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Standardby Julie65 Comments

Feel free to hate me for what I’m about to tell you: we have too much crab. I did work for them, though; with late-night runs down to the dock in the cold rain to haul up the trap in the pitch dark, with a dead flashlight, chasing the spidery little beasts across the slippery dock and coaxing them out of the trap doors into the pink Easter bucket covered with butterflies that has become the Tofino crab bucket. All the while completely freaking myself out and trying not to get pinched. Have you heard the sound crabs make when piled on top of each other in a bucket and strapped to the passenger? Sort of half hissing, half clicking, claws creeping up over the edge in an attempt to pull themselves out. The sound I imagine giant bugs or aliens might make. But hey – for the price of a fishing license and package of hot dogs, I’m not complaining. This week I’ve becomeContinue reading

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Standardby Julie69 Comments

I know – a little ridiculous, isn’t it? Lobster? Me? On a Tuesday of no real consequence? I don’t think I’ve ever bought and cooked a lobster tail before, but found myself picking up a frozen one yesterday in order to address the issue of a glut of last year’s frozen lobster in the Maritimes (which doesn’t seem to be affecting prices on the prairies at all) on the show this morning. Marketers are calling it the new bologna. (Which, I can’t resist saying, is baloney. Bologna is selling for $2-$4 per pound, lobster is still around $30+ for the frozen stuff.) If a couple weeks ago I went through a cake phase, I’m now tripping through a sort of dumpling phase; these food themes seem to come out of nowhere. I never plan them; if I do, they hardly ever pan out. This week I have made peroghies, two kinds of ravioli, pork wontons, spinach pasta (I suppose that doesn’t technically count, although itContinue reading

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Standardby Julie42 Comments

I was feeling rather uninspired today, but felt I owed it to the avocado to make an effort. Then I remembered that a photographer from the Herald was coming at dinnertime to shoot photos of W helping me make dinner, and wow, it’s fortunate that we had a nice soft avocado for him to stand on his stool and cut, but now I kind of had to make something of it. More than avocado and goat cheese on toast, anyway. So I went to epicurious and punched in “avocado”. Then “avocado shrimp”, because I still have to make good on my promise to chip away at the freezer. And came up with this, which looked promising. As always, I tweaked it a bit, and since I couldn’t trust myself to not overcook shrimp under a broiler and my barbecue is still out of gas, I gave them a quick saute in the ever-present cast iron skillet you must be getting tired of seeing. It was pretty good; perhaps too exoticContinue reading

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Standardby Julie51 Comments

I’m starting to feel guilty now when I repeat myself in the kitchen. But on Friday, when I made a vat of ceviche for the party, the thrifty part of me threw the halibut bones and shrimp shells into a pot of water and made stock. Which wouldn’t fit in the fridge, so today I had to come up with some use for it. I wasn’t in the mood for seafood chowder, and one of the best uses of great quantities of stock is risotto. (My parents are under the impression that risotto is made with plenty of cream, which is understandable considering it’s so creamy, but this creaminess comes from the starch in the rice coming out to meet the stock, and of course the Parmesan cheese you stir in at the end. You could also add a dab of butter at this point, but I generally don’t bother.) This batch was better than the last time I made it – I cut backContinue reading

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Standardby Julie51 Comments

OK everyone, listen up. If you are at all a shrimp lover, or run with shrimp lovers, you will want to take particular note of this. This is food of the best kind – it requires about 5 minutes, is brain-numbingly good, doesn’t heat up the house, is perfect for company, and is really more an idea than a recipe per se. Tonight the dinnertime decision-making process went something like this: we rolled in from Edmonton at about 5, and since there was little in the fridge and neither of us felt like cooking, Mike had the pizza menu in his hand. Then I noticed a lone avocado in the fruit bowl – it had been rock hard when we left on Friday, but was now perfectly ripe. I told Mike to put down the phone and make guacamole – his one (and only, unless you count Kraft Dinner) specialty. There were still some corn tortillas in the depths of the freezer, so I pulled thoseContinue reading

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Standardby Julie50 Comments

OK, what we really had for dinner was the last pickings of bison rotini, but I already told you about that. And W ate most of it, because we were still full from lunch; A came over and we sat out in folding chairs in the yard and drank cold pink fizzy wine and ate pad Thai, and that’s far more interesting. I had promised to make it, and then when I went to soak my rice noodles I discovered I didn’t have any. I suppose my mission to deplete a seemingly bottomless stash of assorted pasta and noodles has been successful. We had fresh Asian noodles though, so I figured that was close enough. Pad Thai is fast (if you get everything ready to go before you start), and a perfect way to use up leftover roasted chicken, tofu, or even pork, and if you keep a bag of shrimp in the freezer it’s easy to add a handful to dishes such as this.Continue reading

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Standardby Julie40 Comments

I made for CBC this morning, and a chunk of leftover salmon, and so looked up a quick chili rub, thinking that a) it was something I hadn’t done before, and b) it would give the cool, sweet fruit something to calm down. To be truthful I’m not really a fan of fruit salsa; I don’t know why, but it never really did it for me. But it went well with the salmon, and ended up getting right in there with the salad. I sort of morphed a couple recipes I found and ended up with a paste made with 1 teaspoon each: canned chipotle chiles en adobo, chili powder, dried oregano, sugar, lime juice and olive or canola oil, a sprinkle of coarse salt and a crushed clove of garlic. (If you don’t like things spicy, leave out the chipotle or cut it back a bit – the smoky adobo sauce adds a great flavour, but I dig that most people don’t have cannedContinue reading

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Standardby Julie62 Comments

You may have heard of SoBo, the eatery in Tofino everyone talks about, and likely the only little purple catering truck to make EnRoute’s Top Ten Best Restaurants (in 2003). We used to visit the truck when it was parked behind the surf shop for “killer” fish tacos, polenta fries (which I have since recreated myself with great success, and which was one of W’s favorite finger foods as a toddler) and the best Key lime pie that could possibly exist. They have since moved into an actual building without wheels, across the street from the liquor store. When we stopped in this morning for corn bread (again, the Best Ever), they were busy squeezing row after row of golf ball-sized Key limes (named for the Florida Keys, they have a far different flavour than the Persian limes you’re probably used to seeing at the grocery store) for the Key lime pies, and I could hardly wait to go back for a late lunch, whichContinue reading

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Standardby Julie49 Comments

Halibut tonight – so fresh it was completely low-maintenance. We were all tired and hungry, wiped out from the sun and wind and covered with sand, and felt not at all like cooking dinner. My mom brushed the fish with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, and tucked lemon wedges between the slabs to keep them moist, then broiled the lot on high for a few minutes, just until the fish flaked on the edge but was still juicy in the middle. I love thick, meaty halibut, and even W ate it (granted, it was dipped in ketchup), but one of the best elements of the whole meal were the slightly charred, caramelized chunks of lemon. (Mom says as I write this: don’t forget to tell people to suck on the chunks of lemon.) Alongside, the requisite corn on the cob, a bagged coleslaw (I think these go for around $7 in Tofino) doctored up with a grated apple and throw-together dressing of low fatContinue reading

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