Aprons Required: Feeling a Little Crabby.......

I stayed so busy yesterday that it was 4 pm before I realized I hadn't taken out the steaks I'd planned to have for dinner. Opening up the freezer I saw the bag of crabcakes I'd made over the last few weeks and realized all was not lost!

Dennis and some friends put out several crabpots just down the creek all summer and caught more crabs than we could eat....although we sure tried! At one point, I had two shelves in the fridge filled with bags of cooked crabs, so we got busy picking them (well, Dennis did!) and filling up the bags with the shelled crab. I decided to make a bunch of crabcakes and freeze them for night just like last night! They keep well in the freezer and thaw out quite quickly! Some of it I put in small bags for using to stuff flounder, mushrooms and shrimp...and the rest I made into crabcakes, froze them on parchment paper on a baking sheet, then loaded them into a big bag for later!

Here's my recipe for crabcakes:

Extra-virgin olive oil

1 onion, finely minced

2 stalks celery, diced

4 garlic cloves, finely minced

1½ pounds jumbo lump crabmeat (you can use backfin, or whatever you like....I just hate shells, so I prefer the jumbo...still be careful and pick through everything!)

1½ cups fresh bread crumbs (made from 4 or 5 slices white bread with the crusts removed and

rocessed in food processor)

3 tablespoons mayonnaise, plus more if needed

1 tablespoon Maille Old Style Whole Grain Mustard

1 large egg

½ lime, juiced (lemon works great, too)

Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Make the crab cakes in advance so they have time to firm up in the refrigerator before you cook them, unless you're planning to freeze them for later!

Heat a 2-count of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery and garlic and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until the onion gets kind of caramelized. Dump that into a bowl and fold in the crabmeat, bread crumbs, mayonnaise, mustard, egg, and lime juice, mixing just until well blended. Season with salt and pepper. Shape the mixture into 6 fat crab cakes. Put them on a plate, cover, and stick them in the refrigerator to chill.

You can cook your crabcakes two different ways: If you prefer a nice browned crust, fry them up in some olive oil. Since I'm always trying to "cut the fat" (literally), I most often bake them at 350 degrees until firm....about 20 to 25 minutes.

Sooooo....what to have with the crabcakes? Well, there was some asparagus that would start to shrivel if I didn't cook them soon and some shitake mushrooms....I decided to just coat them with some olive oil, kosher salt and that wonderful Peppercorn Medley and have Dennis grill them while I baked the crabcakes.