Yeah, that’s right.

This is a recipe for strawberries on toast. It was inspired by me, scrolling through my own Instagram photos like the narcissist that I am, revelling in my own social media genius the way a Marvel villain would look back at the path of destruction they created (except, instead of being decked out in a fabulous, form-fitting costume, I was wearing a pair of stale pyjamas).

I posted a photo of my brilliant dessert idea, being strawberries on toast, during a time when people were posting a whole bunch of strawberry-related foods on social media in the wake of the needle scandal. People on social media love to support the farmers, and because my whole persona is built up on the fact that I grew up in the country (I mean, I was technically a townie, but my Condamine-stained Akubra suggests otherwise), backing the berry farmers was in line with my brand.

So on the bandwagon I hopped. I nobly took up arms and joined the ranks of kitchen crusaders across the country. I too wanted to use my super influential, totally commodifyable social media presence to make a difference. People were posting strawberry shortcakes and berry tarts. I have one extremely impressive friend who, immediately after preventing an unjust deportation, rushed home to make a vat of jam, pour it into quaint-as-fuck little jars and sell them to her workmates so she could donate the sales to a drought relief farmer appeal.

Meanwhile, I put strawberries on a piece of toast and posted a photo of it on Instagram.

I’d written “recipe to come” in the caption as a bit of a laugh, because obviously you don’t need a recipe for something so straightforward.

But, here we are.

I’m staring down the barrel of a long weekend and want to smash something out quickly so I can enjoy my spring freedom, but the gears in the old think box aren’t exactly ticking along at the same pace as usual. I’m coming off the back of a nasty, clingy cold that has rendered my brain to mush. If you scroll down to Wednesday’s post, you’ll see I didn’t give the bastard a title. I didn’t even realise. And now I’m keeping it like that, obviously, because it now is part of a joke and adds weight to my illness claims.

And with that, I’m going to launch into my recipe.

This is the kind of dish that perfectly emulates all the good things about an ordinary pancake with minimal labour. Of course, it’s no substitute for a banana porridge pancake or a carrot cake pancake but, in a pinch, it does stand in for a run-of-the-mill standard batter sufficiently enough. Because, when you’re tucking into one of these plain pancs, you’re really only ever in it for the toppings, right? I mean, the pancake just acts as a fluffy excuse for eating syrup and ice cream before 11am, much like the juice in a mimosa makes champagne a socially acceptable breakfast beverage.

I started making this when I had a hankering for the pancake experience, but the distinct lack of effort to mix up a batter and chuck it in a frypan. So I decided that toast was a reasonable, low-effort stand-in as a platform from which to eat my favourite pancake toppings: melted butter and strawberries.

This is a dish you can serve at any time of the day, because if you’re reading this, chances are you live in a country with uncensored Internet and therefore are a free citizen. Being free means you can express your political opinions without fear or observe whatever religion you chose. It also means you can serve a slapdash dish without having to conform to the oppressive culinary norms that dictate the time of day during which a particular food should be eaten. I mean, fuck’s sake, eat an egg for dinner if you like. No one is going to drag you off to prison. The Anzacs fought for our freedom, you may as well enjoy it.

That being said, I do tend to enjoy it as a dessert, with the sweet, buttery treat perfectly filling the emptiness in your life between dinner and the sweet release from reality that comes with sleep. It’s so easy, you can make this without really thinking about it, making it perfect for times when you’re spiralling into a pit of despair and don’t want to disrupt your dark, irrational thoughts by focusing on weighing flour or tempering chocolate. You’re free to carry on with you existential crisis.

Step 1: Proudly grab a punnet of strawberries, demonstrating your defiance against health and safety warnings with strong, bold movements. Dramatically remove the punnet from the fridge, brazenly bringing it down on the counter with conviction. You are the master of your destiny. You laugh in the face for fear.

Step 2: Slice and dice the strawbs, because, actually, you really don’t want to put up with a pierced oesophagus.

Step 3: Keep going until you’ve got a good fist-sized pile of safely-prepared fruit.

Step 4: Fetch yourself a piece of bread, the style of which depends on your mood. I tend to go with a nice light rye because it has the texture of a white bread while still having the air of a loaf made from an intimidating flour that makes it feel as though it’s judging you, even though you know perfectly well that ground grains don’t posses the cognitive awareness required to form an opinion about your choice of carbohydrates.

Step 5 :Bung that bread in the toaster, gurlfrand! But make sure you check your setting. The whole idea about this is that the bread becomes warm enough to melt the butter, but not so cooked that it becomes darker than a fake tan at a Year 10 formal. I mean, you want it to be cooked enough to transition from warmed bread to toast, but only just. Like, the adolescence of toast, if you will.

Step 6: Prepare yourself for the second the toaster pops. You have no time to lose once that toast comes out – you must get the butter on there before the bread cools down. Get you butter knife ready. Remove the lid from the butter dish. Find your focus.

Step 7: Butter that toast with the speed of the gods.

Step 8: Once you think you have a reasonable amount of butter, coat that butter in another layer of butter, until yellow puddles form on the bread.

Step 9: Dump the chopped strawberries on the toast, tumbling the fruit in a rustic, artisanal way.

Step 10: Eat your pancake replacement on your own, luxing it up with a plate, knife and fork and a scented candle on the dining table, Norah Jones playing on your phone. Be sure to post your treat on social meda. Or, you could be true to the slapdashery of this dish by shovelling it into your mouth over the kitchen sink before cocooning yourself in a doona and blacking out the world. Up to you.