Valentine's Weekend 2010

I honestly think that Valentine's Weekend this year was absolutely perfect.  Rick and I spent the whole weekend together.  Friday night, we got snow!  For the first time since I've lived in the Charleston area, we got a "real" snow!  Rick and I also had our first snowball fight with the neighbors.  I was sad to see it all melt away the next day.  We kicked off Saturday with waffles made from the waffle maker.  

For dinner, we decided to have snow crab legs in honor of the snow and for our Valentine's Day meal!  Another reason that we opted for the crab legs was in honor of  Captain Phil Harris who was one of the captains on the Discovery Channel show, Deadliest Catch.  When Rick and I first started dating, he introduced me to that show, and we have been enjoying it ever since.  We were both sad to hear that Phil passed away from a stroke earlier in the week.


One of the best part of the meal was the Crab Sauce that I got at Harris Teeter.  I have yet to try to make it myself, but it's a white sauce with horseradish in it.  I love that stuff!!!  Rick and I served the crab legs with baked potatoes, and we decided to try to make hushpuppies for the first time.  The first ones we tried weren't so great, and we added a little more sugar and salt.  The final results were pretty good.  We added finely minced onions to a couple of them, and those were great!  The process was a slow one, and we did them one at a time.  The coolest part, though, is that we made them together!  

Hushpuppies
Ingredients
2 cups of cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar 
1/4 onion, finely minced
1 cup buttermilk

1 egg, beaten

Vegetable Oil

Directions
Heat vegetable oil in a deep cast iron skillet.  Mix all the dry ingredients and onions together in a medium size bowl.  Add buttermilk and egg to the mixture.  When the oil is hot, add tablespoon-fulls of hushpuppy mix to it.  Remove the hushpuppies when they become a golden brown.  Place them on a plate that is covered with a paper towel to drain.