Crab Cakes and a Mini Fridge!

Alright, so, I'm really proud of myself thus far. I've already lost almost 2 pounds, and I've been really diligent about bringing my lunch to work. I was spending a lot of money on lunches because I refused to either A) Make my own lunch, or B) Put anything in the fridge in the kitchen at work because it's like a science experiment. So my dad brought me a mini fridge he had in the basement at my parents' house. Now it's stocked full of fruit cups, yogurt, lite cream cheese, bagel thins and water. Plus it let's me bring my lunch to work. My new favorite thing is  a whole wheat pita pocket spread with lite chive cream cheese and stuffed with lettuce and turkey. It's what I've brought for lunch the last few days and it tastes really yummy.

Anyway, how about some Crab Cakes! My mom and I found this recipe online and while I mostly followed it, I didn't really measure everything exactly. So, really, they're not hard to make at all! We mixed plain panko bread crumbs and mayonnaise with lemon juice, black pepper, red pepper sauce, parsley, green onion, dijon mustard and egg yolks. After mixing that together, I gently folded in about 12-16 oz fresh crab meat. The recipe called for 18 oz canned lump crab meat, we used  fresh since we had all that crab! If you're going to use fresh crab meat, check it for shells! We had 2 containers of crab, I dumped the first one in and picked through the second one since I saw a shell. Oops! Should have picked through both of them because Frank and momma found a few shells!

After I folded the crab meat into the binding mixture I made the breading mixture. More panko bread crumbs, melted butter and old bay seasoning. I know that panko bread crumbs are unsalted, I added a sprinkle of Pete's Salt (the seasoned salt Frank's godfather makes)*, and since Old Bay seasoning can be a little strong, I didn't measure it, I just added it to taste. I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup and packed down the cakes and coated them with the buttered bread crumbs and placed them on a baking sheet. The recipe said measured 18 crab cakes and I made 17. So it was pretty spot on. We baked them in the oven for more time than is said and didn't flip them because when we tried the first one, it almost fell apart.

The results? Delicious! My only comment would be that next time, I will absolutely ad more flavors, like some Pete's Salt to the crab mix, more onions and some garlic powder. But man oh man, with some tarter sauce, they were so good! Damn near restaurant flavor! You can find the recipe we used here on AllRecipes.com. Though we substituted green onion for chive, used fresh crab rather than canned and used less Old Bay seasoning and added Pete's Salt.

Also, I've designed and printed out sheets to help me plan dinners each week. This way I know what we're having and can take things out of the freezer accordingly, rather than arguing with Frank about what we're having for dinner when I get home from work. It also has a little box for "notes". Like last night I made Crab Cakes at mom's house, and tonight I'm making a skillet pizza dish, but we'll be eating at Frank's parents', so it gives me a place to note that. While I was this morning I learned that if you serve dinner from the stove or the counter rather than from the table, your almost 50% less likely to have a second or third helping because you really make yourself think about if you want to get up and serve yourself if you're not still hungry. Which is what we do in the Box because there's not enough room on the table, but still, I think I'll keep this in mind anyway. If you'd like to receive a PDF copy of the meal planner, feel free to comment here, contact me on facebook, or if you know my email, send me a personal email.

I will definitely update tomorrow with how the pizza skillet goes. It should be really good!

Absolutely,

The Lady

*A note about Pete's Salt: We have no idea what's in it, and he won't tell anyone. It's a seasoned salt, but it's much different than Lawry's. It's mostly white, has hints of garlic and onion as well as oregano or parsley. I've gotten some from Frank's mom for my parents and my sister, and Frank and I use it almost regularly instead of table salt. In Frank's fathers house, the only reason they have table salt is for pasta water. Pete's salt is used for everything else. Including salting meat for the barbecue, chicken for a saute, vegetable, potatoes, pork, beef, stir fry. EVERYTHING!