Crab Quiche

Tonight, I made our first quiche.  I had a bunch of left over eggs from Christmas baking, and I decided to try something new to use them.  Sadly, I do not have a picture (even though I got a new camera for Christmas) because it went so fast.  I used this Southern Living recipe as a guide and made a couple of my own changes.  I can't wait to make some more!!!  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did!

Here's what I did...

Crab Quiche

Ingredients

2 cans lump crab meat, drained and chopped

4 green onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup of 6 Cheese Blend

3 large eggs

1 cup half and half

1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 tablespoon lemon peel (dried)

1/8 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 frozen pie crust

Olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F.  Saute green onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium high heat for two minutes.  Add crabmeat, Old Bay, lemon peel, and cayenne pepper for two minutes.  

Whisk eggs and half and half together in a large bowl.  Add crab mixture and cheese to the bowl and mix together.  Pour mixture into pie crust and bake for 40 minutes in the oven.  Remove from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Crab Cakes with a Roasted Red Pepper Aioli

Harris Teeter had crab legs on sale last week so I grabbed a big ole frozen bag.  I've turned into a sucker for crab cakes, and I like experimenting with different toppings and cake recipes.  Since I was out of eggs this weekend (and not feeling like going to the grocery store), I opted to use light mayo only for the cakes.  I came across this recipe on myrecipes.com, and I was immediately interested in the red pepper aioli.  It was the perfect way to get rid of the end of a jar of roasted red peppers that I had in my refrigerator.  The aioli turned out delicious (and it goes well with Triscuits, too!), but I wasn't that impressed with the crab cakes.  I opted to bake them instead of frying, and I really think that, sadly, frying does make them taste better.  I'm trying to eat a little better these days (not that a mayo aioli and crab cakes are all that fabulous for you), and I'm hoping that making small changes like baking instead of frying will start to snowball into larger ones for us.  I'll spare you the sub-par crab cake recipe (I would recommend using this one here) be definitely share the aioli one!

Here's what we did....

Roasted Red Pepper Aioli
Ingredients
1/3 cup drained roasted red pepper
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon green onion, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup light mayonnaise


Directions
Add the first 4 ingredients to a food processor and process until just a little chunky.  In a medium bowl, mix the mayo and the red pepper mixture.  Cover and chill in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.


Enjoy!

Open Crab Cake Sandwiches with a Pickled Okra Relish

During my search for something to do with my bounty of okra, I came across this recipe on myrecipes.com.  I thought that it would be a nice jumping off point for our meal on Sunday night.  I wanted to do something a little more than just a crab cake, and serving it as an open-faced sandwich sounded like a cool idea.

To say that this meal was labor-intensive was an understatement, I got started about an hour and half before my expected ETA for dinner.  Rick didn't come over because he has been busy unpacking and settling in his new place, but my friend, Kelly (of all of the wonderful Kelly Creation posts), came over to join me.  Granted, I was taking my sweet Sunday time this Sunday evening, but I doubt it would be something that I would ever do during the week. Using crab meat from crab legs instead of lump meat from a container or can (like the guy at Publix tried to talk me into getting) definitely added the time, but both Kelly and I agreed that it was amazing. Besides, using lump crab meat not only is more expensive (Publix has snow crab legs on sale this week), but it also takes all the fun out of it!

The crab cakes and relish could definitely stand alone without the open sandwich part. I gotta admit that I did the open sandwich so that I wouldn't have to make a real side dish:  We enjoyed it with some reduced fat Pringles (gotta love coupons!) with it, though.  I had to tell Rick how great it was, and I can't wait to make it for him.  I think it will definitely make our Top Ten.

Here's what I did...

