Fettuccine Alfredo

This is an adaptation of too many recipes to reference here. I used several as guides, but ultimately made some arbitrary changes both for my heart health's sake (for example, using a cup of butter felt excessive even with a full box of fettuccine) and for my own tastes. I so wanted to make this the authentic Italian way, but North America's love for cream (and my love for garlic!) won out. As always, do as you feel led if you give this a try!

Thai-style Green Curry

 This is essentially Pailin Chongchitnant's wonderful recipe with the adaptations I generally make when it is what's for dinner in my family. It's a gorgeous recipe - as most Thai recipes are! - and beautifully adaptable depending on your dietary needs. Definitely follow Pailin's original recipe, and make whatever adjustments work best for you!

Salmon Soup with Buckwheat Noodles

I love an easy meal, and I love a beautiful broth on a cool fall day. This adaptation of Hank Shaw's great original recipe is certainly both! I enjoy it as is, but as always make it your own!

Black Bean Soup

I'm in one of those seasons in life I sometimes think of as a 'Get Out, Right Now' season. (Thanks JoJo, twenty years later and your song's still stuck in my head!) Right now this primarily concerns our pantry, which I usually like to keep well stocked, but which now needs to be liquidated or given away in the next month. During today's perusal of the shelf survivors my gaze fell upon a can of black beans trying to hide off in a corner, and after watching a few videos on Instagram, the following recipe is what resulted!

Easy Curry Laksa

Many of my early dates with my spouse involved Singaporean-style curry laksa, so this dish - although not quite the same - holds a special place in our hearts. I have combined Woks of Life's lovely laksa recipe with Marion's more Thai-oriented version as I like to multipurpose ingredients rather than having twenty jars of different curry pastes on hand. I've also done some simplifying to reflect the other ingredients we generally have on hand in our currently North American-based pantry. Laksa is an amazingly delicious dish, so whether you try my adaptation below or the original recipes, you must give one of them a try, you won't regret it!

Baked Salmon Sushi Cups

I'm not one to get sucked into trends until they're well and truly no longer trendy, so I'm guessing that means these salmon sushi cups are officially over now...that being said, holy cow are they good! I mostly followed this recipe, but - as always! - made some modifications to suit my family's tastes. However you make it, definitely give some version of this a try, 'cause it is both ridiculously easy and ridiculously good!

Pan-Fried Tilapia with Smoked Paprika

What follows is a light adaptation of this recipe, mostly tweaks to amounts and types of seasonings. The results are delicious, and the prep time is minimal. Enjoy!

Satay Soup with Buckwheat Noodles

This recipe is a bit 'northeastern China meets Southeast Asia,' but I'm so glad the two did meet, 'cause the results are delicious! I used Jeeca's lovely recipe as a base, but obviously made a few changes to bring forward some Thai and Chinese elements. Recipes are only ever guides, not laws, so feel free to play with mine as well if you like!

Maen Gamja Jorim

This gorgeous recipe for spicy Korean-style braised potatoes largely comes from Aaron and Claire's wonderful YouTube channel, with minor adaptations to make for a quicker weeknight dinner. With slight changes this was an incredibly easy, delicious recipe. It's usually served as a banchan (side dish) at meals in Korea, but it works beautifully as a main over rice. It was an instant hit in my family and medium-hot for us, but if you're not good with spicy food consider dialing back the hotter spices - the flavors won't be the same, but you'll be less at risk of burning up too! 

Coconut Rice Pudding

I've been playing around with rice pudding recipes, and so far this is my favorite! It is largely this recipe with a few additions. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Thai-style Pumpkin Soup with Shrimp

In my family it's a tradition to have pumpkin soup on New Year's in honor of Haitian Independence Day. Due to my limited access to certain ingredients over the years I've played around with my recipe quite a bit. What follows is my favorite experiment so far (a slight adaptation of this recipe), and possibly my recipe from here onwards despite its distance from more traditional Haitian recipes. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Simplified Haitian Rice 'n Beans

Growing up with a parent who had spent a good part of her early adult life in Haiti I of course grew up eating pumpkin soup around New Year's Day and Haitian-style rice and beans. Both are fantastic meals, but rice and beans in particular I've rarely made because of how long they take, especially since moving to the PRC and being reduced to using one hot plate. (Overnight - or over-flight rather! - meals requiring more than one burner to make became time-consuming pains in the butt.) So I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize that I could probably make a modified rice and beans in my rice cooker! I finally had a light bulb moment today though, and what follows is how I went about bringing this great meal back into my life!

Vegetable Paprika Stew

I tried out this lovely vegetable paprika stew this week as part of my efforts to make my Lenten eating a bit healthier and reduce how much takeaway I eat. (It's one thing to get food delivered when my workday is hectic, but when it's my day off I really have no excuse!) I was working off of this recipe, but as I discovered at the last minute that I was missing key ingredients and in possession of others (namely a bottle of red wine from the weekend) I had to tweak it a bit. I hope you enjoy the results as much as I did! This recipe made eight good-sized portions, so if you're not wanting lots of leftovers you might considering halving the recipe.

Thai-style Shrimp Soup

So, full disclosure: This was supposed to be a Thai crab soup. Then I pitched the crab for shrimp. Then I realized I had coconut milk, not coconut juice, so that happened. Green onions replaced shallots. Fish sauce replaced shrimp paste. Then I tasted the finished product and remembered how much I dislike Thai soups. Absolutely can't stand them - I have yet to taste one I've liked. So a couple more things were added and voila, this suitably off-bland, just a step down from being sour soup was born :-).

Grilled Wasabi Shrimp

This recipe is epic - epically delicious, epically easy, and epically and shamelessly stolen from a friend of mine, who originally came across it here. It is also an epic fasting recipe, albeit not vegan per se. Pescetarian, yes. Vegan, no. (Unless you're Orthodox, in which case seafood often takes on a vegetablesque, humdrum aura as the years go by.) I must confess though, I like this recipe so much I dream of it even when I'm not in the middle of a fast!