By Dillon Collins
There’s nothing quite like a home-cooked meal, and few do it better than Bonita Hussey.
“For me, it’s all about bringing out those recipes. I never really thought in a million years that my homemade bread recipe was going to turn into hundreds of recipes available online,” shares the Upper Island Cove native and creator of Bonita’s Kitchen.
Kickstarted in 2014, Bonita’s Kitchen has become an internationally regarded brand with a YouTube page boasting nearly nine million views, three published cookbooks and legions of fans of all ages.
“It’s sharing these amazing stories. People will comment and talk about their grandparents and parents, how they watched them cook, but never really wrote the recipes down. So it started out simple with my boys, wanting to know how to make bread. Now I feel that I’m almost like a Dear Abby,” she said. “That makes me feel good. That lets me know that everything we’ve done over this last 10 years has been enjoyed and used, and there’s a need for.”
From the cooking, to filming, production and website design, Bonita’s Kitchen is a family affair. No surprise that, when it comes to the holiday season, family is at the core of Bonita’s life.
“We spend the whole weekend cooking, eating and telling stories,” she says of her holiday traditions, sharing that her children Steven and Brad have taken on their mother’s love of cooking.
“Our boys, they’re adults now, they love to cook. They’re in there like a dirty sock. They’re like ok, Mom, we got this. And I love it, because I know that when it comes down to it, if anything should happen, they’ll have all this to look back at. My grandkids, my extended family and then my YouTube family, everyone who enjoys the channel, I love it. As (her husband) Raymond would say, ‘it warms the cockles of my heart.’ It’s all about the memory of the recipe.”
Bonita’s latest cookbook, What’s For Supper?: Home-Cooked Meals From Our Kitchen to Yours, is available now through Boulder Books and at shopdownhome.com. Visit bonitaskitchen.com for a complete list of recipes and much more.
Cream of Turkey Soup
Ingredients:
2 cups of cooked turkey
4 cups vegetable broth
½ tsp black or white pepper
½ to 1 tsp of sea salt
½ to 1 tsp of savoury
1 cup evaporated milk or whole milk
2 medium onions, chopped
2-3 medium potatoes, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
1 small parsnip, chopped
½ small turnip/rutabaga, chopped
½ cup frozen or fresh green peas
1 stick of green onion, chopped
2-3 sticks of celery, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter or margarine
3 tbsp flour
Directions:
Sauté chopped onions in butter and oil until tender and transparent, but not golden brown. Add flour, cook for a minute, then add one cup of evaporated milk and one cup of veggie broth. Stir until thickened. Keep simmering until ready to use. In a large boiler with a lid, turn the burner on a medium heat, add three cups of veggie broth or hot water, and let it boil. Peel and chop potatoes, carrots, parsnip, turnip/rutabaga and celery. Put in a bowl of cold water until ready to use. When broth is boiled and ready, drain water off veggies and add to boiler with sea salt, pepper and boil, 5 minutes. After adding cooked chopped turkey, cook for 5 to 10 minutes, then add your sautéed onions and mixture. Boil for 5 minutes. When the soup starts to boil again, add 1 tbsp butter, chopped green onion and frozen green peas. Stir in and simmer until ready to serve. Keep on low heat to stay warm. At this point, you can taste to see if you need to add more seasoning. Serve with fresh bread, rolls or potato biscuits. Yields one boiler of soup.
Bonita’s Tips: Frying onions beforehand helps to add more flavour, and you’re sure the onions are cooked. Peeling and soaking veggies before and letting them sit for a while removes starch from potatoes and cleans veggies.
