My Second Attempt at No-bake Jello Blueberry Cheesecake

I saw this recipe (in Chinese) a long time ago and actually made it before... with a catastrophic result: 

Figure 1. The Golden Standard

Making Pho at Home

Ever since Mr. Lilasaur and I have been living together, we have shopped at T & T almost every weekend. There was one particular time that I noticed a gentleman in front of us paying for Pho soup cubes, and that was when I realized I can probably do it at home.

Shopping list:

• Defrosted hot pot beef slices (we bought the rib eye ones)
• Pho soup cubes (I just chose the cheapest one at ~$2.50 for 4 cubes)
• Vietnamese rice noodles

Killing Sea Urchins and Eating Uni for the First Time!

We decided to take a break from crabbing this week but we'd still like some seafood to eat, so we decided to drive all the way to Fisherman's Wharf in Richmond. This is only the second time that we've been there, but we've always heard that they have really good deals on whole sockeye salmon and sole. We were so happy last time when we walked away with 3 lbs of (frozen) spotted prawns for $20 and 6 live lemons soles for $10, lol. The prices were just ridiculously cheap compared to what we usually have to pay at T & T Supermarket for lemon soles.

Today, as we descended down the walkway to get to the market, Mr. Lilasaur's attention was immediately grabbed by a crowd near the end of the walkway. He "Oooooh"ed as he gravitated towards that direction, and dragged me with him. Turns out it was a stall/ship/vendor that was selling live sea urchins at 3 for $10, and a Caucasian woman was asking what they are. The vendor (Caucasian) was laughing as he said, "Well, they're sea urchins, and this is where you get uni from. You eat it raw. White people don't like this stuff!" The lady laughed and walked away. I started to inquire about how to open the the sea urchins and he briefly described to me. During our short conversation (about 3 minutes), 2 ladies have already bought their $10 worth of sea urchins.

Pitt Meadows Corn Maze

I have been wanting to go do a corn maze for a few years now but have always forgotten about it in the Fall season. Turns out, corn mazes are usually on for the whole summer as long as there's corn growing! 

A quick search on Google lead me to the website of the Pitt Meadows Corn Maze. For $12, this place offers the older population (like us) a 17-acre maze, a bee observatory (not available when we went), a petting zoo, pig races, the Lions Goat Bridge, and a haywagon ride. For the younger kids, they have a train ride and they can also pretend to be little farmers by picking fake fruits to deliver to a fake farmer's market. This place also has a corn cannon that you can play at $2 for 3 shots. Apparently you can win a small slurpee if you can hit the target. Totally worth the $2 by the way.

When we arrived, we received this card which contains the rules and the check-list of stations:

front

The Crabbing Obsession Continued

So I have been lazy and completely ditched this blog for a while ever since the 2nd post, hahaha. In short, these things have happened since then (in chronological order):

• Bought a Seahawk 2 from Walmart for $40. The whole set includes 2 plastic paddles, a hand pump, and the rubber boat. 
• Bought life jackets for both of us (by law in Canada), they are $50 (for me, I can't swim) and $20 (for Mr. Lilasaur, he can swim). Both from Army & Navy. 
• Also bought, from Army & Navy, a 28" square cage ($40) and an additional crescent folding trap ($25). Apparently this folding trap is better quality than the $10 one we bought, but they look the same...

More About Crabbing

Just a few things that we have overheard/observed/learned from other people:

• salmon heads/trimmings work really well, except that this bait is quite pricey
• crabs seem to like Sockeye, just like we do
• Dungeness crabs like sandy areas while Red Rocks like rocky areas
• the crabs seem to come in before the high tide hours (seems to make sense, because they'd be swept in with the waves?)
• tide times for Belcarra are similar to the Deep Cove ones
• people have been more successful in catching males in May-June
• people have been more successful in catching crabs on cloudy/rainy days

Crabbing & fishing in Belcarra & Barnet

After two days of randomly asking co-workers for fun things to do around B.C. on this long Canada Day weekend, Mr. Lilasaur and I finally decided to go crab fishing on Friday night, and started our research then. 

Prep Work

In Canada, a Recreational Tidal (saltwater) License is required to crab and fish in salt water.  Since it's not that expensive, we just bought a 3-Day license for $12.32 each, after tax. Further information regarding licensing can be obtained here: DFO, Recreational Licensing. Remember to have the license with you at all times, and remember to sign. There are two main types of crabs that one can catch in B.C., the Dungeness and Red Rock. The legal size for male Dungeness is 165 mm while for Red Rock it is 115 mm. It is illegal to catch females for re-population purposes. Maximum is 4 per person. For pictures of the crabs and information on how to sex the crabs, refer to this official guide: DFO Crab Pamphlet. We heard the fine for crabbing without a license is $300, the seizure of all the crabbing equipment, and the crabs.