All posts filed under: Summer

Simple Grilled Clams

Published by

While clams are abundant year-round on the west coast, I particularly love to enjoy them in the summertime. They make the perfect light (yet satisfying) summer meal, especially when they are combined with fresh summer flavours and eaten outdoors on a patio or at the beach. This year, I decided to experiment with cooking clams. I typically steam-cook clams in a large pot on the stove, but realistically, I can do that any time of year. However, I can only grill my food for a few months before the rain starts up; so naturally, I opted for experimenting with grilling clams. After a few tries of experimenting with various ingredients and flavour combinations, I came back to keeping it simple, and that’s how my recipe for Simple Grilled Clams came to be! Direct or Indirect, that is the Question I had seen a few recipes where the clams were grilled directly on the metal grates of a grill. While I thought this would be great, I found that the tasty clam juices easily fall into …

Cedar Plank Salmon

Published by

This Canada Day, I am grilling up the perfect west coast Canadian recipe: Cedar Planked Salmon. On the west coast of Canada, we love to eat fresh, wild salmon. While there are many species of salmon available, my favourite has to be sockeye salmon. It’s deep rich orange flesh is so succulent, full of omegas, and is always juicy– there’s nothing else like it! I picked up my salmon fillets from my favourite seafood store in Victoria, Finest at Sea. They always have a great selection of seafood available and it is always fresh! Not only is their seafood fantastic, I love that they tell you exactly where the seafood was harvested along the coast of B.C.– and even what fishing vessel caught it! Bringing this awareness to the customer is amazing and really makes me appreciate my seafood every time I get it! While I used sockeye salmon in this recipe, you can use whatever variety of salmon you prefer– pink, spring, coho, you name it! Just make sure that it is fresh and …

BC Blueberry Pie

Published by

It’s the last day of #BCBlueberryWeek here on the blog! I’m sad to see it go but I have a TON of blueberries still left in the fridge…so maybe I will keep it going with a few more blueberry recipes in the near future. But I hope that you really enjoyed the recipes I showcased so far- from the summer go-to Blueberry and Grilled Chicken Salad, to the healthy Honeyed Greek Yogurt and Blueberry Jam, to the savoury Blueberry Stuffed Chicken– they were all delicious! However, I think that I have saved the best recipe for last…a good ol’ classic…BC Blueberry Pie. The best way to celebrate blueberry season is with a blueberry pie! If you ask me, this is the best way to celebrate blueberry season! It was actually the first blueberry recipe I made this summer when the blueberries arrived at the markets. I love this pie because you get mouthful after mouthful of sweet, heavenly blueberry filling with a little crunch and savoury flavour from the crust. This is what blueberry dreams …

Blueberry Stuffed Chicken

Published by

Blueberries are getting the royal treatment today on the blog with this elegant recipe for Blueberry Stuffed Chicken! We are in the fourth day of #BCBlueberryWeek here on the blog and I am excited to reveal this recipe to you. Not only did I work really hard on the food styling (I feel so professional) but I also worked hard on the recipe too! It had many similar components as my Blueberry and Grilled Chicken Salad that I posted a few days ago- chicken, goat cheese and blueberries (of course)- but these flavours just go so well together! The only thing that’s different is how I prepared and presented them! Stuffed chicken breasts are a mid-week favourite around here. I stuff chicken with spinach and cheese, sundried tomatoes, cheese and ham, rice and spinach- you name it! But I particularly love stuffed chicken breasts because they are so versatile! You can take them from a humble mid-week meal to a star main course at a dinner party in no time! I definitely think that stuffing …

Blueberry & Grilled Chicken Salad

Published by

It’s #BCBlueberryWeek here on the blog and I am sharing a whole weeks’ worth of delicious and nutritious recipes featuring local BC blueberries.  If you missed yesterday’s post that provides a fulsome overview of blueberries including when to pick them, how to store them and how to cook with them, make sure you go back to the post and give it a read- there are so many great tips and interesting facts on blueberries that you may not have known about! Today I am sharing my first #BCBlueberryWeek recipe…and this might possibly be my most favourite recipe in this series. Today I am featuring a delicious Blueberry and Grilled Chicken Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette. Did you just start drooling? I sure did! I’m not a big fan of salads for most of the year, but when it hot and steamy outside during the summer, salads are what I turn to the most. They’re refreshing, cooling, amazingly healthy and don’t require much effort to assemble. I particularly enjoy creating and experimenting with salad ingredients as I am …

