Crab Cakes

I have been wanting to make crab cakes for awhile, but since crab meat is SO expensive and I hear a lot of people say the recipes are always hit or miss, I didn't want to try until someone recommended a recipe - so I got this recipe from my brother-in-law's brother.....He gave me a few tips, and I tweaked the recipe slightly on my own, it ended up really good, but I made mine really big (the whole recipe made 6 crab cakes...) so they took a little longer than I expected to cook, so you can make yours as large as you like or depending on how many people are eating with you. Jeremy ate 2 crab cakes and I ate 1 and maybe 2 bites of a second, they were very filling. So if you like crab cakes - try these! (I think if i make them again I might add some red peppers or onion?!)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. lump crabmeat
• 1-2 cups bread crumbs (I ended up using 1.5 cups, but you just have to eye it)
• 2 cups mayonaise (I used Vegenaise - mayo with no eggs and NO cholesterol)
• 2 tbsp. dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp. Old Bay seasoning
• 1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp. horseradish (I used very hot horseradish - the less creamy version)
• 1 egg
• Juice of 1 lemon

Steps:

• Check the crabmeat for shells (mine had none - I used Chicken of the Sea)

• Place crab meat in bowl, add bread crumbs until evenly distributed with crab (I started with 1 cup and ended up adding an additional 1/2 cup once I started adding the sauce)

• In a 2nd bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients until well incorporated

• Slowly mix the sauce into the bowl with the crab meat, add until the mixture is moist but NOT soupy (this is where I decided to use some more bread crumbs in order to use the entire sauce mixture - but you don't necessarily have to use all of the sauce - just eyeball it to the consistency of your liking)

• Preheat oven to 375
• Cover a baking sheet with foil, lightly spray with cooking oil.
• Form the crab mixture into patties to your liking (the original recipe stated to put them in 4-6oz patties - I have NO idea how to gauge that - I made mine pretty big since it was our meal, but if you wanted to make like an "appetizer" version, you could make lots of small cakes)
• Place cakes on baking sheet and put in the oven

• The original recipe said to cook for 10-15 min - but b/c of the size of mine it took 25 min until I was happy with the color and consistency. You can also put them under the broiler for a minute to brown the tops....

• I served mine with some white shoepeg corn on the cob and an arugula salad.

• It was yummy! BUT very filling!!

Balsamic & Rosemary Marinated Steak with Gorgonzola & Arugula

I found a similar recipe to this in Clean Eating Magazine, cut out how to make the marinade and accidentally threw away the recipe....oops, so this was my rendition - turned out pretty well. The original recipe called for bleu cheese crumbles (bleh) so I chose to use Gorgonzola instead!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb top sirloin- trim fat
• 1 cup balsamic rosemary marinade (below)
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• arugula
• crumbled gorgonzola cheese
• sliced cherry tomato
• olive oil & vinegar dressing

Balsamic Rosemary Marinade

• 1 cup balsamic vinegar
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tbsp chopped rosemary
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

whisk all the ingredients together - refrigerate  (it will make more than 1 cup - so you can save some if you want to use it another time)

Steps:

• Marinate steak in 1 cup balsamic rosemary marinade for atleast 1 hour (I marinated mine for about 2)

• Heat skillet on medium high heat with 1-2 tbsp peanut oil
• Remove steak from marinade, discard, and place steak into skillet

• Heat steak 5-6 minutes on each side
• Remove from skillet, to cutting board, slice steak in thin slices, against the grain.

• Place arugula and tomatoes on plate, top with sliced steak, and top with gorgonzola cheese

• We used the salad dressing on the side as to not over do it.
• It was DELICIOUS- Jeremy loved it - that's always a good sign!
• Enjoy!

I know it's easy to keep all my recipes online - but I have several recipes I have gotten from other places or from my mom and it's nice to have somewhere to keep them - my dad has started a business called "Bearly Memories" in which he sells memories boxes for anything you could think of, and he gave me a recipe box a few months ago. I have started transferring all my recipes over to the cards and taking pictures of the finished products to place in the box - I love it! So if you think about it - check out his website Bearly Memories or find his Facebook page Bearly Memories Facebook page and LIKE it.

Here are some pictures of my recipe box: