Snow Crab Rolls

Ask me any day of the week what I'd like to have for dinner and I'll probably ask for seafood. Whether it's steamed lobster drizzled with olive oil, lemon and salt, seared scallops on top of a velvety potato puree or clams tossed with al dente spaghetti and white wine, properly cooked seafood always makes the top of my list.

This week's recipe features sweet and meaty snow crab - a great alternative to lobster when cut into chunks and tossed with homemade mayo. It happened to be on sale at Whole Foods this weekend and I just couldn't resist coming home with a bagful. If this isn't an invitation to summer, I don't know what is!

Easy Weeknight Paella

Paella is not really one of those dishes you're supposed to be able to whip up in under 30 minutes. When I was at culinary school, my first partner was this amazing classical guitarist who lived in New York but was originally from Spain. When we were assigned to make a large-scale meal to feed a crowd, she offered to make her rendition of paella. I remember how difficult it was to get the dish together as a team. Not only did we have to figure out how to work as a team but we had to put together a dish by following the lead of someone who was not yet a trained chef... and someone who was used to making this dish with her family's very specific traditions, local ingredients and equipment. All to say that the dish didn't really turn out as planned and I remember it being a little bit of a fiasco.

After flipping through one of my Spanish cookbooks that suggested making paella over an open fire using  rabbit, I stared at my non-stick pan and knew I would be going the easy route. My goal wasn't going to be incredible authenticity but rather comfort, fast. Here is my rendition!