Happy New Year everyone! It’s time for a look back on the blog posts you all liked the most in 2016. Also, it’s my blogiversary! Food & Whine is 7 years old today. I can’t believe it’s been that long already, but it’s true. I’m so happy and pretty proud of myself that I’m still blogging after all these years. It’s been wonderful to have a creative outlet like this to experiment with recipes and develop my photography and writing skills. Food blogging is still just a hobby for me, and I’m content with keeping it that way for the moment.

You may have noticed in the last year I’ve cut down on the amount of posts I write, and I don’t write as much sponsored content. This was a conscious choice, because I wanted to get back to writing what I wanted to write, when I wanted to write it. I’m pretty busy with 3 kids and a full-time job, so I don’t blog as often, but my posts are very well thought-out and I take a lot of time to create the photos and perfect the recipes.

This year I also started to change my recipe formats to printable “meal templates” so they’re more flexible for people like me who like to experiment with ingredients and use up what they have on hand. Eventually I’d like to have enough meal templates on the site for an entire month of meals, and create a flexible meal plan for readers to use. So that’s my goal. It may happen in the next year, or maybe it’ll take 2 or 3 years, but that’s okay. I’m just having a good time blogging, and that’s the main thing. I’m not as concerned about how many page views I have, or comments that I get (although I do love to read your comments!), I’m just having fun. Thanks so much for reading!

Curried Cauliflower Lentil Soup – This was the most viewed recipe of 2016, and I’m not surprised. I still make this soup a lot and it’s one of my favourite soups. I just love cauliflower and curry together, it’s such a comforting flavour combination.

How to Freeze and Reheat Rice For Quick Meals – This is a really handy tutorial for speeding up meals that use rice. If you have rice in your freezer ready to go, it really helps get meals on the table more quickly. This post also has loads of links for recipes using cooked rice from my site and other Canadian food blogs.

20 Beautiful Burgers to Make This Summer – Again, my fellow Canadian food bloggers helped out, this time by providing links to their best burger recipes. I included a printable meal template so you can experiment with your own burger creations. It was written as a summer post, but I think burgers are great any time of the year.

Welsh Cakes (AKA Pancake Cookies) – This is my personal favourite post of the year. I share a recipe from my Welsh heritage, and my daughter nicknamed them Pancake Cookies, which I thought was perfect! Welsh Cakes are kind of a cross between a cookie and a pancake.

Deconstructed Minestrone Soup – If you have picky eaters, deconstructed meals like this one are a great idea. Just lay out all the ingredients on the table and they choose what they want to put into their bowl.

Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons – This is a fun twist on the classic tomato soup and grilled cheese. I cut the grilled cheese into cubes like croutons and put them on top of a simple homemade tomato soup. Quick and delicious!

Shortcut Bibimbap – If you’re looking for more ideas for using that frozen cooked rice, here’s a great one! This is a speedy way to make Korean Bibimbap.

Create Your Own Cottage Pie – A meal template for Cottage/Shepherd’s Pie – a family-favourite in our house, and apparently in a lot of your homes as well.

Nachos For Dinner – Another meal template made the top 10! This one is for nachos – they’re not just a snack, they can be adapted into a substantial healthy dinner. Just see for yourself in this post.

Stained Glass Gingerbread Cookies – This post hasn’t had a lot of time to gain many page views, since I just wrote it in December, but it’s still in the top posts because it’s such a cool cookie recipe. I think a lot of people were surprised how easy these are to make, even though they look pretty fancy.