Author: Melissa

Pea & Pesto Pasta

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One of my favourite vegetables that I love to eat in the spring are fresh peas. They are incredibly sweet, tender and flavourful and are a nice little treat instead of frozen peas that we eat year-round. This recipe for my Pea & Pesto Pasta celebrates this seasonal vegetable and is super quick and easy! Peas & Basil are a Match Made in Heaven Peas go great with just about anything, but nothing compares to the combination of fresh peas and basil. The sweetness of the peas balances the intense basil flavour and is incredibly refreshing together! To bring these two ingredients together by mixing peas into a traditional basil pesto. I simply add cooked fresh peas to a food processor with typical pesto ingredients including basil, Parmesan cheese, nuts, lemon, and garlic. With a touch of a button, all of these delicious ingredients gets chopped up and pureed into a creamy green pesto sauce that is perfect for coating freshly cooked pasta. Of course, while peas are not in season for very long during …

Rhubarb & Cream Cheese Danish

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Treat your mom to a very special breakfast this Mother’s Day with these Rhubarb & Cream Cheese Danishes. While this recipe looks impressive, the use of store-bought puff pastry makes this recipe incredibly fast, and is simple enough for chefs of any age or cooking level to make! A Little Bit About Rhubarb Rhubarb is a peculiar perennial vegetable that grows thick and fibrous pink stalks with large green leaves. While the pink stalks of the rhubarb plant are edible (and can even be eaten raw), the green leaves are poisonous to humans and are often discarded prior to being sold in farmers markets or grocery stores in the spring and early summer months. When rhubarb is raw, the stalks are tart, fibrous, and have a stringy texture similar to celery, which may be off-putting to many people. But when it is cooked, it becomes extremely tender and almost disintegrates in your mouth. This texture makes rhubarb perfect for baking in pies, stewing into a savoury sauce, and of course using in these Rhubarb & …

Pork & Bacon (Porkception) Skewers with Peanut Dipping Sauce and Mango Salad

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These Pork & Bacon Skewers are my latest and greatest creation! Tender pork chop meat is marinated in a delicious ginger-molasses marinade and is skewered between a thick slice of Double Smoked Bacon from Red Barn Market. You can also call these Porkception Skewers. Grilled to perfection on the BBQ and served with a refreshing mango salad and peanut dipping sauce– these skewers are perfect for upcoming summer BBQs! #KitchenImprovYYJ Challenge I came up with this idea for a recipe from participating in the #KitchenImprovYYJ cookoff, where each week we were given a list of ingredients that we had to make a recipe with. During the final week of the competition, our ingredients were: apple, coffee, bacon and peanut butter. While many people would think to make a sweet recipe, I opted for savoury just to be a bit different. Plus, I love savoury foods way more than sweet foods! And so these Pork & Bacon Skewers were born! I marinated the pork chop with ginger, molasses (for that sweet and smoky flavour), maple syrup, …

Thai Red Curry Noodles

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While we may have lots of time at home these days to cook and experiment with new recipes while staying at home, sometimes you just want a quick and easy meal made with just a few ingredients. Or even better, a quick and easy meal made with ingredients that you already have in your fridge and pantry!  These Thai Red Curry Noodles are super simple and come together in under 20 minutes. Plus this recipe can be easily adapted to use whatever vegetables you have in your fridge as well as to any vegan, vegetarian, or pescatarian diet.  Exploring the Fridge and Pantry If you take a look in your fridge and pantry, I guarantee that you will find a few ingredients that you’ve had in there for a long time. In the fridge, my condiment drawers on the door of my fridge is the main culprit, as it often has a mix of frequently used condiments and sauces, or really old ones that have only been used one or twice. Similarly, when I dive …

Banana Chocolate Muffins

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Amongst the COVID-19 crisis, one thing has been looking up: people have been cooking from home! I’m excited to see so many people try out new recipes, organize virtual potlucks and cookoffs, and just to see people coming together over food! Even though these are scary times, food is something that can bring people together and make them feel comforted. Speaking of comfort, there are very few recipes that can be more comforting than Banana Bread. This classic recipe is enjoyed by people of all ages and can be made with just a few everyday pantry ingredients. A Few Additions to Enhance a Traditional Recipe While I’m not the biggest fan of plain banana bread, I am a fan of banana bread with chocolate in it. The melted chocolate adds such a nice texture and breaks up the standard, homogenous batter, which makes it really more enjoyable for me! Plus, anything with chocolate in it is already way better! I also like to add a bit of crunch to this with some pecans. Again, this …

