3 Blue Crab Crazy (with Video!)

As I mentioned recently, we went on a long road trip.  Ella and I stayed for a few days with my parents in Maryland, and we decided on a last-minute whim to get some live crabs.  Our dad was pretty disenchanted, because he believes that anything that takes that much time and effort to get food out of is worthless. This is not news to us, and we nevertheless forged on while Daddy shook his head and hid in his bedroom while we made phone calls (so-and-so-knew-a-guy who has fresh crabs for a good deal.)

It has been years and years since we have tackled an actual bushel of crabs, and even then we have historically never dealt with live ones.  There is good reason for this.  It's kind of crazy, not to mention labor-intensive!  My sisters and I had a hilarious time getting these little buggers steamed up for dinner.

We were worried that the crabs would expire before we all returned from seeing the Brave movie, and were anxious to perhaps transfer them to a roomier abode before we left. I lifted the cover in preparation to dump them into a larger plastic tub.  Sister A was skeptical that we should disturb them.

Whatever.  They looked totally harmless.  In fact, the top couple were lifeless (I somehow missed that my brother-in-law had to actually incapacitate them on the trip in the car because they kept escaping!)

So here's what happened next.



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Sister A was the one up on the chair screeching and had grabbed her iPhone (unbeknownst to my sister E and I, who were the intrepid ones scrambling to pick up the escapees with tongs and...pasta spoons? without getting pinched.) What you can't see on the video is the crabs escaping from the back of the bushel basket.

We abandoned the 'roomier abode' idea as soon as we retrieved all of them, slapped the cover back on that bushel (we were pretty sure they were alive and kicking...literally) and headed out to our movie, hoping that the cover was strong enough to hold them unsupervised, and that the escapee crabs didn't know how to climb up smooth surfaces.

So we were all ready to go. Crabs? Check. Newspaper? Check. Vinegar? Check. Beer? Check. Commecial-sized container of Old Bay? CHECK!

Giant steaming pot? Fail. We resorted to rigging the largest pots we had, (which were none-too-large) and turning wooden bowls upside down in the bottom to help keep the crabs out of the steaming water. I don't have any pictures of this, but it was my idea and pretty genius, if I do say so myself. ;)

It took forever to do them in these small batches. We had to employ a three-person line. I was in charge of the pot (and slapping the cover on after the hapless crab was tossed in), sister E was the crab-grabbing boss, and sister S had to keep the rest of the crabs incarcerated. Mom and sister A were conveniently absent. It was only after we were 1/4 of the way through that BIL volunteered to get his dad's crab steaming pots.

Yay! Crabs, steamed in beer, vinegar and Old Bay.

The crab feast.

This was really fun for a change, but man, next time we're heading to a restaurant!  Long-live Maryland!

Have you ever steamed your own live crabs?

4 Bento #251 - Turkey & Sweet Corn

I'm so tickled that I've been nominated for a Top 25 Foodie Moms award on CircleofMoms.com!  I'd be flattered if you'd vote for Bentobloggy here:

We had our last school field trip yesterday, to the Atlanta Zoo!  There were so many parent volunteers that my group consisted of only one of Ella's little girlfriends, so we had a really nice and relaxing morning exploring together.  We started out in the opposite direction of everyone else, so we got most of the exhibits all to ourselves.  The panda bears were really active, which was so cool to see. It was also supposed to thunderstorm but we escaped it all, and the high temperatures with some cloud cover.

Today's lunch was one of only about five that I've ever made in the morning.  I usually make them right before I go to bed, because I'm barely functional at 6:30am.  She has a whole wheat White Mountain bread turkey and cheddar sandwich in the first box.

In the second she has some grape tomatoes, fresh sweet corn sprinkled with a little kosher sea salt and a cheddar Babybel.

Packed up with snack - Cat cookies and an organic gala apple.

Bento #251 - Turkey and cheddar on whole wheat, sweet corn, grape tomatoes and cheddar Babybel.  Snack - Organic gala apple and cat cookies.

0 Bento #202 - Vegetarian Yellow Day

Ladies & gentlemen, I think we have a theme.  Today is Yellow Day in Ella's class, and so I planned a nice lunch with all yellow(ish) foods. At least she's getting her daily doses of vitamins A, C & D. Yesterday happened to be Blue Day, but I really couldn't think of all that many natural blue foods (and I don't like to use artificial dyes.)  I let her go through the school lunch line that day for the first time, after discussing her choices.  Instead of popcorn shrimp, she decided to get a vegetarian Caesar salad, peas & carrots, mac n' cheese, cornbread and her ubiquitous water, which is her favourite drink in the entire world.  That sounds good to me!

This lunch is packed in a Greentainer.  It's a two-tier, so what you see above is all combined into one container.  I have a little yellow "Y" in the spicy yellow lentil hummus, with a sweet apricot salsa topping from Eat Well Enjoy Life that we just discovered at Costco.  Delicious!!  They also have edamame hummus which is also great.

Her snack below (which isn't yellow, unfortunately) is packed in a separate Greentainer.

Bento #202 - Fresh corn-off-the-cob with sea salt and cracked pepper, sliced yellow bell pepper, yellow lentil hummus, Pasta Prima five cheese ravioli with herb Parmesan and extra-virgin olive oil.  Snack:  Mozzarella cheese and fresh strawberries.

One last note - if you haven't "Liked" Bentobloggy on Facebook, you are missing out!  I just started doing some Facebook-only giveaways for my fans (simple, simple!)  Click here to check it out.  Oh, and please vote for Bentobloggy on Parents.com!

2 Bento #193 - Egg Fried Rice & Corn off the Cob

This is the second-to-last school bento of the year!  I can't believe school is out on Wednesday.  Wow!  And a big congrats to my baby sis who graduated yesterday from UMD with her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism! 

We got two nice ears of organic yellow corn in our CSA basket this week.  Delicious!  It's kind of a rarity in our house because corn is really starchy, but it was nice for a change, very sweet.  The rice is leftover restaurant fare, not my usual, but E liked it. It's just got egg in it, which makes this bento vegetarian.

So, when is your last day of school?  Any vacation plans?

Bento #193 - Egg fried rice, organic corn, organic cantaloupe, pistachios and a cheese stick.