What I've Been Cooking Lately - May 2025 Edition

Maybe I should become a real chef.

Even though the main focus of this Substack is like, movies and media. I don’t want to discredit how much I love being in the kitchen and how much joy it brings me by pretending I don’t want to write and share about what I’ve been making lately.

Here’s a list of my favorite things I baked, cooked, and drank in May of 2025!

No Pain, No Gain Main Dishes

For my first attempt at cooking with pork belly, I made this Creamy Miso Udon. Though it was supposed to be a soup it ended up more of a creamy pasta sauce but was still DELICIOUS- especially with all the toppings I added: Braised pork belly, green onion, and nori. YUM!

I love bagels with smoked salmon/lox SO MUCH. I made myself some for the first time in ages (Did you know you can get 50g of smoked salmon for $3?) and I am definietly adding it back into my at-home lunch rotation. Watch me make it here on my TikTok!

Things I did not grab photos of but were also big hits with my future in-laws were:

This Baked Ziti recipe that uses cottage cheese instead of ricotta (Budget friendly, baby!)

A tried and true classic that my family has been making for 20 years: This Kraft Russian Dressing Chicken recipe. Serve with rice! It’s so easy and such a filling dinner.

Sweeties and Treaties

I’ve made these cookies from Sweetest Menu a few times and they are to die for! They disappear from the kitchen so quickly I haven’t even had the chance to take a good photo, so here’s a cropped version of my boyfriend on his 3rd cookie of the morning (He’s on the Santa diet).

Not sure if any of your religiously check Flashfood, but I recently got a produce bag with about 15 mandrins and clementines that needed to get used up. I came across this recipe for a Clementine Vanilla Quick Bread and it was so good it made me forget to film a taste test for the TikTok video I filmed while I was baking it. Hell, I didn’t even grab a proper photo of it before we ate half of it in one night.

I’ve been kind of going crazy on the cobbler train lately and have made THREE just in the month of May. I made this peach cobbler recipe twice, as well as this cherry cobbler recipe. Making these made be realize maybe I actually like adding ice cream on top of desserts?

I made this Raspberry Olive Oil cake for Mother’s Day dessert cause my mom loves raspberries. It was good! Turned out all right but my oven is really struggling to bake things all the way to the centre in one go, so I think this spent almost 2 and a half hours in the oven. I love olive oil cakes!

Drinkies and Sippies

I slightly altered this recipe from

Jenny Osipova

‘s Dragonfruit Green Tea due to there being no pink dragonfruit in Nova Scotia and also never having agave syrup on hand. I subbed the homemade dragonfruit juice for bottled stuff that surprised me at the grocery store one day and nixed the agave syrup because I never have any on hand (and the pre-made juice already has added sugar). Anyways, drink of the summer IMO (in my opinion).

Matcha has been on the rise for me lately and having it with my Brown Sugar Vanilla Syrup is just the perfect afternoon sweet treat. Watch me make it at 8am in my pyjamas here.

I really, really love juice but am also hyper aware of how much sugar can be in a tall, crisp, cool, refreshing glass of juice. A few months ago my younger sister told me she’s been drinking orange juice and water mixed (Similar to what you would give a toddler). Let me state for the record: Orange juice and any flavor of sparkling water is a delicious combo that is equal parts hydrating and sweet.

Combining the best of both worlds, I was quite thirsty one evening cooking dinner for my parents (I “private chef” for them like once a week). There was mango juice in the fridge, but not enough for a full glass and I had no sparkling water with me. The solution? Iced green tea and mango juice baby!

This was a hit with my siblings (i.e. they are all copycats and wanted a cool drink too) so I ended up making like 4 of these after sending someone for more mango juice.

Of course, I needed to grab a photo for this article and have no mango juice, so I juiced 2 mangos I also had from my Flashfood produce bag. Basically make and cool 2-3 bags of iced tea in like a litre or so of water. Add ice to cup. Fill halfway with green tea, fill to the top with mango juice, squirt a lil’ lime juice in for fun. Drink up!

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And that’s what I made in May! I’m really excited for summer fruits and veggie flavors to start popping up next month… Expect a lot of tomato sandwiches…

Let me know your favorite recipies so I can try them next month!

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