Crab/Shrimp Boil

In honor of Hurricane Irene last week we decided to do a Crab and shrimp boil.    You know sea food. We were thinking of just boiling up a bunch of shrimp, crab, potatoes, corn and sausage.   Sounds easy right?  Not so fast.  You start thinking about it and questions come up like, what do you season it with.  My first thought was beer.  That always works.  Well come to find out we had what we needed in the cabinet.  Old Bay Seasoning.  Yep a bunch of that, along with a 12oz beer in the water did the trick.  Next hurtle was, what goes in first?  You know you just can’t throw it all in at the same time, it all won’t cook at the same rate, right?  Ok, internet here we come.  This is a real science.   Depending on what you are going to use and if is fresh or frozen and shelled or not shelled.  It was a real dance getting all of this right.   So we start with the potatoes then the corn and onions then the shrimp and the sausage.   So far so good.   Next comes the crab legs.  The pot is getting quite full and we still have the crab legs to go.  In they go and the pot stops boiling.  They were frozen.  No worries it starts again and everything finishes.  The potatoes were a bit soft but good and we should have used more beer in the water but I added that separately while we ate.  Lauri wanted to dump it on the table on top of news paper like you see in the restaurants but the table is still kind of new and a bowl seemed like a better idea.  It was a good meal and kind of fun.

We are already starting to think about next week.  We could use some ideas.

Jason and Lauri