Open Crab Cake Sandwiches with Pickled Okra Relish

Ingredients for Relish

• 3  tablespoons  olive oil, divided
• 1  ear fresh corn
• 1/2 of a medium-size red onion, minced
• 10  pickled okra pods, thinly sliced
•  1 clove garlic minced
• 1/2 can of diced tomatoes (no salt added type)
• 2 1/2  tablespoons  rice wine vinegar
• 1/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  freshly ground pepper
• 2  tablespoon  chopped fresh cilantro

 Ingredients for Crab Cakes

• 2  tablespoons  fresh lemon juice
• 2  tablespoon  minced fresh chives
• 1  large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2  tablespoons light mayonnaise
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1  pound  fresh crabmeat
• 1/2  cup panko (plus a little extra for a plate to coat the crab cakes)
• 1/4  cup extra virgin olive oil

To Make 'Em Open Face Sandwiches

• 2 English muffins
• Romaine Lettuce
• 1 tablespoon light mayo per muffin half
• extra virgin olive oil

Directions for relish

Put 1 tablespoon olive oil in a small plate and brush over corn,

Broil corn 5 inches from heat, turning occasionally, 13 to 15 minutes or until edges of corn kernels begin to brown (about 5 minutes and then turn); cool. Cut corn from cob.

Combine corn, remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, and remaining ingredients; toss gently.

Directions for crab cakes

Stir together first 6 ingredients; add crabmeat, and toss gently. Stir in breadcrumbs. Cover and chill mixture 30 minutes. Shape into 4 patties.

Cook crab cakes in hot oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat for  4to 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

For the sandwiches

Brush each half of the English muffins with extra virgin olive oil and toast in a toaster oven.

Place 1 tablespoon of light mayo on each English muffin half and the top with a piece of lettuce.  Top with a crab cake and then with relish.

Enjoy!

Crab Wontons

In honor of the season premiere of Deadliest Catch, we are having crab night.  This season is the last one that Captain Phil of the Cornelia Marie will be on since he passed away in February.  My heart goes out to his family, and I hope that they know how special he was to those of us loved the show.  When Rick and I first started dating, he introduced me to the show, and I fell in love with it (much like him!).  Tonight, it's crab legs and crab wontons!  I kinda made it up as I went as far as the wontons go, but here is what I did for them!  I used the sauce that we used for the shrimp on Thai Night the other night.

The wontons themselves were really tasty, but I did run into a small problem....as they got hot, some of them busted!  I don't know if I put too much crab-cream cheese mixture or what, but quite a few of them blew up!  I have to admit that I was rather distraught when this happened, and I apologized to Rick several times for ruining dinner.  Rick came up with the great idea to put holes in them before we fried them, and that seemed to work (most of the time...a few still busted).  So if anyone out there has any suggestions on how to do this successfully, I'd LOVE to hear from you!

Crab Wontons

Ingredients

3/4 cup crab meat

3/4 cup light cream cheese

1 tablespoon basil, chopped

1 tablespoon green onion, chopped

1 glove of garlic, pressed
20 wonton skins
1 egg

Directions

Mix first 6 ingredients in a small bowl. In another small bowl, beat the egg.

Take one wonton skin and brush the edges the egg.  Scoop 1 over-sized teaspoon on mixture into wonton skin.  Fold the wonton over to form a triangle and fold the edges over to seal it.  Repeat with the remaining wonton skins and crab mixture.

Heat oil to 350F in a large, heavy bottomed pan (I used my deep cast iron skillet), with enough oil to cover the wontons.

Fry wontons until golden about 2-3 minutes per side. To avoid lowering the temperature of the oil, do not attempt to fry too many at once. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Enjoy!

Taco Tuesday Night!

This weekend, I was craving tacos.  I didn't want anything fancy, just straight out of the Old El Paso Box type of taco.  I don't think that I've ever made them myself as an adult, but I do have fond memories of them from my childhood.  When I mentioned it to Rick on Saturday night, he surprised me with baby back ribs so tacos got postponed until last night.  Even though I had told him about my box taco plan, Rick said that he knew that I'd probably end up doing something different.  Of course, he was right...well, sort of.

