Feb/Mar
Pecan Crusted Salmon with Wild Blueberry Sauce
Holly MacIntosh
West Bay, NS
Holly and her husband Alan love salmon and her recipe for pecan crusted salmon has long been a favourite in their home. It wasn’t until watching an online cooking show that Holly was inspired to pair blueberries with seafood; a concept she hadn’t previously considered. An aunt who resides in New Hampshire has a summer home not far from Holly; the farm has a lovely patch of wild blueberries, and some make their way into her freezer each year. She tried several variations on a sauce and finally settled on the one included here, the results, once paired with the pecan-crusted salmon were a hit at home and certainly with our judges.
Holly grew up in a blended family. Being the youngest, she spent many hours in the kitchen with her grandmother, the family cook, and her mom was busy working in the farmyard. When Holly’s grandmother passed away, the duties of cooking for the family fell to her. She credits her mom for teaching her how to cook without a recipe. She has fond memories of her mom’s apple pie, homemade pickles, and salt cod with pork scraps and sour cream. The farm where Holly grew up was self-sustaining and everything they ate was either grown or raised on site. The earliest memory Holly has of going to a grocery store to purchase food was when she was 16 or 17.
- Complexity medium
Pecan Crusted Salmon with Wild Blueberry Sauce
Holly MacIntosh
West Bay, NS
Holly and her husband Alan love salmon and her recipe for pecan crusted salmon has long been a favourite in their home. It wasn’t until watching an online cooking show that Holly was inspired to pair blueberries with seafood; a concept she hadn’t previously considered. An aunt who resides in New Hampshire has a summer home not far from Holly; the farm has a lovely patch of wild blueberries, and some make their way into her freezer each year. She tried several variations on a sauce and finally settled on the one included here, the results, once paired with the pecan-crusted salmon were a hit at home and certainly with our judges.
Holly grew up in a blended family. Being the youngest, she spent many hours in the kitchen with her grandmother, the family cook, and her mom was busy working in the farmyard. When Holly’s grandmother passed away, the duties of cooking for the family fell to her. She credits her mom for teaching her how to cook without a recipe. She has fond memories of her mom’s apple pie, homemade pickles, and salt cod with pork scraps and sour cream. The farm where Holly grew up was self-sustaining and everything they ate was either grown or raised on site. The earliest memory Holly has of going to a grocery store to purchase food was when she was 16 or 17.
- Complexity medium
Mustikkapaistos (Finnish Blueberry Bake)
Minna Whitman
Dartmouth, NS
Minna’s mother had a home economics journal packed with recipes, directions for setting a table, and other household hints that a young girl might need to know as she grew. Minna believes her mother started the book at about age 7; at age 12 she entered the recipe for Finnish Blueberry Bake. Minna has taken great pride in having the book, as well as adapting Finnish recipes using ingredients found locally.
Minna credits her grandmother as her cooking inspiration. Minna spent many summers in Finland while growing up and each summer her grandmother taught her something new. She was an amazing cook and Minna wishes that she had asked for some more of her recipes. She particularly misses her coffee bread made with cardamom; a braided bread that was perfectly suited to enjoying with a cup of coffee. Although Minna has tried to replicate that recipe, she says it never tastes as good as her grandmother’s.
- Complexity medium
Wild Blueberry Brownies with Maple Mousse Cream
Elizabeth Corkery
Dartmouth, NS
As Elizabeth perused the list of ingredients required to enter the contest, her eye settled on blueberries and immediately her Wild Blueberry Brownies with Maple Mousse Cream came to mind. Blueberries are something that Elizabeth loves to work with; she enjoys picking blueberries in the summer and always has them frozen in the winter for cooking and baking.
Elizabeth was very quick to answer when asked who her cooking inspiration is—her mother. To this day she misses both her mom and her cooking.
- Complexity medium
Grilled Mac ’n Cheese Sliders with Bacon, Beer & Tomato Jam
Suzanne Dauphinee
Halifax, NS
Suzanne says that mac and cheese is a favourite in the Dauphinee home, and when she found herself with some leftovers, unsure of what to do with them, she decided to play around and create an appetizer recipe. She says quite often when people are asked to bring something to a social event, it is an appetizer, and people are often unsure about what to bring. She came up with a mac and cheese slider and then decided that it needed a little something extra. Once she found the bacon beer tomato jam recipe and combined it all together, she knew she had a winner!
Suzanne’s inspiration for cooking came early. When she was 13 she started watching Wok with Yan on television; not long after, she received a wok along with a Wok With Yan cookbook, which she still has, for her birthday.
- Complexity medium