Welcome to Homemade, a Winnipeg Free Press project celebrating home cooking in Manitoba.
We regularly publish recipe features that highlight the communities, traditions and flavours of this wonderfully diverse province. Fill out the submission form below to have your dish considered for a future story — recipes can be beloved family favourites or everyday staples. Please use imperial measurements (tsps, cups, lbs, etc.) when submitting and make sure to tell us the story behind the dish.
In 2022, we published a community cookbook, entitled Homemade: Recipes and Stories from Winnipeg and Beyond, to mark the newspaper’s 150th anniversary and its long history of culinary journalism. An E-version of the cookbook can be purchased here.
Join our Homemade Facebook group for home cooking discussions, recipe swapping and event announcements.
Have a question? Contact us at homemade@winnipegfreepress.com.
Read our latest recipe features:
Roots and vines
For Suzan Palani, harvesting grape leaves to make Kurdish dolma is a way of connecting past and present
Dappled evening light filters through the branches above while Suzan Palani inspects an overgrown section of bush. The grape leaves she’s looking for are mingling haphazardly with other species of greenery. She wants to be certain before picking.
Putting down roots
At Rainbow Community Garden, newcomers to Canada grow food and forge relationships
Black beans, hot peppers, tomatoes and cabbage. Like many other Winnipeg gardeners, Henriette Mukesa’s seedlings are off to a slow start thanks to a waterlogged spring. Still, there’s plenty to eat in the shoulder season.
Catch of the way
Fishing almost since infancy, Eric Labaupa is devoted to the art of fishing and the taste of Manitoba walleye by way of the Philippines
WINNIPEG BEACH — The rod twitches lightly and Eric Labaupa jumps out of his seat. The telltale sign of a nibble. He pulls up to set the hook and starts reeling.
Everyday food, extraordinary memories
Handmade family cookbook holds more than recipes; it’s a portal to the past
At one point in time, Michelle Trudeau was the proud owner of more than 500 cookbooks.
Pot luck
Chance find of ceramic shard led artist to create her own clay cookware, reclaim traditional diet
There was no hunting or searching. All she had to do was look down. The jagged earth-toned pottery shard was resting in the rocky shallows waiting to be found, as if some unseen being had laid the artifact in her path.
Perogy hotline raises funds for Ukraine, nourishes the soul
A jangly ringtone breaks through the din of conversation in the basement hall. Shirley Kowalchuk, wearing a white apron and a hairnet, leaves her post at the packing table and hustles over to the landline on the opposite wall.
Wishes and dishes
Recipe Swap column’s call-and-answer format created community of home cooks
Basement floods, international moves and at least one husband who “tidied up too much” — recipes go missing for all kinds of reasons. For nearly 25 years, Free Press readers turned to the paper’s Recipe Swap column to track down long-lost and elusive dishes.
Sweet story
Traditional Chinese New Year dessert steeped in meaning, family tradition
Steam billows into the kitchen as Jimmy Le pulls the lid off the wok. He moves slowly, careful not to spill the batter, as he lowers a shallow cake pan into the hot-water bath. The next time he lifts the lid, the pale gold liquid will have transformed into a dense, sticky dessert signifying growth and upward momentum for the year ahead.
Domestic diva
In the 1930s, Free Press readers turned to Mrs. Madeline Day to help them get dinner on the (perfectly set) table
The dining room was set with fine china, gleaming silverware and crystal glasses. A lush bouquet bloomed at the centre of the table, while a canary chirped merrily in a nearby cage.