Easy Weeknight Dinner: Crab Cakes

This is a little bit of a summery dish, but sometimes in the middle of the cold winter something light and (semi) fresh is just what the doctor ordered. These crab cakes are actually really easy to make. Even using the canned crab they still taste amazing. The seafood selection is not anything to brag about here in Lubbock, but they do have fresh? crab. It's just easier and a huge time saver to buy the canned lump meat. And like I said it taste good. BUTTTTT of course my motto is fresh is best so it's up to you.

I like to serve these with a salad. I usually just use romaine, green onion, feta, yellow tomatoes, a little salt and pepper and Brianna's Real French Vinaigrette dressing. Let's side bar about that for just a second. My aunt Nancy introduced me to Brianna's. I have tried a couple different ones and I love them all, but the Real French Vinaigrette is her best in my opinion. It's light and delicious and so far out of all the salad's I've made is everyone's favorite dressing. I literally could eat this salad every single day. Annndddd maybe I do, so shoot me :)

Ok but back to the crab cakes. They only take about 20-30 minutes total time in the kitchen, which is awesome!! Especially when there is a ton going on. That kind of time frame makes it so no one has any excuse to heat up a frozen dinner anymore. And 1 serving of this recipe is only 4 weight watcher points!!!!!

Give them a try, you won't be disappointed. And it's SO EASY! They only look hard to make, It's basically just mixing everything together forming little patties and pan frying. It doesn't get too much easier than that.

Crab Cakes

16 oz. "fresh" lump crabmeat, drained

4 large lemons

4 oz. diced pimiento, drained

2 green onions chopped

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 Tbsp. mayonnaise (less WW points if you use the light kind!)

1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning

2 tsp. Dijon Mustard

1 cup pank bread crumbs

Canola Oil

Step 1: Forge through the crabmeat and make sure that no pieces of the shell got left behind. It's not that big of a deal if you miss one though

Step 2: Zest the lemons and cut them in half. Juice the lemons so you get 1/4 of a cup, but I just squeeze them right into the mixing bowl. It's up to you! Stir together zest, juice, pimento, onions, egg, mayonnaise, old bay, and mustard. Stir until everything is mixed together completely. Begin mixing in the crab and half of the bread crumbs.

Step 3: Gently form patties from the mixture. You can make them as big or as small as you like, but make sure they are firmly packed so they don't fall apart in the pan. Right before you are ready to put them in the pan coat the patties in the remaining breadcrumbs (you might need a little extra panko for this)

Step 4: The recipe said to cook them in 2 Tbsp. of hot oil in a non stick skillet. I personally think they cook better if you use more oil than that. I make sure the entire pan is covered in the oil and is about an 1/8 of an inch thick. This will mean you may have to drain the pan because any panko that falls off will start to burn. I just think the extra oil makes them cook faster and more evenly without burning, but that's just my experience with them. Cook for 2 minutes on each side or until they turn golden brown in color (you can pretty much eyeball this - does it look cooked? Then it probably is!) 

Step 5: Drain the Crab cakes on a paper towel to get off the extra grease. 

Serve them with lemon wedges and you are done!!!

Hope you enjoy! <3 tan tan

Quick Lunch: Italian Chopped Salad

New Year's Resolution #4 of 1,000,000. Eat out less and make healthier meals! I know this is always everyone's goal, but I am reallllllly going to try to stick to at least this one out of my bagillion resolutions. We can make excuse after excuse about how there is not enough time to make lunch, or I'll just heat up this frozen meal to save some time or to encourage our laziness. But fast food and even frozen foods are just so TERRIBLE for you. Don't get me wrong I love some McDonald's chicken nuggets every now and then, but one happy meal (you know those things for kids) is 17 weight watcher points. 17!!!!!!! That's 2/3 of my daily allotment. Just start doing a little bit of research, and you can see how much garbage goes into these products. Just knowing that will instantly help you make better choices!

We need to stop making excuses for ourselves and really put in the effort. If you plan your meals on sunday, when there is rarely going anything on anyway you can even make a ton of it ahead of time and be ready to go for the whole week.

