The Old Bay Way

I'm still so ridiculously full from Mexican leftovers (I think I ate a total of 4 burrito-like things yesterday) and having trouble contemplating preparing an actual dinner. Continuing on the "making use of leftovers" theme, I made Old Bay Crab Cakes with the faux crab leftover from the California Rolls. I was a little bit leery of using the crab since it'd been in the fridge for almost a week, but it came pre-packaged and the expiry date was late May, so now I'm a bit concerned as to why it would last into summer.

I hadn't a clue what was in old bay seasoning, but 90% of the recipes I found for crab cakes called for it. So, naturally, I looked it up. It's a blend of celery, mustard, red pepper, bay leaf and ginger. I omitted the ginger and used the dried and seed variety to make a spice blend and I thought that the crab cakes turned out really well. I've always thought they had a flavor that I was never really able to pinpoint on any sort of seasoning before, but I guess that it's been mustard and celery seed, since that's the dominant flavors. I topped it with some lemon flavored sour cream and chopped green onion.

I really didn't have an appetite for anything beyond the crab cakes, but since a crab cake is hardly a dinner (and barely an appetizer) I also made Tomato Rice. Just as it sounds, tomato rice is tomatoey rice and although hardly a culinary marvel is still one of the bland favorites. In a sense, it is the true Poor Man’s Jambalaya, for anything less would simply be rice or tomato.