Crab Babies

DZ is harvesting crabs daily, with a limit of five per harvest - Washington State limit per person, per day. It was dark by the time I got home, and DZ was still in the garage removing the crab meat from the  five he brought home and steamed late afternoon. The day before, he bought a small freezer to keep in the garage to store the vacuum-sealed seafood we will enjoy after their perspective season has ended.

We were both tired and hungry, with two portions of fresh crab in the refrigerator... so while DZ was dealing with the crabs outside, I need to quickly get creative and productive in the kitchen, if we wanted to eat anytime soon.

Having served my friend, Kris, sweet Dutch Babies filled with fresh fruit and Greek yogurt drizzled with agave nectar, for breakfast a few days earlier, I thought it would be tasty to serve us savory "Crab Babies" for dinner... simple, quick, and with little taxing of what brain cells I had left, a creative solution that proved to be excellent, despite how I had to take a number of little offerings from the refrigerator to generate enough content to feed two people. Our Crab Babies ended up just right - flavor-wise and portion-wise, especially for two, who whatever reasons, forgot to eat lunch.

Dutch Babies are easy-cheesy to make and take few ingredients... even with alternative ingredients in the batter, they hardly ever fail to impress, look and taste great.

Here's the ingredients and directions for making my version of a gluten-free Dutch Babies, using what I had on hand:

Ingredients for Dutch Babies Batter:

1/4 cup, same as a half a stick of Butter or butter substitute (four pats - two for each baking dish)

3 Eggs

1/2 cup Rice Milk

1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour

Pinch of Salt

Note: Dutch Baby batter recipes may vary slightly as to the ratio of number of eggs, milk, flour and butter per serving.

Directions and Other Ingredients for making Crab Babies:

1. Pre-heat oven to 425-degrees with two glass pie plates on a rack in the middle of the oven. Do not have a rack above, as the Dutch Babies have the potential of rising on the sides, sometime quite high.
2. Liquid first, put all the ingredients, sans the butter, in a blender and blend until... well, blended.
3. When oven reaches temperature,  put two pats of butter in each glass pie plate and melt, without browning - happens very fast, so watch carefully. It's easy to forget and set off the smoke detector.
4. As soon as the butter is melted, pour half of the batter into each of the two glass pie plates.
5. Before or while they bake at 425-degrees for 18-20 minutes, prepare the contents to fill the "Crab Babies" after they are transferred to dinner plates, as shown above.
6. In a saute pan, lightly saute together in olive oil savory ingredients of choice. Here's what I had on hand: chopped Green Onion, diced White Onion, diced Red Bell Pepper, sliced Mushrooms, teaspoon or less of Capers (rinsed), a quarter + teaspoon of Fennel Seed and a pinch of Salt and Cayenne Pepper. Keep warm, but don't over cook.
7. In a small mixing bowl, whip together - best at room temperature (a quick microwave works to take the chill off) -  whatever portions seems right to you of creamy ingredients. I found a little of each of the following in our refrigerator and combined them to make a wonderful, creamy base to my concoction: Tofutti (soy cream cheese substitute), Greek Yogurt, Mayonnaise, shredded Parmesan Cheese, a squeeze of fresh Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest... and a pinch of Salt.
8. As soon as the Dutch Babies come out of the oven - oven mitts compulsory - very, very hot and easy to burn yourself - transfer them to dinner plates. They should have lovely, toasty brown edges, perhaps bubbly in the center slathered in melted butter... then immediately start to "settle" on the dinner plates.
9. Best using a rubber spatula, divide and spread the creamy mixture across each, hot serving, then divide both the savory filling and warmed, cooked crab meat, and cover the creamy mixture with color and texture of the sauteed mixture and bite-size pieces of crab.
10. Garnish with a light sprinkling of Paprika and serve while hot. 

Generously serves 2

Recipe dedicated to Crab harvesters DZ and Phil.