BC Blueberry Week

Published by

We are in the height of blueberry season right now in BC and I just can’t get enough of these delicious sweet berries.  I actually enjoy blueberries so much that I bought not one, but TWO five-pound boxes of these sweet little berries to indulge in before the season is over! I know…it’s a lot of blueberries… but they are just so delicious and are full of antioxidants!  I put them in everything these past few weeks and while doing so, I tested out a few recipes that I am going to be sharing with you this week on my blog! All of these recipes feature local and fresh BC Blueberries, so rightfully, I’m calling this week #BCBlueberryWeek! Read on down below to find out all you need to know about BC Blueberries! And stay tuned this week for tons of delicious blueberry recipes! Fresh blueberries at Arbor Blueberry Farm BC Blueberries, an Overview While blueberries are native to North America, I would have to say the British Columbia grows the best blueberries in the whole world. …

Steak Salad with Roasted Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette

Published by

Summer is the best time of the year to eat the many varieties of tomatoes that are out there-whether they are cherry tomatoes, beefsteak, heirloom, zebra… the list goes on and on! Those sweet, juicy, plump colourful gems taste absolutely delicious after ripening outside under the sun. This gives them a deep and rich tomato flavour and makes them taste incredibly sweet. I also love the texture of tomatoes that have been grown in the summer as they are juicy and yet still firm and not ‘mealy’ like the tomatoes that you get during the winter! While I can go on and on about the reasons why I love tomatoes and tell you about all the different varieties that are available, I will save that for a later post. For now, I would like to share a delicious recipe that uses my favourite tomatoes of the season: cherry tomatoes. They pack an incredibly sweet punch (for a tomato, that is) and just burst open with flavourful juices once you pop them in your mouth. If …

Pork & Sambal Green Beans

Published by

It has been a scorcher here in southern BC for the past few weeks and with a west-facing apartment, temperatures inside our cozy home have easily reached 100 degrees in the evening. Rather than avoiding turning on my stove and sticking to no-cook recipes like salads and sandwiches, I fired up the stove to make a hot dinner; hot in the sense that heat was used to cook the food, and hot in the sense of spice. I was drawn to make some spicy food during this heat wave to test the theory that eating spicy food when it’s hot outside actually helps to cool you down. I never really tested this theory before as I have lived in a cool Canadian climate my whole life (or have had air conditioning to compensate those few hot days we get up here); but I heard that this theory actually works and has worked for people who live in perpetually hot climates for hundreds of years. So since we were stuck in this heatwave and sans air …

4 Easy French Recipes for Bastille Day

Published by

Get out your berets everyone, it’s Bastille Day! This French holiday, also known as “Le 14 Juillet” or “La Fête National” celebrates the beginnings of The French Revolution many years ago. The French typically celebrate this holiday by travelling, being outside (picnic anyone?) and of course, having a fantastic meal. I mean hey, you can’t start a revolution on an empty stomach! So here are four fabulously French recipes that are prefect to celebrate the day! Tartines Tartines are a classic French open-faced sandwich that are typically eaten at breakfast or lunch. I personally love to eat tartines no matter what time of day since they are so versatile in terms of flavour combinations! If there is one tartine that most of us have already been exposed to, its likely been Avocado Toast. While it may not be 100% French, the concept of an open faced sandwich is. Now, I have nothing against avocados on toast (maybe also topped off with an egg), but I feel that a proper tartine needs to be French-ified. A …

Asian Heritage Rice Bowl

Published by

If you are looking for a new healthy meal recipe that packs a ton of nutrition and is also delicious, look no further than my Asian Heritage Rice Bowl. Rice bowls (and their vegetarian equivalent, Buddha bowls) have been popping up everywhere lately and I can understand why. They are a fantastic way to get a variety of colourful vegetables, fruits, proteins and grains into your diet. Essentially, the bowl starts off with a base (often rice or salad) and you simply add handfuls of each ingredient to the bowl to make up a full meal. These Asian Heritage Rice Bowls were originally inspired by the chicken rice bowl at Heritage Asian Eatery in downtown Vancouver. As I am now living in Victoria, I miss these bowls SO MUCH and there isn’t anything here that is quite like it (or is of good enough quality). So, when I find myself getting a Heritage Asian Eatery craving, I make this bowl.  While Heritage’s bowl uses a whole chicken leg, I opt for using a chicken breast …