Spaghetti with Crab, Lemon and Chili

For some reason on our last trip to Cost Co I decided to pick up a can of jumbo crab.  I say "for some reason" because I am not actually a huge fan of crab meat in things.  I love crabs.  But I think that, at least for me, the whole experience of cracking and picking apart crabs smothered in Old Bay and drinking a beer is what makes crab worthwhile.  It should be messy and un-refined.  I also really enjoy a good Dungeness crab from time to time, but again it's the experience of eating the whole crab that I really enjoy.  I will also occasionally eat crab cake, but I am very picky about my crab cakes.  Growing up in Maryland can turn people into total crab cake snobs.  I also love soft shell crabs in a number of different preparations (fried Asian soft shell crabs rock my world).  But crab on pasta just didn't do it for me.  I have wanted to try a pasta with chilis and crab for a long time.  And maybe we just didn't do a very good job with it.  But I thought the flavor of the chilis totally overpowered the flavor of the crab and the basil.  It was fine (and we both cleared our plates), but I wouldn't make it again.  Luckily we have just under a pound of crab meat leftover so I think we are going to make some crab cakes for dinner.  Here's hoping that the crab cakes turn out better than our pasta...

Recipe after the jump!

Summer Crab Salad with Carrots, Basil, and Lime

 

If you grew up anywhere near the Chesapeake Bay, nothing says summertime more than blue crabs and corn.  Crabs come in many forms - crabcakes, bushels of steamed or boiled crabs, crab dip, softshell crabs, etc.  This crab salad came from the Susan Spicer cookbook one of my friends gave me as a wedding gift.  It seemed like the perfect dish to mark the end of summer 2010, both because the ingredients encapsulate all that is summer to me, and also because after a long weekend of gorging on pork, I really needed something light and fresh.

This crab salad was nice and light, with a subtle sweetness from the crab, carrots, and basil, balanced out by the slight heat from the hot sauce and the brine of the capers.  The lime vinaigrette makes the whole thing taste even more bright and summery, if that is even possible.  My only complaint is that, while this salad was lovely, when I think crab I think Old Bay and there was obviously no Old Bay present in this salad.  So when I took my first bite all I could think was "man, crabs just aren't the same without Old Bay."  But with all of that said, this crab salad was bright and lovely.  Then again, of the two dishes I made tonight - this salad and creamed corn, the corn took the cake.  By a landslide.  But it's not because the crab salad wasn't nice.  Instead the corn is really just that awesome.

Recipe after the jump!