Salmon and Spinach Fishcakes

Salmon and Spinach Fishcakes
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Today’s Salmon and Spinach Fishcakes may not look like a clean-out-the-fridge meal, but I promise you they were born out of necessity. An excess of food is a frequent occupational hazard in my work. Brands are often overly generous with their products, which is good when you’re doing rounds of recipe testing. But now and then, you nail the recipe in the first few attempts, and you’re left with more food than you can reasonably handle. This happened to me the other week, and the food in question was an almost complete side of beautiful Atlantic salmon. I know – what a hardship! This scenario would be far from a tragedy in a salmon-lovers home. I am a salmon-lover, but my partner, well, there are few things he dislikes more. 

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Carrot Kimchi Soup with Black Sesame Biscuits

Carrot Kimchi Soup
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Today’s post is a twofer. That’s right, two recipes in one post. While you can certainly make one independent of the other, they do play very well together. I am of course talking about the radiant burnt orange soup you see in the photo above. Today’s Carrot Kimchi Soup is a velvety vegetable soup heavy on carrots and loaded with a tub of kimchi. The flavor is rounded out by a dollop of gochujang, soy sauce, and a whole lot of garlic. The texture is enhanced by the addition of starchy root vegetables. In this particular incarnation, I used a mix of sweet potatoes and regular potatoes because that is what my crisper had for me. But I’ve made this soup with squash and rutabaga before with no adverse effects – just a slightly nuttier flavor profile.

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Brown Butter Garlic Noodles with Oven-Roasted Mushrooms

Brown Butter Garlic Noodles with Oven-Roasted Mushrooms
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Cooking is kind of unfair. We all have to do some degree of it daily to stay alive whether we like it or not. What other hobby can claim that? Althought I love cooking, I don’t always hit the kitchen with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. But I also never view the activity with disdain. This is all to say that sometimes I’m bone tired, sometimes I have a mere 30 minutes to feed my household, sometimes my brain is at max capacity and anything complicated will trigger a meltdown. And when I’m in any one of those states, these Brown Butter Garlic Noodles are my go-to. Not because of some hack or shortcut. It’s because these noodles take a very short time to become delicious. There is no compromise – this is just how long this recipe takes. 

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Butterscotch Dipped Oatcakes

Butterscotch Dipped Oatcakes with Dark Chocolate and Maldon Salt
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Growing up oatcakes were a celebrated treat, particularly the ones dipped in dark chocolate. I had no idea until I moved out of the province that oatcakes are considered an iconic Nova Scotia delicacy. I also had no idea that they were a riff on Scottish oatcakes, which are essentially the same only not as sweet. Nova Scotia oatcakes are not particularly sweet either, especially when you compare them to cookies. They have more of a salty, sweet vibe, so don’t go into this expecting oatmeal cookies. Oatcakes are more toothsome, less sugary, and far more substantial. I often describe them as breakfast cookies to the uninitiated. But because oatcakes are not quite a cookie, they do benefit from a little zhuzhing. That’s why I made these Butterscotch Dipped Oatcakes – everything delicious about the original dunked in butterscotch icing, drizzled with dark chocolate, and sprinkled with salt. 

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