Delicious Lunch!

Early this morning while on my walk, I noticed that the bell peppers desperately needed picking. The Purple Hull Peas were starting to ripen, too, so I grabbed a basket and started my chores. Now I only have six bell pepper plants but each had five or six peppers on it, so I managed to get quite a few of those but only enough peas to make a mess for lunch. After chopping the peppers and bagging them for the freezer, a thought occurred to me! I should make crab cakes for lunch! Now, I love crab meat almost any way it is prepared and living on the Bay, it is readily available. So I pulled some white clump crab meat out of the freezer (and note..this is the real deal..not Krab with a "K"..I refuse to eat that stuff!). Setting aside some diced peppers, I chopped celery and onions. Twenty minutes later, I was enjoying delicious crab cakes with homemade tartar sauce and a side dish of crowder peas! In my mind, there is nothing better!

Crab Cakes

1 1/2 lbs white lump crab meat

1 cup diced bell peppers

1 cup diced celery

1 cup diced onions

1 clove of garlic (crushed)

2 tablespoons butter

2 eggs (beaten)

3 cups panko bread crumbs

2 tablespoons fresh basil (chopped)

1 teaspoon each of cayenne pepper, black pepper, and paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup yellow cornmeal (or FishFry) for coating

an additional bit of butter or a little oil for frying

In a large skillet, place two tablespoons of butter and heat to just melted. Add the peppers, celery and onions. Fry this down a bit on medium heat until tender and then add the garlic. Remove from heat since garlic tends to get bitter if over cooked. Pour all of this in a large bowl. (You will reuse the skillet so don't wash it!) To the onion mixture add the crab meat, bread crumbs, basil and seasonings. Pour in the beaten eggs and stir well. Let rest for about five minutes. While you wait, reheat the skillet on low heat, melt another two tablespoons of butter (or use oil). Form the crab mixture into nice big balls and slightly flatten. Place in the cornmeal (or FishFry) and coat both sides. Turn up the heat to medium high. Now carefully place the crab cakes in the skillet and fry for about five minutes on each sides until nice and brown adding more butter as needed. Drain on paper towels, and serve with tartar sauce! This will make ten to twelve very large crab cakes! I wish you all could have been here for lunch to share this with me! Instead, I froze ten of these for a later date!