This was a pintrest recipe I found, and it was a wonderful wonderful salad! It's 11 WW points per serving, but it's all good points! You could substitute meats or cheeses to minimize those points if you really wanted to. Just in general don't be afraid to play with recipes. I'm definitely guilty of looking at a recipe and saying "Yeah. No thanks!" That's silly. You can almost always substitute ingredients or play with the amounts to get a taste that suits you. In this particular recipe I played with the dressing. I wanted to tone down the red wine vinegar flavor. I added a little more garlic, salt, and pepper until it tasted right for me. You could also just pour in less red wine vinegar (but I didn't know that until it was already made).

One more challenge: FRESH IS BEST!!! Don't be afraid to use fresh vegetables because they go bad, or are more expensive. You can plan your menu around similar ingredients for the week. But either way it's worth it to eat fresh. It's better for you and it tastes better too!

This recipe also makes a ton, so just don't toss it in the dressing and you can have it a couple days in a row. Trust me you won't get tired of it. You'll want it all week!

Italian Chopped Salad

4 Romaine Hearts Diced

2 Roma Tomatoes, Seeded and Diced

1 Green Bell Pepper, Seeded and Diced

1/2 Red Onion, Diced

1/3 C. Kalamata Olives, Pitted and Diced

8 Oz. Fresh Mozzarella

4 Oz. Italian Dry Salami, Chopped

1 Tbs. Fresh Basil

1 Tbs. Fresh Parsley

Herbed Red Wine Vinaigrette

1/4 C. + 2 Tbs. Red Wine Vinegar

2 Garlic Cloves Pressed

1/4 tsp. Dijon Mustard

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning

Pinch of Ground Pepper

3/4 tsp. Sugar

1/4 C. + 2 Tbs. Olive Oil

Step 1: To make the salad Just combine all the ingredients!

Step 2: In a separate bowl add all ingredients through sugar and whisk to combine. Slowly add the oil whisking constantly, until combined. (Really give this a little bit of time so the flavors bend well) 

Step 3: Adjust the flavors as needed. (I topped the salad with fresh black pepper and it was amazing)

HOW EASY WAS THAT!!!! Enjoy!

Homemade Meatballs!!!

These meatballs were DE - ee - licious! I pulled them from a meatball sub sandwich recipe...maybe one day if i'm feeling up to the challenge I will try the hoagie rolls and sauce they included and I'll post it on here too!

But in the mean time....MEATBALLS! I really try not to buy frozen foods or pre-made meals. And if I do I try to include something from scratch. Since I was obviously using boxed pasta (let's get real I may be a student but I DO NOT have time to figure out how to make my own pasta) and jarred sauce from the store I decided I'd make my own meatballs.

As an appetizer I cut up some fresh cucumbers from my garden and set out some hummus! I'm so proud of the garden. And the cucumbers just keep growing. If anyone wants some let me know!

Back to Meatballs :)

Hereeeeeee are the ingredients

2 tbs olive oil

2 tbs. unsalted butter

1 lb. ground beef

1/2 of a large onion (finely chopped)

1 c. italian style breadcrumbs 

1 large egg 

2 tbs. dried basil

2 tsp. black pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 c. milk

Step 1:

• In a skillet heat the butter and olive oil (I actually wait to do this till i've mixed the other ingredients and shaped the meatballs. If it gets too hot then your meatballs will burn while you are shaping the other ones)
• In a large bowl mix the rest of the ingredients.

 *** there will be a lot more meat then that, but I took this after I made some of them

Step 2:

• Form the mixture into balls and let it brown slightly on all sides. Pay attention because they brown and get crispy very quickly.

Step 3:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. As the meatballs finish browning take them out and put them on a parchment lined baking sheet. (I didn't have parchment paper so i just put some olive oil on the pan so they wouldn't stick)
• Bake for 20-30 minutes or until they are cooked through. Mine cooked through quickly and were done in about 15 minutes.

Before Going in the oven! There were quite a few more than this by the end

Finished!!

THESE. WERE. SO. GOOD!!!!!!!!

I didn't technically follow the recipe exactly...go figure. For instance, I used both my onions the other day when I was supposed to save half. Soooo no onions were used. I opened the refrigerator to grab the milk....and there was no milk WHOOPS! so neither of those things were used in the creation of these meatballs. I did however use some parmesan cheese and I added that when combining all the ingredients. This was a minimal MINIMAL effort meal, perfect for the middle of the week. And you could definitely half it if you are only cooking for yourself or for two. Although, I had left overs for lunch today and it was just as good as last night! 

For those of you with kids you could let them help you shape the meatballs. It's kind of a fun way for kids to get involved and to know what's in/be excited to eat their food!