Seafood, me food

With four more days until New Year's, I'm in a hurry to do some last-second indulging before my resolutions kick in. 

The hubby and I are going vegetarian plus I'm trying on a more spiritual self to see how it looks. This is supposed to help us a) live longer and maybe even b) live forever, but I'm not pushing the latter one too much. With my luck, my heavenly reward will be yet more tofu.

Which means of course it's time for a Sandwich Maven recipe that not only contains animal flesh but cannot, under any circumstances, be made kosher.

It's yummy anyway. I refuse to take responsibility if you get struck by lightning, however.

Sandwich Maven's "G-d shouldn't strike me dead" seafood salad

a handful of cooked, frozen shrimp, thawed
some other cooked seafood, such as langostinos or scallops
6 oz. can of crabmeat
1 stalk celery, finely diced
1-2 tsp of your favorite Cajun or seafood seasoning, such as Emeril's, Old Bay or Tony Chachere's
1 tbsp mayo
big squirt of ketchup
dash Tobasco sauce
dash lemon juice

Chop the first two ingredients together. Don't make an all-day production of it -- coarsely chopped is fine.

Combine in a bowl with all the other ingredients. You needed me to help you figure that out?

Serve on a hoagie roll or hot dog bun with some shredded lettuce.

Alternative: slice open an avocado, remove the pit, and scoop the salad into the holes and heap on top. Spoon up little chunks of avocado with the seafood.

Comments

[Renee]

Yummm...sounds good. Thanks, Sandwich Maven. And I'm sure you'll still provide us with heavenly veggie versions in the New Year! ; )

[Gr8fulTed]

I was a fairly vigorous vegetarian for 7 years a while back. it's not easy being vegan in this country, so I wish all the best of luck. If you can maintain it, you'll eventually get use to it and like it. Plus you get to always ask your restaurant colleague "Oh, you still eat meat?"

[plosh]

As long as we live in the West, it shouldn't be too hard -- famous last words. But visiting family in Midwest and East is another matter.

We're going to ease into it slowly. We want to be careful that all our nutrional needs are properly met.

Gr8ful Ted: I've been vegetarian before, but I was missing key elements about eating enough protein. Btw, I just looked at you site. The Ankeny Fountain area looks great.

[Gr8fulTed]

Thank you for the look-see. And the Ankeny Fountain area is fun during the time of year the Saturday Market is happening. May you and your mammaries be well...

[plosh]

Life would suck without farmer's markets. And that's my wife's mammaries. I don't have any. lol

[Anne]

Wow, Gr8fulTed, nice photoblog. Will be dropping by for more. Thanks for stopping by and wishing my mammaries well. They're hanging in there, so to speak.

[Ontario Emperor]

You've probably been asked this five hundred million times, but I'll ask it anyway - are there any special precautions that a pregnant woman needs to take when adopting a vegetarian diet?

[plosh]

I don't think the Empress is planning to go totally vegetarian until after the pregnancy, but the main issues with going vegetarian are these:

*Getting enough Vitamin B12 is the biggest issue. Vegetarians used to get B12 from dirt on vegetables. Seriously, it turns out soil is loaded with the stuff. Since we're not going to begin eating a steady diet of mudcakes, other sources include Red Star yeast (Yum) and of course vitamins. I'm still researching to see if there are any other good sources. If not, we may eat clams once a week, which are seriously loaded with the stuff. The Empress already takes prenatal vitamins, of course, and it'll be months before we go through all the meat stuff in our deep freeze anyway.

*Vitamin A and D. Best way to get these two are 15 minutes of sun every day.

*Protein. Research shows that as long as you eat enough vegetable protein from diverse sources, there are no problems. Tree nuts, peanuts, soy and beans of course are the most common sources of protein, but shitake mushrooms and buckwheat also have a large amount of protein.

But don't worry, we're not going to take any risks with the Empress's pregnancy.