Saturday, July 14, 2012

Kay's Crab Cakes, Healthy Version

I've really missed food blogging. And I still really want to publish a cookbook, although I will need to change the title since Scott Jurek stole my title. Ha! Not really. His book is called "Eat & Run" and mine was to be called Eat to Run but I will find a different title.

Starting a real estate business has not been easy. In fact, it's been really hard. At almost 43 years old, I've been an "expert" in different areas of my life including my former career and now I'm a total newbie who doesn't know squat. Hopefully, my "ultra running toughness" will help me stay tough and hang in there....

So, here we go. I've been eating my mom's crab cakes for years, "Kay's Crab Cakes". I changed them ever so slightly just to make them a little less fattening. Do I prefer my mom's version? Yes. But, I try to avoid frying food.




Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1 whole egg
3 tbs of KRAFT olive oil mayonnaise
3 tbs of Dijon mustard
Worcestershire to taste
the juice of  one lemon
16 ounce container of fresh lump crab meat (I get mine from Costco)
1 cup of panko crumbs
1/2 cup of minced onion (I used red onion but Vidalia would be nice too)
1 red bell pepper (I used red and green homegrown bell pepper)
salt and pepper to taste

(Mom adds parsley which I left out so that Grant wouldn't make an issue out of it. She also adds Tabasco sauce but again, I made these kid friendly. She also uses crushed saltine crackers instead of Panko crumbs)

Mix in a large bowl and form patties. Spray a large cookie sheet with olive oil. Place the patties on the cookie sheet and spray the patties on top. Make sure that each patty is coated with olive oil spray.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until the other side is brown. Then, flip and brown the other side. Simply check them to make sure they are fully cooked through and browned. Total time should be between 25-30 minutes.

Serve with lemon wedges and cocktail sauce. I like Trader Joe's cocktail sauce.

I served the cakes with jalapeno polenta (quick cooking polenta, finely chopped jalapeno, and a little butter). The polenta complimented the cakes quite well. The green beans are from my mother in law's garden and were steamed.

**Note: Lump crab meat is expensive. However, if you follow this recipe, you should be able to get 7-9 crab cakes out of it. Depending on the size of your family, leftovers are a definite possibility. If you are single and make these for yourself, they can be taken to work for lunch for 3 days and I can guarantee your co-workers will be drooling.