Crabby Challenge

    Pun intended, there.  These crab cakes put me in a frustrated mood at first.  I followed a recipe from Cooking Light's April issue entitled Crab Cakes with Spicy Remoulade.  The recipe was part of a special "40 Fast and Easy Meals" feature, which is one of my favorite parts of the magazine.  And after a weekend of eating like crap (tailgate food, Mexican twice in one day, baked ham), we wanted to opt for two lighter/meatless meals this week.  However "fast" this recipe was, it definitely wasn't easy.

     That is, until I employed a little trick I learned from one of the restaurants I used to work in.  I should probably back up a bit and tell you that a few years ago, I attempted to make shrimp cakes.  I worked at a Southwestern restaurant when I first moved to Milwaukee and they had the tastiest appetizers--or "tapas," as we called them.  Tapas were the best part of the menu: shrimp cake sliders, seared scallops, grilled shrimp, fresh-made guac & salsa...the list went on.  It's definitely a penchant of mine to attempt to remake my favorite restaurant food at home.  I'm not usually good at it; the shrimp cakes were a perfect example.  Generally when you make "cakes" or meatballs of any kind, you use an egg to sort of glue things together.  Not only did I accidentally omit the egg, I forgot to pop the mixture in the fridge so that it'd be easier to mold.  That night's feasting ended in sauteed shrimp crumbles.

     There was one thing I'd seen the cooks doing, however,  and it's the trick I'm going to strongly advise you to employ.  Take any jar lid (even your mayo lid would work here), place a sheet of plastic wrap inside it, and then pack your crab cake mixture in it.  This compacts your mixture into a tightly, evenly-formed patty that will not only hold together, but will cook evenly as well.  The plastic wrap ensures that nothing gets stuck inside the lid.  It'll look something like this:
 

   
     However, before I remembered this trick, I spent about 5 minutes trying to keep the first patty (and subsequently, my spirits) from crumbling and falling apart--and I even remembered the egg this time.  So, fear not, you lovers of the homemade crab cake!  I urge you to give this a shot.  Here's more aptly-helpful photographic evidence:

Be sure to flip it upside down in order to remove your cake.

 

And rather than dredge in panko, I just held each patty and gave each side a little dusting, pressing the crumbs in to finish.

Dust away.

As you can see, even with this little trick, it's not a perfect enterprise.

This was also my first experience with homemade remoulade!  You won't be surprised to hear that I forgot to add the ground red pepper.  But for those of you with milder palates, rest assured, it's still tasty without!

Pre-fry.

Post-fry.  Not bad, eh?

 

Rounds out a pretty delicious meal!  Serving size is two cakes--but that's a little too small of a meal for me.  Three cakes was still less than 500 calories.  Also, because multi-tasking in the kitchen isn't my best modus operandi, I just made up a "salad" of arugula, red onion, s&p, and lemon juice, then garnished with some fresh basil from my cheater garden.  

Tilling Your Plot

     Without the candy coating: gardening is a shitload of work.  I mean, really.  This stuff's not for sissies.  You think your old gardening gran is so meek and fragile, but she's a badass.  There's so much physical labor involved that, according to my diet tracker, gardening burns almost 300 calories an hour.  Shoveling and heaving and pulling--somehow even my hamstrings were sore after last weekend's endeavors?

     Allow me to set the scene for you.  The entire area of the garden was overgrown with chest-high weeds.  Abby Hoffman could've hidden in there.  Step one: bring out the weed-whacker.  And don't forget to use the strongest plastic ties you can find.

     Upon felling the forestry and examining its floor, we realized we had to dig up all the roots and top level grass that the weed whacker couldn't tackle.  Step two: grab a shovel.  Or two.  And volunteers, if you can.

     After two hours of over-turning soil, shovelful by shovelful, we re-examined and realized we needed something that required less effort and could produce maximal results.  Preferably something motorized.  Step three: Call Home Depot and rent a rototiller.  I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough.  It took us two hours to dig up one tenth of the garden.  It took us half as much to till the entire plot after acquiring our rental.

    Step four: call your dad.  When I called mine, old My-Guy informed me, to my dismay, that we have to pick out all the roots we dug up.   Step four is still in-process.  The most we've managed to do is rake out the stuff on top of the soil.  Re-implement step two.  If you don't, you're putting your plants/seeds into a terror zone.  Any leftover roots or weeds will strangle and kill anything you attempt to grow.

     I'll be keeping you posted.

I have no idea how large in numerical area our plot is, but it's approximately 12 hours+hand blisters+sore muscles big.

The depth perception in this photo doesn't do it justice, but there were two HUGE weed systems--like, larger than basketballs--rooted here.  It took us an hour to dig each out.

We also spent time mulching around the trees in our yard.

This is our plan for 2012 plant & harvest.  Because we both grew up on this staple, we're going to be planting raspberry bushes as well.

I refer to this little joy as my "cheater garden."  It's called an Aerogarden and requires almost zero effort beyond refilling the water trough, adding nutrient packets, and minimal pruning.  Here we have monstrous cilantro and basil plants, and a growing assortment of thyme, oregano, and parsley.

    

Can anyone (mom?) identify this flower bush?  It just started blooming like crazy once we got all the warm weather two weeks ago.

It also attracts tens of bees, which provide a soothing hum in our backyard.

Tuscan Bean & Kale Soup

     This was an interesting enterprise.  After I wrote about the beautiful weather we were having, April came to its senses and grew cold and rainy.  This is fine with me, since I'd rather not rush the spring.  Sure, I love warm weather, but I also appreciate seasonal changes.  So there's no snow, but there's no consistent temperature either.  This makes for some extra time for hearty food endeavors like soups, casseroles, and whatever else is blasphemous on the summer palate.  I found this recipe in Cooking Light: Tuscan Bean Soup.  The original recipe calls for escarole, but I find that any one dark, leafy green is an ample substitute for any other.

Prep pile.

Stirring in the thyme & parmesan rind.

Delights.

Kale is becoming a staple around here--delicious in soups, stir-fries, and on their own as chips.

As it turns out, the parmesan rind should either be harder or older.  Mine melted, but the soup was still insanely tasty: that perfect combination of flavorful, not-too-creamy, & not-too-salty.

Something sacred: breaking bread.

Dinner is served.

Buon appetito!

That's one spicy meatball!

  

...but only because I added a lot of crushed red pepper.  I'm telling you, it's probably in my top five spices.  Followed by chipotle pepper, salt, garlic, and thyme.  What are yours?

     I followed this recipe from Cooking Light entitled Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs.  This was about the easiest thing in the world.  Boil pasta, chop onions, saute with (jarred) red sauce, brown meatballs, done.

     Well, actually, it was a little more than that, there's some combining and a little prep work involved, but this was as close to a 30-minute meal as I've ever come--save microwaving anything.  I apologize for the lack of photos, this recipe breezes by just that fast.  The trick to these meatballs being so dang flavorful is that they're made with Italian turkey sausage, rather than plain old ground whatever.  I, of course, jazzed it up with about 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper.

     So after you form the meatballs, you brown them on all sides, and remove from the pan.  Then in go the onions and garlic, followed by the jarred sauce (I like Ragu brand, garlic, onion, and olive oil flavor).  Then you put the meatballs back in to finish cooking and boil your pasta.  The whole thing gets plated less than 10 minutes later.  Garnish with grated parmesan and torn basil leaves.  Here's a close up in case your salivary glands need some work: