I may have missed king crab season, but I was determined that B.C. spot prawn season didn’t pass me by.

Spot prawns are local to B.C. and their season is a mere 8 weeks. Restaurants take advantage of this season and you will see them on many menus. Forget the usual rubbery ebi at your sushi joint and have sashimi spot prawns instead for a sweet and succulent treat. The best part about these little guys is that they are sustainable.

The Chef’s Table Society held their 6th annual spot prawn festival. $12 gets you a plate where you get 3 prawns and all the fixings. Vikram Vij was serving the prawns and reminded everybody to eat the prawn heads. Sounds gross, but it really is tasty.

The prawns have a sweetness to it and a salty ocean taste. R thinks they taste a bit like lobster meat. They’re pretty juicy, so the big napkins that were handed out came in handy.

False Creek Fisherman’s wharf boats sell them starting at noon daily for $12/pound (note: they are now selling for $14/pound). You’ll want to get there early as the line gets quite long. When you buy live spot prawns, you only have about 4 hours before they start getting mushy. To keep them longer, you will need to get over your squeamishness and remove their heads…while they are still alive. If that makes you feel faint, you can buy them frozen. Just be sure it’s just the tails so you don’t get mushy ones. You can purchase spot prawns at Lobsterman, Longliner, Salmon Shop on Granville Island.

Tips for attending the festival:
- Buy the pre-sale tickets online. Once the pre-sale tickets are finished, there are reserved tickets available the day of at the festival. But the line up is long, so it’s better to save yourself the hassle.
- Arrive early. A good 20-30 minutes before it starts will ensure a shorter wait and you won’t have to worry if they’re running low on anything.
- Take transit. With so many people at the festival along with the usual Granville Island crowd, parking would have been a nightmare.

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about me is that I must eat really well and make fabulous intricate dinners because I have a food blog. My passion for food is high, but laziness and lack of time and energy will usually win out. People will ask me eagerly, “What did you eat for dinner?” and I shamefully answer “Toast.”

I’ve been searching for easy to put together meals and this mushroom and black bean tortilla casserole are mostly made from pantry staples. This is a “throw random ingredients together” recipe where you can fool around with what’s kicking around in your kitchen and still turn out with something decent.

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Cookbook Revival is where I take a look at books I used to love, but haven’t used regularly.

I was not someone who cooked back in the day, I was a frozen food junkie. I never thought I would enjoy cooking.

One day I came across the Food Network and saw Rachael Ray cooking. People either hate her or love her and I was unabashedly in the latter. I loved how she made things look so easy and her catch phrases like “Yummo” and “EVOO”. Even if you don’t like her, you have to admit she makes cooking accessible to people like (the former) me.

I have her first two books, 30-Minute Meals and Cooking ‘Round the Clock. I’ve made several dishes out of each and back then I was pleased with the results. Would I still find them “repeat worthy” or would I find them lacking?

I remember the first time R and I made the Blackened Chicken Pizza. We didn’t know how to stretch out the dough and it took forever getting it right (Rachael Ray’s meals were never 30 minutes for me). I remember that the pizza was good enough for me to make a mental note to make again. I never did make it again (since 2004!).

Making the pizza again I used my own pizza dough recipe and made my own grill seasoning by mixing up some thyme, garlic granules, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. I’d add onion powder if I had any in my pantry.

I have to say this recipe is still repeat worthy. The seasoning gave the chicken a burst of flavour and despite all the cheese I threw on there, it didn’t feel heavy as the tomato salsa lightened things up. I toned down the spice as anything remotely hot will make me break out into a sweat. Not the look I go for when I take my meals into work.

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I had agreed with my friend that we would do an Easter dinner together. I would make a fabulous dessert and there would be a grand turkey with all the fixings. The Easter dinner turned into a fondue party and the fabulous dessert? Well I just moved to a new place and didn’t have a mixer and most of my baking equipment available.

I lamented to R that I probably wouldn’t be able to bake anything.

“There is stuff all on our counters. I have no counterspace!”
“I’ve seen you bake in worse situations.” he said reassuringly.
“We have no groceries! I can’t make anything!”
“The grocery store is right beside us. As long as you don’t need quail eggs from South America, you’ll be fine.”

Ok, maybe I was making up excuses. The truth is, the place is such a mess and hardly room to do anything, I felt uninspired with no motivation.

I decided on a dead simple Nigella recipe (from Nigella Kitchen) that she describes as the kitchen equivalent of crack cocaine. After getting the ingredients at the grocery store where it’d look like I’d gone on a sugar binge (8 chocolate bars were in my shopping basket), I got home and went to work.

If you are looking for an easy recipe that’s no-bake, this is it. If you are looking for a dessert that can be put together in mere minutes, then this is it. It’s so easy that I can hardly classify as “making” it.

The ingredients are simple: butter, chocolate, salted peanuts, corn syrup and Crunchie bars. The longest part of this recipe is waiting for the chocolate to set (about 4 hours) and after that the next hardest part is crushing the Crunchie bars with your hands. If you crush them into bigger pieces, you’ll get more of that texture in your dessert.

Recipe here.

Notes:
- I used all milk chocolate and it tasted well-balanced. I don’t know if I’d go with a dark chocolate.
- I’d also make this in a rectangular pan and cut it into small slices as a whole slice is a bit too rich for most people.

I’m a little (okay…a lot) late to jump on the quinoa bandwagon. I wasn’t interested in eating healthier so this little superfood was never really on my radar as something to try.

My co-worker is a quinoa lover and kept urging me to try it. I caved into the peer pressure.

The first time I tried cooking it, I put in too much water. I still find it more finicky than rice to cook with all those little faux grains sticking everywhere.

I love The Kitchn’s quinoa, black bean and heirloom recipe. It’s become a weekly ritual for me to make this because it was just so simple and flavourful. I love using cherry tomatoes instead of cutting up heirlooms because of the tiny bursts of flavour you get once you bite down on them. If I don’t scarf the entire thing for dinner it makes for a great light but filling lunch.

How do you cook quinoa? I once tried it in the rice cooker to cook it ahead of time and it became mush. What is your favourite quinoa recipe?