Easy Tater Tot Casserole

This is a classic of North American cookery and a personal favorite! The following is based on the lovely "tater tot hot dish" recipe from the wonderful cooks of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Narol, Manitoba, as recorded in their 2011 Centennial Cookbook. I've made my usual modifications - lets be honest, primarily copious amounts of garlic! - but the core is unchanged. Narol's master chefs dedicated their cookbook to the founders of their parish, Orthodox Ukrainians from what in 1911 was the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. May their memories be eternal! Вічная пам'ять!

Broccoli Potato Soup

I'm always a fan of broccoli cheddar soup, but I wanted something a little less heavy the other day and this turned out gorgeously! The recipe is largely lifted from Vegangela, but I made slight modifications to better fit my tastes. I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Salsa Scrambled Eggs with Sausage

 I'm sure there a million much better, more authentic versions of this out there, but this was born from a craving for a fusion of the pre-Lent indulging going on right now, Tex-Mex, and my favorite Chinese breakfast, xīhóngshì chǎo jīdàn. (Which is not a breakfast dish per se, but became a go-to breakfast for me when I was living in Manchuria.) I hope you enjoy what resulted as much as I do!

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!

Chicken Rice Soup

Chicken soup has long been a favorite fall and winter go-to, and with all the health issues facing us this year and no doubt next I decided to up the garlic content of this cold weather staple! If you don't like garlic...well, this isn't the cooking blog for you! Given the health benefits of garlic, I'd suggest sticking to the recipe, but to each their own!

Easy Tomato Egg Drop Soup

 This recipe is a shameless americanization of this lovely recipe for Shanghainese tomato egg drop soup. I love tomato soup, I love egg drop soup, and I am lazy, so when I came across the recipe above I realized I could do great things with just a can of condensed tomato soup! The results are below - enjoy!

Basic Quiche

 I just realized I never got around to posting my longstanding basic quiche recipe, which I 100% lifted from this website. (No doubt why I never get around to typing it up here!)

Vegetarian Lasagna

Long time no see! Needless to say, it's been a crazy couple of years! And now it's 2020, so everything's super chill and fine...yeah...

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!