In her new cookbook, Easy Does It, Muskoka cottager, chef, and author Christine Flynn celebrates flexible, shortcut-positive cooking. Despite her fine dining bona fides, she defiantly grates her butter, chops in her blender, and defends the good food in cans.
Q: What’s your favourite meal to cook at the cottage?
A: “Use it twice” recipes—ones that give you great leftovers you can turn into something completely different, which is so useful.
One of my favourites starts with hot honey salmon. Bake a side of salmon for about 12 minutes—or grill it—brush hot honey on, and pop it back in the oven for another minute. You get beautiful salmon to serve with frozen peas or a green salad. Next day, it can become a salad with baby potatoes and some asparagus. You’re stretching your dollar and making food you can bring together quickly. At the cottage, I’m looking for fast.
Q: Is there a food cottagers should cook more often?
A: Homemade pizza. I make a quadruple batch of pizza dough, freeze it, and thaw some when I need it. The dough isn’t just for pizza; you can make flatbread, calzones, or little buns. Pizza’s easy, and you don’t need a pizza oven—use a regular oven or the barbecue.
Q: What do you avoid cooking at the cottage?
A: Frankly, I wouldn’t often cook anything French—it’s usually too technical for the cottage. Or any recipe with more than five steps. More steps means more dishes, and that’s something I really don’t want to deal with.
Q: How do you save time in the kitchen?
A: I choose simple recipes I can make quickly, good produce that needs little preparation, and quick-cooking ingredients, like rice or pasta. I’m also leveraging condiments and sauces that are already in the fridge. A jar of red pepper butter is an easy starting point to cobble together a meal.
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I am flexible with ingredients, because you never know which vegetable is on sale at the farmers’ market, or when you’ll find beautiful fresh asparagus or carrots at the roadside stand. I have a galette recipe that can be adapted to almost any vegetable—whatever looks fresh and wonderful or, conversely, is going soft on the counter. Chop it up and throw it in.
Sometimes, I don’t even get my knife out. Instead, the onion is getting chopped in the blender, or the potatoes are going on the box grater. I’ll use scissors to snip herbs. There are a lot of shortcuts in the cutting and prepping.
Q: Which ingredient makes cottage food better?
A: Great butter. Every time I’m in Ontario, I buy St Brigid’s and bring it home to Nova Scotia in my suitcase. It’s 84 per cent butterfat, from grass-fed Jersey cows near Lake Huron, and it’s good for scrambling eggs, buttering toast, rubbing over grilled steak, serving with lemon on vegetables—so much. Butter freezes well, so you can keep it forever.
Good olive oil, on the other hand, should be used within about six months—if you can finish a bottle in a cottage season, that’s great, but don’t leave it over winter. We now have such good butter made in Canada, but no olive trees.
I plant an herb garden at the cottage so I can walk outside to grab fresh herbs. Or, I find something growing wild, like mint. Pulling food out of the ground brings freshness and an added layer of flavour. And it doesn’t cost anything.
Q: Any memorable cottage meal triumphs? What’s the best reaction to something you’ve made?
A: I have twin daughters, and when they were about five, they were experiencing things at the cottage for the first time. We lived in Niagara then. I remember making simple quesadillas in peach season—with fresh Niagara corn, fresh Niagara peaches, melted cheese, and a bit of green salsa and sour cream.
They thought peaches in a quesadilla was absolutely crazy, but they loved it. Such a nice little meal, celebrating the best of what’s in season, creating something that my kids absolutely loved—that always feels like a win.
I want them to see me being joyful about cooking, to feel they can celebrate food even when they’re relaxing, and to see that food is part of cottage life. I want them to learn that it doesn’t take much to make delicious, interesting food.
Cottage Q&A: Does food taste better when you eat it outside?
Christine’s top three
What’s lining the fridge door isn’t clutter—it’s a whole pantry of flavour-packed shortcuts. Here are three condiment jars Christine opens often.
Mayonnaise
A familiar friend with more secrets than a billionaire’s housekeeper. The secret to crisp, golden grilled cheese? Mayo, not butter, on the bread. Secret to herb-crusted fish or chicken? Mayo as binder. And for creamy instant ramen: a dollop in the broth. Try: Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise.
Hot honey
Sweet honey and spicy chile temper each other into a well-mannered mix. Try a little over pizza, chicken, bacon (before oven-roasting), and Manchego cheese. For the sweet side, drizzle on ice cream, baklava, or cheesecake. All good. Try: Buzz Hot Honey.
Chili crisp
A mix of chile-spiced oil, crunchy fried garlic and shallots, and fermented beans was a local-only favourite in Guizhou, China, until a noodle seller started bottling hers. Spoon over rice and noodles (Asian or Italian), roast potatoes, or grilled pork. Spice up a vinaigrette or stir into butter to top steaks or boost sandwiches. Try: Fly by Jing Chili Crisp.
This article was originally published in the Early Spring 2026 issue of Cottage Life.
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