Our Weekend in Recipes

This weekend we ate A LOT. Saturday I made crab cakes. But as soon as I'd mixed up the lump crab meat with all of the ingredientsI realized it was going to be way to much food for us. So we had an impromptu fancy pants dinner party.

We decided that crab cakes were worthy of the "nice" dishes, candles, crystal and even a gold table cloth.

Our crab cakes were topped with a fresh corn and tomato relish and to go along

 with our crab cakes we had several small plates. Beets with fresh marjoram and a balsamic glaze...

 Baked eggplant...

and carrots with butter and thyme...

 We even drank our beer in these crystal glasses...

 Margot decided that she loves fancy dinner parties!

 And if all of that wasn't enough culinary excitement for one weekend we spent Sunday afternoon making my Dad Indian food.

Our menu: Chicken saag, southern Indian dahl with fresh vegetables, tomato chutney, rice, naan and mango lassi

 The stand out was the chicken saag.

And now for some recipes:

Crab cakes with tomato corn relish*

3 eggs

one small onion diced

2 TB Dijon mustard

1 bunch cilantro chopped

1 cup bread crumbs

1 tsp lemon zest

2 cups fresh lump crab meat

salt and pepper to taste

2 TB butter

Mix all ingredients except butter. Form into cakes. Melt butter in skillet at medium heat. Saute crab cakes 2-3 minutes per side.

For corn relish: mix 1 cup frozen corn, or 1 cup fresh off the Cob (blanched) corn, 1 cup fresh tomatoes chopped, 1/4 cup chopped onion, one garlic clove chopped, 1 fresh red chili with seeds chopped, 1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste.

*crab cake recipe is adapted from Nourishing Traditions. Corn relish is my own recipe.

Beets with marjoram and balsamic

4 beets scrubbed, ends trimmed

1 Tb butter

1 tsp fresh marjoram

1 TB good quality balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

place beets in small pot. cover with water, bring to boil, cook for 30-45 minutes until tender. remove beets and rub off the peel, cut into 1/2 inch pieces. Melt butter in small pot and add beets. season with salt and pepper. Add vinegar and let cook one minute to reduce. Add fresh marjoram.

Baked eggplant

1 eggplant

1 cup whole milk

1.5 cups bread crumbs

3 Tb melted butter

salt and pepper

preheat oven to 350. slice eggplant into 1/2 inch thick slices. season bread crumbs with salt and pepper. dredge each slice of eggplant into the milk and then into the bread crumbs to coat. place onto baking dish. drizzle melted butter over eggplant slices. bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. raise temperature to 375 and bake for additional 10-15 minutes until golden brown.