The Taste of the Town

Last night my husband and I hit the Taste of the Town event for the first time.  It took place at the Marriott on the Waterway here in our town.  For a $25.00 entry fee you can walk around, from booth to booth, sampling delightful tastes from the various participating local restaurants. You can also enjoy a variety of drinks from area wineries and breweries.  Sounds like fun to me!  So right after school we headed to the Marriott eager to see if this event was all that we hoped it would be.  I can tell you now, we were not disappointed!

A view of the Waterway 

The first booth we hit was Landry's who had a crew making and frying fresh crab cakes. You can see a tray of them sitting on the table below. We had to stand in a long line to get our taste but it was well worth it. So much that I got back in line and had another!

Pardon my hubby's blurry phone picture but I had to get a snapshot of this little yummy to remind myself to research a recipe for crab cakes later.  It was also the last picture taken because we were too busy trying to get to all the vendors and taste every bit of food.  After about three hours of grazing we called it a night.  Although everything was good, the crab cake remained my favorite.  So Last night I did a quick search for a good crab cake recipe in hopes of whipping some of my own up this weekend for the whole family.

  Picture from Food Network

My search led me to Paula Deen's recipe which looked simple enough.  After reading through numerous reviews of the recipe I decided to take give the original a little tweaking.  Below is the revised version that I am going to give a try tomorrow. 

Ingredients:

• 1 pound crabmeat
• 1 sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed

• 1/4 cup minced yellow onion
• 1/4 cup minced red bell peper 
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 egg, beaten 
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. dry mustard
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
• 1/4 tsp. Emeril's Original Essence
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Dash cayenne pepper
• Panko breadcrumbs, for dusting
• 1/2 cup peanut oil
• A dab of butter, for sautéing vegetables

Directions
Sautee onion and red pepper in butter until soft.  Let cool.

In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients, except breadcrumbs and peanut oil.  Place the mixture in the refrigerator for an hour and a half.  Remove from refrigerator and shape cooled mixture into 4- 6 patties and dust with breadcrumbs.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, carefully place crab cakes, in batches, in pan and fry until browned, about 4 to 5 minutes.  Carefully flip crab cakes and fry on other side until golden brown, about 4 minutes.  Serve warm with your favorite sauce.  Yummm...can't wait to make them!  Hope mine look half as pretty as Paula's pictured below!

Picture from Food Network