, cheesy eggs on toast, wilted greens, your cornflakes. It’s spicy, crunchy, and utterly addictive. I absolutely bloody love the stuff. 

But enough about me. Talk to me about you. What have you been up to? What’s been cooking? What have you missed about this newsletter and what are you looking forward to most about its return? I’m all eyes and ears, and I want this to be an ongoing and wonderfully collaborative process. Thank you for being here, for reading, and for being part of this little community. It feels so good to be back. I hope you enjoy this recipe, I’d never made such delicious scrambled eggs before, molten with garlic fried Taleggio, and I love the method for scrambling them gently in the pan by piercing the yolks while they’re cooking, rather than my usual pre-scramble. Let me know what you think. See you next week, if not before x

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The Recipe - Cheesy eggs with wilted greens and crispy chilli oil

Serves 2

2 slices sourdough bread
A few generous glugs of olive oil
A few large, hearty leaves of kale (I used cavolo nero)
100g semi soft cheese (I used Taleggio and the award-winning Scottish cheese ‘Minger’), cut into thick slices
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
4 eggs, cracked into a bowl (not mixed)
Generous spoonfuls of peanut rayu or crispy chilli oil - I like White Mausu
Salt and pepper, to taste

Brush your bread with the olive oil and grill until golden and toasted. Don’t skip this step and whack them in the toaster - the olive oil and grill make all the difference here.

Meanwhile, fry the kale in a non stick frying pan or skillet with a little glug of olive oil and some salt and pepper, until wilted and glossy. Remove from the pan and leave to one side.

In the same pan, add another generous glug of olive oil - and be ready for this next bit as you need to move fast. Add the cheese to the oil and fry it, it’ll start to melt immediately, and let it do its thing for a few seconds, then scrape in the garlic, which will sizzle satisfyingly into the oily, cheesy pan. Just before it starts to colour, add in the eggs, all at once to ensure even cooking, and as the whites start to cook, season with salt and pepper. Now pierce the yolks with a sharp knife and fold into the mixture, incorporating the runny yolks into the whites, while still remaining slightly separate. Fold approximately four times until the eggs are still soft (this process should only take about 20 seconds).

Divide the eggs between the toasted bread, top with the wilted kale and add a generous spoonful of peanut rayu or crispy chilli oil of your choice. DEVOUR.