Everyone says my family are so lucky to be surrounded by so many sweet treats, but to be honest, the novelty has worn off for the kids.
— Nadiya Hussain
I’m a morning person so I like to be up by 6 am to wash and pray before the sun rises, and then have a tea at the kitchen table.
If we behave like the kitchen is for adults, they become more wary of it and reluctant to go in it because it feels like it’s a grown-up space.
We live in a world where we often get told what we should and shouldn’t do. I don’t think we should worry so much.
Sometimes when I’m making a potato salad I don’t boil my own potatoes, I take them straight out of a can.
I am not the kind of person who narrates every aspect of my life on social media; it’s about posting things that are important to me.
I didn’t know my husband, and then we had two children, and then I fell in love with him.
When I’m trying to get bread to prove, I am itching; I am so impatient.
Everything is tested in my little kitchen. The recipes are mine and that’s really important to me. When I do a cookery show I know these recipes really well, because every recipe I’ve ever published has been tested by my kids.
How my parents are in the kitchen is a good indicator of their parenting style. Mum cooks for sustenance, wants to get in and out, the job done quickly. My Dad wants to prance around in the kitchen, create a curry - and a mess - and entertain everyone.
I spent a lot of time with extended family when I was young. Every weekend, Dad would buy half a sheep and Mum would cook for about 50 people, and we would all eat on the couch, in the kitchen, spilling out into the garden.
My grandmother spent a lot of time with us when we were growing up. She did the school runs and fed us when my mum was busy. To be with her was to really be at home.
Being a parent you want to be strong for your kids and ninety percent of being a parent is not telling the truth.
Sometimes my feelings need to come out of my mouth and my head so the universe can have them. That’s what the universe is there for: to take my bad thoughts away.
Saying it out loud as a child is scary, but saying I felt unstable out loud as an adult with children was really scary. The fear of losing your children stops you from saying anything. It’s a never-ending battle.
Brexit makes me uncomfortable. It feels like we’re in no-man’s-land, and it doesn’t feel safe. People who voted to leave did so because of the scaremongering. It was all about immigration, but immigration is a great thing.
Islamophobia first appeared in my life on 11 September 2001. I was coming back from college and didn’t know what had happened. A white van stopped and a man got out. He spat on me, yelled a profanity, and then threw a can of coke in my direction. I cried as I walked home.
When I get back from a mid-morning stroll, I’ll do some writing then I’ll typically spend the day testing new recipes.
But Sunday is our cleaning day: we give ourselves only one and a half hours and we clean everywhere. We do that together because we made the mess together. I refuse to get a cleaner, although I’d love one, because I don’t want to teach my kids that we make a mess and then we pay someone else to clean it.
My mum was slightly disgruntled with cooking and being in the kitchen.
What’s happened to society is we’ve become really pretentious. But there was a time in my life where I really had to choose between boiling potatoes and paying my gas bill, so I’d buy a can of potatoes.
Nut butters are so versatile, especially peanut, and whenever I run out, I just make my own. It’s cheaper and easier.
In an average week I’ll be testing recipes, doing a voice-over, filming and writing. I cram everything in Monday to Friday because I refuse to give up the weekend.
I had an arranged marriage, and learnt you have to persevere and remember we are all human and all have faults. Obviously my husband Abdal has more faults than I do!
I jumped off a 30ft diving board for a dare once and it wasn’t fun.
But I understand the importance of being a brown, Muslim woman of faith who is in the public eye, because there aren’t that many of us.
As a child, I loved being outdoors. Our house had a railway track going past it. Of course, Mum told us not to go near it and, of course, we did. There were amazing blackberry bushes growing all along it, and we collected the fruit.
My own kids are absolutely allowed to help me cook it. They of course have the added bonus of knowing how to bake. That wasn’t really a concept when I was a kid - I learned it at school in home economics, then started properly when I was home with my children. They love helping me.
Cod and clementine is one of the things my grandmother cooked for my mum when she was a child. Never one for waste, she’d keep the peel whenever she had a clementine, and this dish puts it to work.
If I break my finger, I go to accident and emergency. If I have a cold, I go to the pharmacy. If I'm broken inside, where do I go? So, to help myself heal, I felt the best way to do this would be to talk, to share and to better understand what it is that I have.
The longest I’ve gone without a panic attack is about two months. Even then I can feel it bubbling away under the surface.
I feel like there’s a dignity in silence and I think if I retaliate to negativity with negativity then we’ve evened out. And I don’t need to even that out because if somebody’s being negative, I need to be the better person.
Pot Noodles are my true love because I don’t have to cook them. I have a ritual: take one pot noodle, add a teaspoon of chilli flakes and half of salt, plus all the seasoning it comes with.
As a child my life felt like an adventure, because my dad is such a fun guy. I had a brother and sister who were in and out of hospital a lot – one had a congenital heart problem and the other had a cleft palate. But my parents never stopped smiling.
I run a tight ship. The kids are responsible for their own chores. Each morning they unload the dishwasher from the night before then collect eggs from our chickens, and I cook those while they get ready for school.
I take everything out of the fridge and see what we can make. We talk about what we could possibly create, and if there is something on the turn that we could save, we chop it up and put it in the freezer.
Traditionally baklava is made by using honey - but I'm making it extra sweet and extra sticky by using golden syrup.
There’s nothing wrong with using frozen and canned food. There’s nothing in this series I’m ashamed of. It’s the way I cook.
Give me buttered white bread with Marmite crisps and salad cream and I’m a happy girl.
It’s taken me three years to learn that just because I work in the food industry, it doesn’t mean that I have to eat every minute of every day.
When I am scared, I push myself and get the best out of myself.
I really want my daughter to see that she can go out to work, but equally I want my sons to see it.
I do identify as a Muslim and I do identify as a Bangladeshi girl, I identify as British, as well, and a woman and I’m a woman of colour, and why am I ashamed of that? And I used to not want to talk about it. But that is me.
When you are one of six, your brothers and sisters become your best mates.
My dad’s an amazing photographer, and he loves a Sunday market. So the house was full of all the stuff he’d buy, and frame.
I'm forever making it out like I have got it all together and I know what I'm doing. The truth is I haven't got a clue what I'm doing.
I bottled up all my emotions and forced myself to grow up faster than I needed to.
Once you’ve had a panic attack you live in fear that another one is going to come. From the second it’s gone, every moment every day is about the next one.
We have this rule in our marriage, there's no such thing as 50/50. Somebody is always putting in more.
Arranged marriages get a bad reputation. Do they always work? No, but that’s true of all marriages. As long as you aren’t forced, who cares how you get together?
