Deviled crab hors d'oeuvres

I did not plan to write a post about this one, but it was SO good and SO easy, I find that I can't resist sharing.  This was, in my opinion, far and away the tastiest part of our Christmas dinner, baking up with a lighter texture than you might expect and just extraordinary flavor.  As it prepped quickly the day before for no-work Christmas Day cooking, the dish falls easily within the purview of this blog :D

The recipe is from (where else?) the Reader's Digest A Family Christmas.  It's a recipe from James Beard, though I've ofc tweaked it to accommodate food allergies and my cooking preferences.  I used scallops instead of shrimp and omitted celery, adding more green pepper and onion in its place.  I chose to use a pound of pre-picked crab claw meat, but if you have access to fresh crab, you can certainly pick your own.  Real crab meat is not a cheap ingredient, but if you can catch a sale this would be a very special treat to make for your family. 

This makes a LOT (a full 1 1/2 quart casserole), especially for appetizers, and you could halve the recipe or freeze it in smaller portions for future cooking.  I'm thinking individual ramekins that you could bake off while making dinner for a quick starter course for 2...that sort of thing.  You can serve it plain, with crackers, on lettuce leaves or, as I did, with thin slices of cucumber.

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Peanut Butter Oven-Baked French Toast

Another recipe pilfered from my husband's grandma's 1944 home ec cookbook.  Back in the day, this recipe was called "Peanut Chops", another attempt to pass off an alternate protein source as being "just like meat!!".  The virtues of this recipe in 1944 were being inexpensive, offering protein when meat was rationed, and bearing a passing resemblance to actual pork chops.  Today's virtues are that it's inexpensive, freezer-friendly, kid-friendly, easy to cook (think oven-baked French toast), and it does actually feel like an oven-fried pork chop in your mouth...strange, huh?  Actually they remind me of a vegetarian oven-baked chicken nugget.

My husband is still commenting on how filling this meal was...I guess he had expected differently?  But with 18g of protein and 5 grams of fiber (or more, if you use whole wheat crackers and whole grain bread), who is surprised?

The original recipe calls for cutting 6 slices of rye bread into "fingers".  I used 1/2 a loaf of "cocktail rye", you know those tiny 3"x3" loaves you see up by the deli.  The slices are easy to handle and are perfectly sized for the recipe, but feel free to use regular slices of rye, or even pumpernickel. 

You can also substitute any nut or seed butter you wish to make this recipe allergy-friendly to those with peanut sensitivities.

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