The three dinner meals we ate this weekend were: sweet potato chowder, crab burgers and quesadillas. Here's the crab burger (aka, crabby patty) recipe. I'll share the others in coming days:
Crab Burgers (aka Crabby Patties in our house) from Epicurious.com:
- 1 lb. lump crab meat, picked over (I use about half imitation crab and half canned lump crab meat)
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise (sometimes I substitute part with greek yogurt)
- 3 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (I do not use)
- 3/4 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne (I use Old Bay Seasoning, and at least one teaspoon)
- 1 3/4 cups fine dry bread crumbs, divided (I use stuffing mix because it had less sodium than the bread crumbs I found)
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil (or your oil of choice)
- 4 kaiser rolls or hamburger buns, split and toasted
Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until it shimmers, then fry patties, turning over once, until golden: five to six minutes total. Transfer to paper towels to drain.
(I do not use the extra breadcrumbs/stuffing mix to coat the outside of the patties. I cook the patties in as little oil as possible, and I do not need to drain them on paper towels afterward. Sometimes my crabby patties are perfect and sometimes crumbly, but when put on a delicious whole-wheat bun they taste perfect! Ron likes his plain, but I usually add some avocado of course.)
Good piece of advice: Susan B. Roberts, a Tufts University nutritionist and co-author of the book “Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health,” suggested a “rule of 15” — putting a food on the table at least 15 times to see if a child will accept it. Once a food is accepted, parents should use “food bridges,” finding similarly colored or flavored foods to expand the variety of foods a child will eat. If a child likes pumpkin pie, for instance, try mashed sweet potatoes and then mashed carrots. If a child loves corn, try mixing in a few peas or carrots. Even if a child picks them out, the exposure to the new food is what counts.
Another thing that seems to encourage eating, is a happy plate... faces or pretty designs seem to interest our son in his food even more.
I think this works better for younger children, but we renamed some foods to make them more interesting. For example, broccoli was called dinosaur trees because our son really liked dinosaurs at the time.
Action item: Be a food artist today and rearrange food into a funny face or design. Don't take much time, just move it around and see what happens.
For further reading: In the comments below, let me know something that has worked for your family: an idea, a recipe or a new way to prepare a common food. We can all learn from each other this way!
These sound really good Betsy. I do something similar with Salmon ( canned Wild Alaskan Salmon). I make Salmon Cakes at least once a week now. I add onion or scallions, small sweet peppers, 1 egg, plain greek yogurt, low sodium seasoning such as Mrs Dash. To that I add no salt crumbled crackers. I only use about 8 crackers and I cook them in Olive oil. They are so good! You can use mayo instead of greek yogurt in desired.
ReplyDeleteyummy sound great....I will give it a try!
DeleteI need to use salmon sometimes too! I love that you use crackers. I always have some type of cracker... that would be better than making sure I have bread crumbs or stuffing mix. Thanks!
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