When I stopped by Publix on my way home from work yesterday, I picked up an onion to cook with the ground beef that Rick was bring over and pre-shredded lettuce.  As I was headed toward the aisle with the Mexican food products, I passed the seafood counter and noticed that snow crab legs were on sale.  An idea popped into my head!  What about crab tacos???  Sounded yummy to me!  I ended up getting just one cluster so that we could have one "special" taco and the rest would be the normal ones.  Obviously, Rick knows me very well!  I decided to grab a lime to go with the crab legs and opted for the half hard tacos and half soft taco combo box. 

I didn't tell Rick about my surprise special tacos until he came over for dinner.  I had also gotten some of that evil cheese dip that is like the dip they serve in Mexican restaurants so that we could have a pre-meal snack while I made dinner.

We were pleasantly surprised by the results of my crab tacos and I am including the recipe here.  I got 2 small, soft tacos out of one cluster so if you are wanting to do more, I'd use that as the guide (or dosage calculation for those nursing students out there ;) ).  I used dried cilantro instead of fresh because I was afraid that it would go bad over the holidays.  I'm not including the box taco recipe since they come on the box!  Enjoy!

Crab Soft Tacos
Ingredients
1 cluster snow crab legs (1 cluster makes 2 small soft tacos)
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 teaspooon dried cilantro
Garlic powder
Shredded lettuce
Salsa of your choice
Soft taco shells
Light sour cream

Directions
Cook crab legs in boiling water until cooked.  Remove crab meat from shells and place in bowl.  Add a dash of garlic powder, lime juice, and cilantro.  Mix together and drain excess lime juice.

Place desired amount of lettuce in the middle of the soft taco shell.  Top with half of crab mixture, salsa and sour cream.  Fold taco and enjoy!

Crab and Shrimp Cakes!!!!

Even though it turned out to be a not-so-great night for UNC basketball last night, Rick and I did have a wonderful dinner. As tempting as it is to expound on how poorly my Heels played, I will concede that they are young and confine all my complaining to messageboards.  

On Thursday, we had snow crab legs, but because we didn't eat them all, I decided to make one of Rick's favorite recipes:  Crab and Shrimp Cakes!  The recipe is from epicurious.com and called Asian-Style Crab and Shrimp Cakes.  Interestingly enough, for an Asian recipe, it calls for using French bread crumbs when using panko is so much better.  This recipe is another one that is perfect for two!  I paired the crab cakes with the cole slaw that I posted a couple of months ago.  I love this meal because not only is it easy, but it is lightening fast!  You can bake them in the oven or fry them in peanut oil.  Last night, I opted for frying.  I've also been known to add green onions if I have them handy.


I served the cakes with a horseradish sauce that I made Thursday night to go with the crab legs.  I was hoping to replicate the crab sauce that Harris Teeter sells (which they have been out of for WAY too long). Usually, I serve the crab and shrimp cakes with a wasabi sauce.  I am going to include that recipe because I like it better than the horseradish sauce!


Here's the recipe that I use:

Asian Style Crab and Shrimp Cakes

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup light mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce (nam pla) or soy sauce
• 1 cup crab meat (or 6 oz canned crab meat)
  
• 4 oz chopped shrimp (peeled and deveined)
  
• 1 1/2 cups panko
• 1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil

Directions

Mix first 4 ingredients in medium bowl. Add crabmeat, shrimp and 3/4 cup panko and mix well. Season with pepper. Place remaining panko to a  plate. Drop 1/4 of crab mixture into panko and turn to coat. Shape into 2 1/2-inch-diameter cake. Repeat coating and shaping with remaining crab mixture and panko to 4 cakes.

Heat peanut oil in heavy medium skillet over medium heat. Add cakes and sauté until crisp, about 5 minutes per side. 

Another option instead of frying is to bake them in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes and flipping half way through.


Wasabi Dipping Sauce
1 cup light mayo
2 tablespoons wasabi paste (water and wasabi paste mixed together)

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 small pinch of salt


Mix ingredients together and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.