Nadiya Hussain

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you are one of six, your brothers and sisters become your best mates.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I really want my daughter to see that she can go out to work, but equally I want my sons to see it.

I jumped off a 30ft diving board for a dare once and it wasn't fun.

When I'm trying to get bread to prove, I am itching; I am so impatient.

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 didn't know my husband, and then we had two children, and then I fell in love with him.

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.

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.

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.

Give me buttered white bread with Marmite crisps and salad cream and I'm a happy girl.

Nut butters are so versatile, especially peanut, and whenever I run out, I just make my own. It's cheaper and easier.

Sometimes when I'm making a potato salad I don't boil my own potatoes, I take them straight out of a can.

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.

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.

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.

Traditionally baklava is made by using honey - but I'm making it extra sweet and extra sticky by using golden syrup.

My mum was slightly disgruntled with cooking and being in the kitchen.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When I get back from a mid-morning stroll, I'll do some writing then I'll typically spend the day testing new recipes.

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.

When I am scared, I push myself and get the best out of myself.

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.

Being a parent you want to be strong for your kids and ninety percent of being a parent is not telling the truth.

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.

I bottled up all my emotions and forced myself to grow up faster than I needed to.

Growing up, I didn't see that many Muslims on TV and we don't see many now. But essentially I am a mother and that's the job I know best.

Most summers we went to Bangladesh and stayed in Grandad's village, filled with relatives. I'm one of 67 grandchildren.

Once a month we have 'dessert for dinner' night. I'll make four separate desserts. They'll come home from school and eat as much cake and custard and ice cream as they can physically get in their guts. Because sometimes I think, let them just be children.

I only ever baked because it helped with my anxiety.

I am as average as they get - there is nothing special about me. I'm just getting by.

I think I would have appreciated being at home with my kids a little bit more. Raising a child, surely that in itself is the biggest thing we're ever going to do?

Growing up in Luton, we'd always eat on a cloth, placed on the floor of the living room, with no TV allowed. There were no chairs back in Bangladesh and Dad wanted to keep the tradition, so we never owned a dining table.

The only reason we had an oven at home was because it came attached to the cooker. Mum would keep her frying pans in there and anything else that would fit. Storage was its only use.

I first met my husband on the day we got married, when I was 20. I moved to be with him in Leeds, 165 miles from Luton. The kitchen was absolutely tiny. But I got my first hand-held mixer and first set of scales and first blue cake tin from Tesco and that was very exciting.

When I watch a TV show I wouldn't notice if someone was Muslim or wearing a hijab. It's nice to be on a show where your skin colour or religion is incidental.

For me, it's important to instil in my children that they can do whatever they like, that no matter what their religion and colour, they can achieve what they want through hard work.

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.

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.