dinner, sorted: shrimp spring roll salad bowls with sesame miso vinaigrette
another hot/cold salad for the win!
Hello! I’m back from a lovely weekend away on the sunshine coast. Great to get away but I did miss you.
We went to Sechelt which is a lovely small town a 1.5 hour ferry ride away. It’s just past Gibsons where you might recognize if you’re familiar with the show the Beachcombers where they filmed!
Since this is a pretty niche trip I won’t be doing a full guide to the city, but I will share some highlights here. And thank you to everyone who suggested spots, 99% of the stuff we did was suggested by one of you! 🥰
Food highlights:
A classic diner breakfast at Village Restaurant. A hidden gem. Very good service, decent food at a good price, and 100% old school diner vibes.
Banoffee ice cream at E.B. Ice cream. 10/10
Got the meat sweats at Lucky’s Smokehouse. Incredible ribs, decent other meats. Would not recommend the potato salad. But I loved the small town vibes.
Basted baker. I loved my egg’s benny on their house-made biscuits (not pictured), but could pass on the hashbrowns. DEFINITELY get a sweet treat for dessert.
Lunita’s in Gibsons. Excellent ceviche and out of this world esquites! Could take or leave the tacos.
Persephone brewery in Gibsons. This place has a soft spot in my heart because of their incredible business practices. They partner with the Sunshine Coast Association for Community Living to provide employment opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities and have a strong focus on community and environmental impacts. Burgers and beer were also incredible! If you go nowhere else, go here.
Other fun things we did:
Did a few nice and easy hike into the woods around Porpoise Bay.
Visited the Half Moon Bay General store. I think we just happened to show up on their opening day and the store was verrrry cute. They have lots of local vendors and I treated myself to some colorful pottery.
Beers and battleship at Batch44. Food was fine, beer was good, games were great.
Stocked up on way too many stocking stuffers at Sunshine Coast Olive Oil.
5 & 6. Visited Local Tourist which had tons of cool speciality knick knacks - many food related 🫶
Saw a baby bear right outside our Airbnb window! Don’t worry we stayed inside.
8 & 9. Enjoyed some cider and cornhole at Sunday Cider. Kyle doesn’t drink beer so we loved the abundance of cideries around. This one was definitely my fave! Perfect for a sunny afternoon.
Now, let’s get your dinner, sorted…
robe dinner: 10-minute chilaquiles
👀 video | 📝 recipe in caption
zucchini lasagna
👀 video | 📝 recipe
hot honey butter zucchini over whipped feta
👀 video | 📝 recipe
shrimp spring roll salad bowls with sesame miso vinaigrette
⏱️ TOTAL: 30 minutes including defrost time!
🍽️ SERVES: 4 | DIFFICULTY: 🟢 | DISHES: 🟢
Why I love this one:
this dressing is EVERYTHING. It’s a standout, great for a marinade or a salad or a bowl, it will be a new staple in my capsule kitchen.
this 30-minute meal includes defrosting your meat
this is equally great warm or cold so this is great to prep ahead - WIN
you can swap out the protein and cook it just the same
it’s pretty darn healthy despite being kind of a noodle bowl
How I came up with this one:
knew I wanted another hot/cold salad
was thinking more vermicielli vibes but honestly I always find them kind of bland so I pivoted to rice noodles
had an idea for a miso-sesame vinaigrette I wanted to use and bing bang boom it all came together so well!
wanting to keep this as easy/fast as possible, I opted for shrimp since it defrosts and marinates super quick
What I learned along the way:
for a really good sear on shrimp, you just have to scorch them otherwise they’ll overcook. Prepare for your fire alarm to go off.
while tail on shrimp look cooler, they are a pain to eat. I actually ended up dicing the cooked shrimp up into smaller pieces when actually eating.
while delicious, wasabi peas are very overpowering and do not make a good salad topper (here anyways).
herby noodle salad with poached chicken and crispy shallots: very similar vibes but with a lovely flavor-packed poached chicken and an extra special crispy bite.
crispy rice paper spring rolls: looking for less bowl, more roll? These are my go to dinner when I don’t know what to make.
spicy jammy tomato prawn bucatini: if you’re digging the prawns but want to go a heartier route.
Browse all my recommended tools in one place: Complete Kitchen Collection.
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