A Good Meal Indeed

Okay, I realize this is my third post about food and it's not even a food blog (in fact, this blog's not even an anything blog--it's just for "non-reviews," whatever that means). BUT--at least I can argue that it's actually about "food," not some junk food or some dry cereal.

Today, I wanted to surprise my parents and cook (along with my sibling) a good meal for them. The menu? Crab cakes and Thai beef salad.

Allrecipes has always been my favorite recipes site. With the exception of one dish which I won't mention here, I've always followed the recipes to a, well, half a T, because there are always reviews giving their own suggestions and because I always use less sugar.


The crab cake recipe I used was pretty darn good. One container of lump crab meat from the seafood section of the grocery makes about six well-sized pancakes. It's safe to say that that's a great price compared to what you pay at a restaurant. They're much tastier, too--especially with the Worcestershire adding a bit of its soy sauce-like constituency. Nevermind the Creole seasoning substitution I used in place of Old Bay.


The Thai beef salad was just as scrumptious. Going with what I said before, I used less sugar--about two thirds the amount, in this case. I also messed around with the proportions of the fish sauce and lime juice (mostly because I couldn't squeeze a lot of juice out of the limes), and I froze it for about ten minutes instead of refrigerating it for three hours (when you cook just before dinner, you don't really have the time). If you don't like the smell of lime, you might not like this, but even though I was missing two ingredients, lemon grass and green onions, the salad ended up being just right. And I didn't need to eat it with rice, either, as I usually do with that kind of salad.

All in all, it was a great meal, especially when you consider the price of crab nowadays.

I'm now off to eat some Cupcake Pebbles.

NOTE: All images are from AllRecipes.com.