Saturday, March 24, 2012

Some Men Can Cook

My wonderful boyfriend, DFJ, has been surprising me every now and then with special things. Two weeks ago, I came home to pizza dough rising in the kitchen. So, we had this the first night...
Three Cheese Sausage, Mushroom, Tomato Pizza with Homemade Sauce.


And then this the next night...
Three Cheese Pizza with Onions, Bell Peppers, and Basil





































Last Tuesday, I came home to some rising dough which eventually turned into these bagels.
Look, we made bagels from scratch! High-five for great teamwork!






























It was a two-person project, so I helped with the shaping and boiling of the bagels. Thank you Jessica of How Sweet It Is for your delicious Homemade Asiago Cheese Bagel recipe.

Wednesday night, DFJ finally made long-time ago promised crab cakes. The crab meat came from a can but I am not complaining. It is hard to get fresh crab meat where we live in Washington and frozen ones seem too expensive for the poor quality it yields. Hey, one redeeming factor about this canned crab meat is it’s at least wild-caught and pasteurized. Also, it made for delicious crab cakes that made my day! All I can share from this recipe are the ingredients, and not even exact amounts at that, because when DFJ makes something, he just throws things together without measuring. He bases his measurements by sight… “Hmmm, that looks like there’s enough red from the paprika.” Or he holds a measuring spoon in his other hand while pouring in an approximate amount of an ingredient with his other hand. He doesn't remember what he mixed in first with what and does not take copious notes like I do.

This is the best I can do... ingredients, most of which came from the back of the can (we used the BOSS brand).
16 oz can crab meat, make sure it’s 100% crab meat (FRESH is best, if possible)
2 eggs
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp Dijon mustard
fresh oregano and thyme
all-purpose Southwest seasoning (or use chili powder, cayenne, paprika, garlic salt mixture)
paprika
chives
dried parsley
Sriracha
lemon pepper
salt



A good dose of Sriracha mayo and a strong squeeze of lemon made this dish perfect! Mayo is not one of my favorite things to slather on my sandwiches or to add in certain salads. In fact, I avoid it like the plague. However, let me tell you what! I love, love, love it with Sriracha, lemon juice, and a little bit of ketchup. We had the crab cakes with couscous vegetable stir fry (recipe soon to come).

The next evening, we had the leftover crab cakes as a scramble which went perfectly well with quinoa tossed with red bell peppers and chives.


































More leftover crab cakes got thrown in scrambled eggs on top of the homemade bagels for brunch! It was too good and I devoured it after yoga class this morning before getting the chance to take some pictures. I will bring to you a special crab cake egg scramble bagelwich recipe soon... according to DFJ, he hasn't really made it the proper way yet.

Thank you DFJ for being the amazing man that you are! Wine tasting tonight? 

4 comments:

  1. Wow. Everything here looks so great!
    I've been always meaning to make my own bagels, but never get around to it for some reason (maybe it's because I shy away from anything that isn't some kind of dessert. It's the only thing I could make for so long, I get a little afraid of change)
    What a great guy :)

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  2. You are se lucky, you have someone to help you with the cooking, even if this is every now and then! Everything looks terrific, but my heart goes to the pizza! I am a sucker for any type of pizza!

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  3. Oh my goodness... so much tastiness going on in this post!! That pizza....oh lawd does it look tasty :) You are lucky lady, it's wonderful he can cook!

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  4. Wowser, bagels from scratch?!? Great teamwork :D

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