Crab Cakes perfect for December and January

Dungeness Crab is great for making crab cakes, this batch was made with the vegetables that were already in the kitchen. I usually include fresh italian parsley and shallots, but they were delicious none the less.

The tedious part of making crab cakes, of course, is cleaning the shells. This can take some time, and you want to be very careful not to get any shells in the crab mix.

Here are the general ingredients I like to add to my crab cakes, take a whole crab, clean and shell it. Then take the fresh crab meat and mix with the following ingredients:



Dash or two of worcestershire
dash or two of hot sauce
one whole egg
one medium to large shallot finely chopped

1/2 bunch or so of parsley finely chopped
1/4 cup or so celery finely chopped
1/4 or so cup Italian bread crumbs
dash salt and pepper

sometimes I will add yellow onions, or green onions, like this time and I added a few finely chopped carrots.

Happy New Year's Day!!

New Year's Eve was very casual for me this new year, staying in and relaxing in my p.j.s. I prepared some Swiss and Gruyère cheese fondue, cracked crab and also enjoyed champagne. I invited the neighbors to come and have some with me and to please wear their pajama's! Thanks Ladies for coming over! :-)

The fondue recipe is one from a restaurant that is no longer in Chico, it was called Rubino's, it was a wonderful fondue restaurant.

My Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I started to feel a little under the weather so I decided to make some more of my homemade chicken noodle soup. I made the broth from a whole chicken, a medium onion, three cloves of garlic, two medium carrots, two stalks of celery, some parsley, and spices, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, and white pepper.

The end result is my chicken noodle soup.

Fruit Tart, Tarte Aux Fruits, Toulous Lautrec

To make a good fruit tart, prepare the pastry the
night before with wheat on flour-on guard not to handle
it too much-in proportions of a third of butter to
two thirds to flour; add sufficient water and salt.
Cover with a cloth and let your pastry rest.
Next day, lay it out; add a little more butter, roll it
and fold it many and many a time.

Bed your pastry on a butter baking sheet; prick it
with fork so tht it does not puff up when cooking,
other wise you will have puff pastry.
Next set out your fruit: cherries, cherry plums,
mirabelle plums, various stoned plums, apples cut in
round, sugar according to the acidity of your fruit.
And, to decorate, with some pastry, place your
initials on top; for examle, "Momo."*

*A pet pseudonym for Lautrec.

pg. 145 The Art of Cuisine
Toulouse-Lautrec Maurice Joyant

Dinner Salad, Romaine, Brie, Blueberries & More

I made a dinner salad late this evening. I used baby romaine, some ice berg lettuce, fresh blueberries, brie cheese, baby cucumbers, tomato from my tomato plant, with fresh cracked pepper. and organic Italian bread. I used an organic red wine vinaigrette from Trader Joe's. Delicious!

Italian Recipe- Cheesy Bakes Eggplant & Caesars Salad

The other night we prepared this recipe that we got from Mary. Thanks Mary, it was delicious! Cheesy Baked Eggplant, and we also had Caesar's Salad, and old favorite of mine. I made the Caesar's by scratch with anchovy paste. At first I was not pleased with it but once it was tossed with the salad and parmesean it was actually quite delicious.

Kifta for Dinner

Last night I made my version of kifta which is a type of meatball, but middle eastern version, it is made with rice and potatoes. I just made the kifta and served with home made hummus, olives, lettuce, and yogurt sauce I also made.

Mixed one pound of ground beef (you can use lamb too)
1/2 large onion
1/2 cup of Italian parsley
1 1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg to mix

Mix it all make into small rolls 2-3 inches long. You can grill, fry or bake. They taste better if they are grilled.

Mar a lago Turkey Burger by Jeff O'neill

This is a delicious recipe for a grilled Turkey Burger.
The recipe is featured on Oprah Winfrey's website. http://www.oprah.com/subtopic/food/recipes

http://www.oprah.com/recipe/food/recipessandwiches/20080516_tows_turkeyburger

The only thing we did differently is add a fresh slice of beet for nutritional value.

My parents came across beets on burgers and sandwiches while they were in Australia.