Mr Crabs' Crabbie Patties

Yummy Crabbie Patties I made from left over Crab Dip

So first I made crab dip thinking I was hosting an army when I was actually hosting a set of gorgeous and petit bunco girlfriends.  This was of course a gross miscalculation of quantity and I was left with 2 cups of crab dip and no takers (though the dip was totally yummy! and the recipe can be found on: Baked-Crab-Dip - I didn't use the bread bowl though).  Inspired by being forced to watch Spongebob Square Pants with my kids, I decided to steal Mr Crab's idea and create some Crabbie Patties that I could potentially put into a lunchbox.  Here's what I did:

To the 2 cups of crab dip I added:
1 cup of crushed crackers (whatever your fav cracker is, it'll work)
1 cup of drained canned corn (frozen and steamed works too)
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp paprika
1 egg

(if your crab dip had a thinner consistency you might want to add more crushed crackers till you have a spoonable mixture)

I mixed all the ingredients together and gave it 10 mins in the fridge while I raided my pantry for some wafer thin cracker crisps (34 degree Savoury Crisps) and set my oven to preheat to 400F.

I arranged the crisps onto my baking tray and spooned about 1 Tbsp of Crab Mixture onto each.
I pressed down another crisp onto the top of the mixture and brushed on some olive oil.
Baked them for 20 mins or till golden

They turned out light and fluffy - best served hot!

The kids loved them with mayo but I loved them with a hot sauce to give them a kick!

If you try them, let me know how they turn out and what you might have done differently.  I'd love to hear.

Eat up y'all!

Valentine Love-mellows!

Modified these adorable treats from http://thedecoratedcookie.com/2011/02/marshmallow-love-bugs/ 

What I did different?  I tried to make them even more edible by making the antennae from pretzel sticks instead of raw spaghetti and the eyes out of available candy-eyes. I avoided using any type of food marker/coloring because my kids always tell me they have a bitter aftertaste. I used white chocolate to stick the eyes on which hardened almost instantly and made for perfect "glue".  I think if I didn't have access to the candy eyes, I would have used the white chocolate to "draw" some on.

Another thing I changed was that I topped the antennae with Twizzlers that I cut up into half inch pieces. They are hollow and fit perfectly onto the pretzel sticks!  You might have to split the pretzel sticks in half so they aren't absurdly long looking antennae.

I had some upside down mini muffin cups left over from the previous evening's Strawberry Love Bugs (also a brilliant Valentine idea from the Wing it Vegan blog @ http://wingitvegan.blogspot.com/2011/02/theyre-heeeere-vegantines-day.html ) so I decided to keep little hands un-sticky by using them as a skirt for the "Love-Mellows".

I will say, that although really simple, they are time consuming and so I wouldn't recommend them if you're looking for a quick treat for your kids classmates.  We had to make more than 60!  I did have my little elves split pretzel sticks and stick Twizzlers on so that saved a bunch of time!  If you have some elves that can help I highly recommend their assembly line services to speed up the whole thing and the fun factor!

Wrapped it all up using clear treat bags and ribbon and attached some cards that my kids made for the finish.  Who could resist these cuties?  Yum!