Sausage, Kale & White Bean Soup

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Recipe developed by Melissa (@seasonserveblog) and Amy (@figscheeseandchampignon) in collaboration with Amelia (@tastingvictoria). Words and photos by Melissa (@seasonserveblog) Today, I am sharing a one-pot recipe for Sausage, Kale and White Bean Soup. This recipe is simple to make and uses fresh and local ingredients. Plus, it comes together in less than one hour, so this is a perfect meal for any night of the week! A Traditional Italian Soup with a West Coast Spin White bean soup is a classic Italian recipe that I grew up eating for most of my life. Originating in Tuscany, this thick and hearty soup is known as ‘Ribollita’ (i.e. ‘reboiled’) and is made with white beans and any leftover vegetables and bread that one may have on hand.  The beauty of this soup is that it changes based on the seasons, what is locally available, and the chef’s own taste, so there are various recipes and adaptations of this original soup recipe.  But today, I’m taking this recipe and adopting it for the west coast with locally made …

Quinoa Tabbouleh Salad

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Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone! When I was thinking of recipes to make for Saint Patrick’s Day, I immediately thought of this Quinoa Tabbouleh Salad. Made with tons of fresh parsley and fresh mint, the salad is as green as it can get! Plus, the salad is delicious and a much healthier way to celebrate this famous Irish holiday. The Power of Fresh Herbs I’ve recently been on a bit of a health kick since we have our wedding coming up this fall. I’ve turned to cooking a lot of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern foods since they are very flavorful and nutritious. Typically, these types of cuisines are nutritious and are assembled quickly with just a few ingredients as well making them perfect for weekday dinners. I think parsley is one of the more underrated herbs used in the kitchen. You often see parsley used as a garnish that is often tossed away after a meal. However, parsley has many health benefits and is full of vitamin K, potassium, and magnesium. Parsley also has antibacterial …

Shirazi Salad

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While we still have a few more weeks of winter to go, I’m really craving light and refreshing spring/summer foods. However, during the winter months, fresh produce is not always the best quality here in Canada. But luckily in BC, we have lots of local greenhouses that sell fresh local produce year round! This simple, refreshing Shirazi Salad was inspired by these locally grown greenhouse veggies. Local BC Produce While winter tomatoes and cucumbers cannot compare to fresh summer ones, greenhouse-grown veggies are a great alternative in the winter months. We are lucky here in BC to have lots of local farmers that grow greenhouse produce year-round that we have access to. I really prefer to buy local in general to support local farmers and producers, but also because the produce tastes so much better than those that come from far away such as Mexico or New Zealand. I was lucky enough to find local greenhouse tomatoes and Persian cucumbers at my local grocery store, and I immediately jumped on them to make this delicious …

Valentine’s Day Crêpes: Two Ways

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When you think of Valentine’s Day, you probably associate it with lots of sweets like candy chocolate. While I do enjoy the occasional sweet treat, I do prefer to eat more savory foods, even on Valentine’s Day.  This year, I wanted to try to make a savory recipe that can easily be adopted and be made sweet if desired. When I was thinking of recipes to make, I was trying to go for dinner recipes and dessert recipes. Both of these were a little difficult to create a recipe with a sweet and savoury version, so I decided to make a breakfast/brunch recipe instead. I think this works out so well because everyone enjoys a delicious breakfast! Crêpes are an incredibly versatile recipe since they are simple to make, have a relatively neutral flavour, but can be filled with different fillings or toppings. Plus since they’re French and super romantic, I thought this would be the perfect recipe for Valentine’s Day! For my savoury crêpe recipe, I made a Croque Madame Crêpe. This crêpe has …

Winter Melon Soup

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If you overindulged during Chinese New Year festivities this year, or if you are just looking to reset and detoxify your body, this Winter Melon Soup is the perfect thing to eat! It is filled with vegetables, nutrient-rich pork bone broth, and a few really good Chinese medicines. Pork Broth and Pork Ribs There are many versions a Chinese soups out there, but I love this Winter Melon Soup the most! For the base of the recipe, I use pork bone broth as well as pork bone ribs to add a little bit more protein. Pork bone broth has become a bit of a rage these days. If you look into its nutritional benefits you can definitely see why people are starting to drink this broth more and more. Not only is it full of nutrients such as calcium, iron, and magnesium, it is also rich in collagen and may help protect or ease tension or pain in your joints.  You get a little bit more of these benefits from adding the pork ribs as …