Tag Archive | crab cakes

Doing the Best I Can

Feb8

I’m grateful for my tracking skills, however limited they are. As the tiny dingo trotted up the driveway this morning (left) she crossed tracks with a larger canid who had clearly been down the driveway before snow fell, and back up the driveway in the same path after the snow. We didn’t try to follow the trail but walked alongside it for awhile. It could have been a rogue neighbor dog, but I prefer to think it was a coyote.

I’ve spent a couple of hours over the past few months trying to determine the most sustainable kind of canned crab meat to buy, and learned that both Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea purport to harvest and process crab sustainably. Seafood Watch from Monterrey Bay Aquarium is a great resource to determine the best seafood sources for ethicarian consumption, but not much help in determining which brands of canned crab meet their standards. It advises which countries or states within countries including the US are the most sustainable sources of crab meat, but the hard part is finding out where the crab canning brands source their crabs.

Our regional supermarket made the choice easy, with only their store brand available. Kroger, like the two brands mentioned above, dedicates a page to its sustainability pledge and progress, but doesn’t specify its seafood sources. So I made do.

The good news for me was that the canned crab made much more authentic crab cakes than the frozen krab, and the good news for the crabs is, even so, they weren’t so delicious that I’ll be making them a lot. I guess I’m still not that crazy about crab cakes, and have now satisfied my odd craving for awhile.

I made half the recipe since I only had twelve ounces of crab meat, so I enjoyed two for lunch and froze the other four for another time. I think next time I’m craving fried seafood I’ll just make salmon croquettes, or maybe fish n’ chips. Or a fried cod sandwich. Or maybe a fried catfish sandwich. So much seafood to choose from, even in the mountains of Colorado! As usual, a double-edged conundrum from the global market: how to eat ocean protein ethically while landlocked. It’s great that I can get seafood from anywhere, but all the petroleum that goes into getting it here! Some days I’d like to learn to fish; but, that comes with its own challenges to my tender sensibilities. Sigh.

I’m grateful for good food, and for finding my way through thorny ethical thickets to allow myself to enjoy many delectables in moderation, while doing the best I can to live lightly on the planet.

Weather Geeks

Dec21

I’m a weather geek, and I’m grateful for other weather geeks that populate the various weather stations: weather research stations around the globe, weather TV and radio stations, and the backyard home weather stations with citizen science movements like CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (“because every drop counts”). I keep my TV tuned to Fox Weather because it’s the best weather station available, and every time I turn on to stream something the weather pops up first. Sometimes it’s worth watching for awhile.

And so it happened this afternoon that when I turned on TV to watch my current lunchtime show, I came into the middle of this story. A Fox weather-lady in Philadelphia began knitting temperature blankets a few years ago. She started with a scarf but with a row a day, she pointed out, it soon became too long to be practical. So the next year she knitted a blanket, using just the basic garter stitch. Some of her colleagues hold up the past several years while she holds the current year and explains that it’s become a trend, and you can even buy a temperature blanket kit now. The man just off screen on the right is wearing the 365-row scarf. Unfortunately, they’re not standing in chronological order and I lost track of which year was which.

I was tickled rainbow to see this creative interpretation of temperature data, and wanted to see more, but a quick internet search didn’t give up the goods. Oh well. I think it’s a fine idea, and I might just buy some yarn to start one New Year’s Day. Obviously, I’ll need a lot of red.

Meanwhile, crab cakes, anyone? Growing up, I never liked them though everyone else in my family did. But the last few times I visited Auntie, who lived in crab country along the Chesapeake Bay, I tried crab cakes a couple of times when we ate out, and they were pretty good. I had some frozen fake crab that I bought for a recipe awhile ago, but then I lost track of that recipe. But that crab-flavored fish in the freezer started whispering a craving to me a couple of weeks ago, and then I found the perfect recipe to try, sweet potato crab cakes.

So last night I mashed up some baked sweet potato with breadcrumbs, fresh parsley, and everything else, and fried them a few at a time. They were pretty good, but they did not taste much like crab. For one thing, their main ingredient is fish. How do they get crab flavor, anyway? I don’t really want to know. For another thing, the fake crab fish was pretty tough and hard to break up into smaller chunks without getting out the food processor. But the sweet potato in there was genius, and the flavor was good with the spices I used, which of course varied a bit from the directions.

But give me a blob of tasty protein fried to a golden crisp to dip into a delicious sauce, and I’m happy. And grateful. I pirated the sauce outline from Chili Pepper Madness’s crab cake recipe. I’ll definitely make these again, but next time I’ll use canned crab as called for in the sweet potato recipe, since fresh isn’t a viable option in my landlocked homestead. This will entail some research to determine what the best canned crab is based first on environmental and ethical criteria, then flavor and quality reviews, and finally availability. We’ll know more later!

I ate three last night, froze four, and put two in the fridge for me and the one I burnt for Wren. As I drifted off to sleep last night, I imagined my lunch today: a crab cake broken into a spinach tortilla, wrapped up with cheese and avocado, and heated, with leftover sauce on the side. It was delicious! I have one more for tomorrow, and I’ll spread some leftover sweet potato in there too. I’m grateful for playing with my food.