My last post mentioned cooking while on vacation.  Most would think that is a chore, but not my husband!  Cooking is his hobby and a way to relax – crazy I know.  But for him, the cooking is a key part of the entire week’s experience. Let’s just say when we’re looking for a place to rent (anywhere) the kitchen is the first photo he brings up.  Enough of that, let’s start where my last post left off – crabs.

He’s in the process of picking out the meat from the cooked crabs.  He was giving lessons to our friends.  Well, maybe not so much lessons, as advice.  It got very quiet in the kitchen while this was happening.  Can you feel the intense concentration just from the photo?

The steps being:

• Pull off legs & claws.
• Remove top shell from caripace
• Pull out/discard lungs and digestive tract.
• Break in half and begin picking out the crab meat.
• Pick meat off claws – some consider that the best and sweetest meat of all, hopefully it goes into the container, but just as often, it gets eaten now.

Those leftover pieces & parts…………………utilized to make a stock, adding in ‘aromatics’ such as onions, shallots and celery.  Now would be a great time to pour in some leftover white wine – just saying.  Why are we making stock……crab bisque!

The stock was an integral part of this.  The bisque being comprised of the ‘homemade stock’ and a blonde roux (flour & butter), seasoned to taste.    The crab meat was placed into the bowls with the bisque poured over it.

I’m not the biggest fan of bisque, unless I dunk some bread into the broth – oops, that’s my bread in the above photo..  🙂

We also used the crab meat to make crab cakes – much more my style.  Man – look at all of that meat!!!

Early in the week, we caught some mackerel.  Those fish were grilled before served, Mediterran style with olive oil, lemons, salt & pepper.  Love their platter – just saying.

The seatrout caught throughout the week, was served three different ways.  Initially it was panfried, then served over arugula, topped with almonds.

Another night it was served with a lemon butter sauce topped with capers.

But I got to tell you…………for many years and years and years, it was always served fried.  That’s hard to beat!  Yes, yes, the photo below is fried shrimp, but the fish nuggets were fried afterwards, I promise.

Let’s now talk shrimp.  While we occasionally fry the shrimp, truly the best way I like the shrimp is poached, then de-veined with the shell removed.  Rich does an awesome job with that task.

One evening all the guys were involved with our meal.  Connor was in charge of the cubic fried potatoes, while the other two cooked the fish.

What did the girls do?  Primarily the clean-up, which is no easy feat where my husband is concerned.  Just ask Karen.  I’m used to it, but he sure does use a lot of pans!  But, I also got a chance to sneak in this photo.

Oh yeah, that watermelon we picked up during our drive here – very tasty.

One more SGI post is coming.  I got a bit behind when Eric unexpectedly left town and work at home consumed my time.

Ginny