Gulf Islands, Sidney Spit, and Dungeness Crab

Laura Domela — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 19:16:40 +0000

After working yesterday morning at Starbucks (and running into our friend Mark Bunzel there!) we left the Port of Sidney and over to nearby Sidney Spit on Sidney Island. We wanted to give this whole crabbing thing a shot, and we heard there was good crabbing out there. I got a three-day license online and printed it out on the boat. (Boy is THAT different than getting a fishing license in the U.S….Canada is so chill.)

We grabbed a mooring buoy, and then set up our crab trap (we got one of these cool Flex Fold collapsibles to keep in the lazarette, and I think we may get another). We put it all together with the bait container and the 100ft line and the red and white buoy with my name and phone number on it, and out it went in about 30 feet of water. In 45 minutes or so, we had our first Dungeness crab! It was a male and it was a keeper, so in the bucket it went.

We set the trap back out and took the dinghy into shore to hike around a bit.

Sidney Spit is a very popular park in the summer due it its close proximity to Sidney. There's good hiking and quite a few campsites to reserve. There's even a ferry that shuttles people out here several times a day. But today, we were one of two boats out here, and never saw another person.

The spit disappears at high tide. (This morning all that was visible were some pilings and the waves crashing over the tip top of the sand bar out there.)

More good moss:

In the early 1900s Sidney Island Tile and Brick Company operated here on the island. Today, a few remains of the factory and tons of broken red bricks can still be found along the shoreline.

Hey, lookit! Oysters!

We did a little research to make sure gathering a few of these oysters was legit, and it was, so I guess we're having oysters AND crab for dinner!

Heading back out to Airship (white dot there among the pilings):

Looking pretty with Sidney in the background:

Checking the crab trap:

We got another one! Quite a bit larger than the first, and another male! Our luck so far with the whole crabbing thing has been great! (Also: we caught crab, in Canada, using Canadian bacon. I'm serious. There's probably some rule we just broke…like feeding chicken to chickens or something.)

Dinner was fresh crab and some local organic beer for our first course, and then we fried up a couple of fresh oysters for the second course. Those seem to reheat really well in the oven (from frozen!) so we froze the rest for another meal. (Also, we need a bigger pot for cooking crab. We had to cook one at a time…so uncool.)

We used the leftover crab in omelettes this morning (with some spinach) — yummy!

Yesterday's route (2.74 nautical miles):

Next stop: Ganges Harbor on Saltspring Island!

From the Airstream Kitchen: Crab Enchiladas

Laura Domela — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 19:00:00 +0000

I took a quick photo of our dinner last night to post with this recipe, but the photo is really terrible. iPhone photos at night of food just really aren't very appetizing, so I'm going to borrow this photo from allrecipes.com where I looked up the basic ingredients people used to make seafood enchiladas with white sauce. This is just whey they looked like (without the black olives):

Here's my version:

Fresh Oregon Dungeness Crab Enchiladas

Ingredients:

Crab meat from two whole crabs, with some held back for our omelettes in the morning
6 good tortillas of your choice
About a cup of shredded pepper jack cheese
The leftover cream cheese/cheddar cheese/jack cheese/chorizo mixture we stuffed the jalapeno poppers with (cooked crumbled chorizo, grated cheddar, jack, and some light cream cheese to make it spreadable)
1 cup half and half
1/2 cup light sour cream
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/8 cup chopped Italian parsley
2-3 tsp. roasted garlic powder
1 8 oz can of salsa verde enchilada sauce
1 cup or more of chopped spinach

Preheat oven to 350.

Shell all the crabmeat. You might wanna start this first, and start the oven preheating after the first crab.

Lay out your tortillas and spread the jalapeno popper leftover filling mix equally among them…I had about 1Tbsp per tortilla (these were large enchiladas). Then put a bunch of crab meat in there, some chopped spinach, and some grated pepper jack. Roll the tortillas up and place cozily in a rectangular baking dish.

For the sauce: in a saucepan over medium/low heat add half and half, sour cream, and butter, and melt together slowly over low heat until just warm. Add chopped cilantro, parsley, garlic powder, and salsa verda enchilada sauce. Stir to combine, then pour over enchiladas. Sauce should come to the tops of the enchiladas, and if it doesn't, mash them down a bit with a big spatula. Top with extra grated pepper jack and cook for about 45 minutes at 350.

Garnish with chopped green onions and sliced avocado and serve. These enchiladas were quite possibly the best enchiladas I've ever had. Honestly.

Here's a shot of the stuffed jalapenos before the brown sugar had completely melted. They look kinda nasty, but they were fabulous. We cooked 'em on the Traeger for about two and a half hours at 225. They were smoky and super tasty!

I think next time we'll try brushing them with a little of our bourbon-barrel-aged maple syrup.

Dungeness crab – Riveted

Gulf Islands, Sidney Spit, and Dungeness Crab

From the Airstream Kitchen: Crab Enchiladas